---
title: "Sales Representative, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products"
description: "Sell goods for wholesalers or manufacturers to businesses or groups of individuals. Work requires substantial knowledge of items sold."
canonical: "https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-representative-wholesale-and-manufacturing"
last-updated: "2026-08-23T15:56:39.581Z"
---

# Sales Representative, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products

**Category:** Sales and Related · **SOC code:** 41-4012 · **O\*NET-SOC code:** 41-4012.00

Sell goods for wholesalers or manufacturers to businesses or groups of individuals. Work requires substantial knowledge of items sold.

Also advertised as: Account Representative; Customer Account Technician; Inside Salesperson; Outside Sales Representative; Route Sales Representative; Sales Consultant; Sales Professional; Sales Representative (Sales Rep).

## At a glance

- **Median annual wage:** $72,080 (BLS OEWS, May 2025)
- **Median hourly wage:** $34.65/hr
- **Wage range (10th–90th percentile):** $39,090 to $137,550, with the middle half between $50,470 and $99,640
- **Total US employment:** 1,238,190
- **Typical entry education:** High school
- **Preparation required:** Medium preparation — O\*NET rates this "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed"
- **Projected growth:** +0.3% over 2024–2034 (BLS EP, 2024–2034)
- **Annual job openings:** 114,800 openings a year
- **AI-resilience score:** 43/100 — a NueCareer heuristic over O\*NET work activities and context, not a BLS or O\*NET figure

## Pay

National wage distribution, BLS OEWS, May 2025, across 1,238,190 US jobs.

| Percentile | Annual wage |
| --- | --- |
| 10th | $39,090 |
| 25th | $50,470 |
| 50th (median) | $72,080 |
| 75th | $99,640 |
| 90th | $137,550 |
| Mean (average) | $82,530 |

### Pay by state

The 15 highest-paying states, by median annual wage. The cost-of-living-adjusted column divides the state median by that state's BEA Regional Price Parity, so the columns answer different questions: the first is what the job pays there, the second is what that pay buys there.

| State | Median annual wage | Cost-of-living adjusted | Employment |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| RI | $82,420 | $80,583 | 4,870 |
| DC | $80,010 | $72,802 | 560 |
| WA | $79,830 | $74,598 | 27,340 |
| MA | $79,810 | $75,465 | 22,700 |
| NY | $79,590 | $73,748 | 61,500 |
| NJ | $79,410 | $72,984 | 34,360 |
| CO | $79,250 | $76,903 | 27,530 |
| SD | $77,210 | $87,158 | 5,220 |
| VT | $76,840 | $78,442 | 1,890 |
| MN | $76,750 | $77,823 | 31,230 |
| CA | $76,490 | $69,084 | 134,800 |
| CT | $75,570 | $72,937 | 9,870 |
| ND | $74,250 | $83,465 | 4,180 |
| OR | $74,180 | $71,768 | 15,020 |
| OH | $73,960 | $79,721 | 58,740 |

39 more states with published wage data are omitted here. The full table for all 54 states is at https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-representative-wholesale-and-manufacturing/salary-by-state, or as JSON at https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/sales-representative-wholesale-and-manufacturing.

## Outlook

BLS projects employment to move from 1,310,500 in the 2024–2034 base year to 1,314,900 by the end of the cycle — a gain of 4,400 jobs, or +0.3%. Slower than average: 0.3% against 3.1% projected for all occupations over the same cycle. About 114,800 openings a year are expected on average, counting openings from growth as well as from workers leaving the occupation permanently. Source: BLS EP, 2024–2034.

## How to get in

- **Typical entry education:** High school diploma or equivalent (BLS Employment Projections).
- **Preparation level:** Medium preparation — O\*NET's preparation band for this occupation is "Job Zone Four: Considerable Preparation Needed".
- **Related work experience typically required:** None.
- **Typical on-the-job training:** Moderate-term on-the-job training.

### Education people in this job actually hold

O\*NET surveys incumbents, so this distribution describes who is in the job today and can differ from the BLS entry requirement above.

| Education level | Share of workers |
| --- | --- |
| High School Diploma | 48.0% |
| Bachelor's Degree | 33.9% |
| Some College Courses | 14.2% |
| Associate's Degree (or other 2-year degree) | 4.0% |

## What the work involves

- Answer customers' questions about products, prices, availability, product uses, and credit terms.
- Recommend products to customers, based on customers' needs and interests.
- Monitor market conditions, product innovations, and competitors' products, prices, and sales.
- Consult with clients after sales or contract signings to resolve problems and to provide ongoing support.
- Contact regular and prospective customers to demonstrate products, explain product features, and solicit orders.
- Identify prospective customers by using business directories, following leads from existing clients, participating in organizations and clubs, and attending trade shows and conferences.
- Perform administrative duties, such as preparing sales budgets and reports, keeping sales records, and filing expense account reports.
- Estimate or quote prices, credit or contract terms, warranties, and delivery dates.

