Career Explorer Sales
Changing shape
Sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, except technical and scientific products
Sell goods for wholesalers or manufacturers to businesses or groups of individuals. Work requires substantial knowledge of items sold.
Among the careers AI is changing fastest: more resilient than 7% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is very high (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it very high), and US jobs are projected to change by -0.9% by 2035, expected to shrink. The work leans on creative vision and emotional intelligence.
AI can do many of the tasks, and hiring is expected to grow slower than average or to shrink. The job is likely to change, so build the human parts of it.
- Median pay (2025)
- $72,080
- Job growth to 2035
- -0.9%
- Openings a year
- 99,800
- People doing it (2025)
- 1.3 million
- Usual route in
- High school diploma, then moderate on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Advise others on products or services
- Explain technical details of products or services
- Promote products, services, or programs
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Negotiate contracts or agreements
- Direct organizational operations, activities, or procedures
- Prepare financial documents, reports, or budgets
What the work looks like
- Negotiate with retail merchants to improve product exposure, such as shelf positioning and advertising.
- Check stock levels and reorder merchandise as necessary.
- Plan, assemble, and stock product displays in retail stores, or make recommendations to retailers regarding product displays, promotional programs, and advertising.
- Answer customers' questions about products, prices, availability, product uses, and credit terms.
- Recommend products to customers, based on customers' needs and interests.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as generative artificial intelligence (AI) is integrated into the sales process allowing sales representatives to focus on direct sales activity.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Sales representatives of services, except advertising, insurance, financial services, and travelChanging shape, Index 13, +2.7%
- Real estate sales agentsChanging shape, Index 16, +1.7%
- First-line supervisors of entertainment and recreation workers, except gambling servicesGrows with AI, Index 57, +5.3%
- First-line supervisors of non-retail sales workersChanging shape, Index 13, +0.5%
Also known as: Outside Sales Representative, Sales Consultant, Sales Representative (Sales Rep), Salesman, Account Representative, Customer Account Technician, Inside Salesperson, Route Sales Representative.
Is this career on your child's list?
Build a free Career Playbook matched to your child, or get a 90-day Action Plan with dated next steps, written for your child by name.
Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2025 to 2035; O*NET 31.0; Microsoft Research (2025); Anthropic Economic Index (2026); Eloundou and colleagues (Science, 2024); Felten, Raj and Seamans (2023). How we score. Updated 12 October 2026.