First-Line Supervisors of Non-Retail Sales Workers

People in this career often have these skills:

• Active Listening - Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
• Speaking - Talking to others to convey information effectively.
• Monitoring - Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
• Management of Personnel Resources - Motivating, developing, and directing people as they work, identifying the best people for the job.
• Social Perceptiveness - Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.

• Coordination - Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
• Judgment and Decision Making - Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
• Time Management - Managing one's own time and the time of others.
• Persuasion - Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
• Reading Comprehension - Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
• Writing - Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
• Critical Thinking - Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
• Negotiation - Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
• Complex Problem Solving - Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
• Active Learning - Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.

People in this career often know a lot about:

• Customer and Personal Service - Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
• Administration and Management - Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
• English Language - Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
• Personnel and Human Resources - Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
• Economics and Accounting - Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking, and the analysis and reporting of financial data.

• Sales and Marketing - Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.

People in this career often have talent in:

• Oral Comprehension - The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
• Oral Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
• Speech Recognition - The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
• Speech Clarity - The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
• Written Comprehension - The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.

• Deductive Reasoning - The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
• Inductive Reasoning - The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
• Information Ordering - The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
• Near Vision - The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
• Written Expression - The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
• Fluency of Ideas - The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
• Problem Sensitivity - The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
• Category Flexibility - The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.

People in this career often do these activities:

• Monitor sales activities.
• Supervise sales or support personnel.
• Gather customer or product information to determine customer needs.
• Contact current or potential customers to promote products or services.
• Establish operational policies.

• Prepare financial documents, reports, or budgets.
• Examine condition of property or products.
• Explain technical product or service information to customers.
• Answer customer questions about goods or services.
• Maintain records of sales or other business transactions.
• Train sales personnel.
• Analyze market conditions or trends.
• Develop marketing plans or strategies.
• Purchase stocks of merchandise or supplies.
• Monitor inventories of products or materials.
• Assign duties or work schedules to employees.
• Coordinate sales campaigns.
• Discuss design or technical features of products or services with technical personnel.
• Prepare sales or other contracts.

• Sales Managers

• Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers

• Media Programming Directors

• Marketing Managers

• First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers

• Supply Chain Managers

• Human Resources Managers

• Purchasing Managers