## Skills and knowledge

### Essential skills

- Active Listening — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speaking — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Critical Thinking — importance 3.5 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Reading Comprehension — importance 3.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Writing — importance 3.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Active Learning — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Monitoring — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 2.3 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Transferable skills

These are the skills that carry into other occupations, and they drive the related-occupation and career-change rankings on this site.

- Social Perceptiveness — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Persuasion — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Negotiation — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Coordination — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Service Orientation — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Complex Problem Solving — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Judgment and Decision Making — importance 3.1 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Time Management — importance 3.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Knowledge areas

- Sales and Marketing — importance 4.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Customer and Personal Service — importance 4.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- English Language — importance 4.4 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Mathematics — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Transportation — importance 3.7 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Computers and Electronics — importance 3.2 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

### Abilities

- Oral Expression — importance 4.0 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Oral Comprehension — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Clarity — importance 3.9 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Comprehension — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Speech Recognition — importance 3.8 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale
- Written Expression — importance 3.6 on the O\*NET 1–5 importance scale

## Who it suits

O\*NET rates every occupation on the six Holland (RIASEC) interest areas, on a 1–7 scale. This occupation's strongest areas are Enterprising (E), Conventional (C).

| Interest area | Score (1–7) |
| --- | --- |
| E — Enterprising | 6.12 |
| C — Conventional | 4.92 |
| S — Social | 2.69 |
| R — Realistic | 2.63 |
| I — Investigative | 2.24 |
| A — Artistic | 1.65 |

### Personality fit

These scores are **derived by NueCareer**, not published by any government agency: they are cosine similarities between a personality type's trait profile and this occupation's O\*NET interest and work-style ratings, expressed 0–100. Treat them as a starting point for exploration, not as evidence that a type belongs in a job.

| Type | Fit score (0–100) |
| --- | --- |
| ESTJ | 84.5 |
| ESFJ | 76.1 |
| ENTJ | 69.5 |
| ESTP | 64.8 |
| ISTJ | 63.0 |

Best-fitting types: ESTJ.

## Related occupations

O\*NET's primary related occupations, in its own ranked order.

- [Sales Representative, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Product](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-representative-wholesale-and-manufacturing-technical-and-scientific-product) — median $104,920
- [Sales Representative of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-representative-of-services) — median $69,990
- [Wholesale and Retail Buyer, Except Farm Products](https://nuecareer.com/careers/wholesale-and-retail-buyer) — median $77,710
- [Buyer and Purchasing Agent, Farm Products](https://nuecareer.com/careers/buyer-and-purchasing-agent-farm-products) — median $77,710
- [Advertising Sales Agent](https://nuecareer.com/careers/advertising-sales-agent) — median $64,820
- [Sales Engineer](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-engineer) — median $124,900
- [Sales Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/sales-manager) — median $148,270
- [Purchasing Agent, Except Wholesale, Retail, and Farm Products](https://nuecareer.com/careers/purchasing-agent) — median $77,710
- [Purchasing Manager](https://nuecareer.com/careers/purchasing-manager) — median $148,080
- [Procurement Clerk](https://nuecareer.com/careers/procurement-clerk) — median $50,580

## Sources

- **O\*NET** — O\*NET 30.3 Database, May 2026. https://www.onetcenter.org/database.html
- **BLS OEWS** — BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025. https://www.bls.gov/oes/
- **BLS EP** — BLS Employment Projections, Table 1.2, 2024–2034. https://www.bls.gov/emp/
- **BLS OOH** — BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2024–2034 edition. https://www.bls.gov/ooh/
- **BEA RPP** — BEA Regional Price Parities by State, 2024. https://www.bea.gov/data/prices-inflation/regional-price-parities-state-and-metro-area

---

This bank includes information from the O\*NET 30.3 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). O\*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. NueCareer has transformed the data by joining it to BLS wage and projection data and deriving facet, personality-fit and AI-resilience scores. BLS and BEA data are public domain (17 U.S.C. §105).

O\*NET content is used under [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). How these figures are sourced and derived: https://nuecareer.com/careers/methodology

JSON representation of this page: https://nuecareer.com/api/v1/careers/sales-representative-wholesale-and-manufacturing