Career
Sales representatives, wholesale and manufacturing, technical and scientific products
Sell technical and scientific products to the people who use them.
Here's what you actually need to know.
The work
What people in this job do
- Negotiate prices or terms of sales or service agreements.
- Prepare and submit sales contracts for orders.
- Visit establishments to evaluate needs or to promote product or service sales.
- Maintain customer records, using automated systems.
- Answer customers' questions about products, prices, availability, or credit terms.
The outlook
How the forecast changed this year
AI
BLS now cites artificial intelligence in this occupation's outlook: “share decreases as generative artificial intelligence (AI) is integrated into the sales process allowing sales representatives to focus on direct sales activity.”
The deeper question
What kind of person does this path ask you to become?
What this work centers on
O*NET interest profile, scored 1–7.
The work
Do you want most of your days spent on persuasion & leadership, then information & systems?
Responsibility
Are you willing to be the one responsible for this?
“Negotiate prices or terms of sales or service agreements.”
Development
What would you need to build over the next 5–10 years?
Speaking, Persuasion, Active Listening, Negotiation.
Trade-offs
What does it ask of you in exchange?
4 years of education after high school (bachelor's degree), for a median of $104,920 a year and 23,600 openings nationally each year.
Paths in
Degrees that lead here
- Selling Skills and Sales OperationsCIP 52.1804
Paths across
Careers that use similar skills
- Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products$72,080 · -0.9%
- Sales Engineers$124,900 · +2.8%
- Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products
- Industrial Production Managers$126,060 · +2.6%
- Solar Sales Representatives and Assessors
Ask anything about this career.
“Would this make sense if I don't want to sit at a desk all day?” Answers will come from the sources on this page, with citations. Coming soon.
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Sources
- BLS Employment Projections, 2025–35, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- BLS Employment Projections, 2024–34 (archived), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- O*NET 31.0 Database (August 2026), National Center for O*NET Development / U.S. Department of Labor. Retrieved 2026-10-01.
- CIP 2020 to SOC 2018 Crosswalk, NCES and BLS. Retrieved 2026-10-01.