Kitchen Sales Designer
Job description
Original text imported from Reed
Join Howdens where our trade depots are recruiting Kitchen Sales Designers who thrive in a fast-paced sales environment. We’re looking for commercially minded individuals who can build strong relationships, influence buying decisions and exceed sales targets.
We can offer you a successful career as a Kitchen Sales Designer, and you don’t need previous design experience. We’ll provide you with comprehensive design and sales training to create exceptional kitchens for our trade customers and their clients.
What we can offer you:
- Competitive salary, brilliant bonuses and outstanding depot incentives
- Full CAD, product and sales training via our Ready to Trade Programme
- Competitive Pension Plan up to 12% company contribution
- Up to 32 days annual leave per year including bank holidays, rising with service
- Generous staff discount on Howdens products
- Buy-as-you-earn share scheme
- 40 hour working week working every other Saturday morning.
- No Sunday or Bank Holiday working
- Career progression opportunities into sales management roles
- Virtual GP access and wellbeing support for you and your family
What we are looking for:
- Results driven with experience of reaching sales targets and KPI
- Ability to build trusted relationships with our trade customers and their client
- Excellent communication skills, able to convey your ideas clearly and effectively
- Full UK Driving license with access to your own vehicle for home visits
- Strong attention to detail and an eye for design
- CAD skills are preferred, but not essential as you will receive training
What you will be doing:
- Driving sales performance and profit by achieving your depot targets
- Building strong customer relationships through professional design support
- Delivering exceptional customer service throughout the project
- Conducting home visits to measure, assess and understand your client’s needs
- Negotiating prices confidently while protecting margin and design integrity
- Planning and creating inspirational and practical designs utilising your strong product knowledge to advise customers and resolve queries throughout the process
About Us:
Howdens Joinery is the UK’s number one trade kitchen supplier providing thousands of products across kitchens, joinery, and hardware. We have over 950 depots throughout the UK and Europe, making us the first choice for more than 460,000 loyal trade professionals. With an ambitious and credible growth plan, we continue to build on our £2.4 billion turnover.
How to apply:
If Howdens sounds like the kind of place where you can build and develop your career as a Kitchen Sales Designer, then we are keen to hear from you.
Howdens is founded on the principle of being Worthwhile for ALL concerned. We’re working hard to ensure we provide an inclusive environment where everyone feels welcome. We will do everything we can to support you during your application. If you need us to make any adjustments to our recruitment process, please email with the job title and location, and we will be happy to help you.
#LI-LO1 #CVL INDKSD #Reed
Key skills
AI-extracted from the job advert
Application advice
5 AI-generated recommendations to maximise your chances.
⭐ Lead your CV personal statement with a direct reference to sales target achievement and trade customer relationships, as the advert lists these as its top two requirements.
📊 Quantify your sales results wherever possible: e.g. 'Exceeded monthly KPIs by 22% for 8 consecutive months, contributing £180k in depot revenue'.
🎯 Mention any kitchen, interiors, or home improvement sales background prominently — Howdens explicitly targets commercially minded individuals with design affinity, even without formal design qualifications.
🚗 Confirm your full UK Driving Licence and vehicle access clearly in your CV header or skills section, as home visits are a core part of the role and this is a stated requirement.
🖥️ If you have any CAD or 2D/3D design software experience (even basic tools like RoomSketcher or similar), list it — the advert flags CAD as preferred, so any prior exposure strengthens your application above candidates with none.
Suggested CV bullets
3 bullets our AI drafted for this specific advert, mirroring its ATS keywords.
Add these 3 bullets under your most recent experience:
- •Exceeded monthly trade sales KPIs by 18% over 10 consecutive months, generating approximately £160k in incremental depot revenue through proactive customer outreach and upselling.
- •Conducted 12+ home visits per month to assess client requirements, producing accurate CAD kitchen layouts that reduced post-installation amendments by 30%.
- •Negotiated pricing on 40+ trade accounts over 6 months, maintaining an average margin of 34% while retaining 95% of at-risk customers through tailored design solutions.
Free to copy — tailoring requires a 30-sec CV upload.
Your cover letter is ready
We've drafted a cover letter for Howdens Joinery. Preview the opening, then unlock the full personalised version.
Letter preview — tailored to Howdens Joinery
Dear Hiring Manager,
Howdens Joinery's reputation as the UK's number one trade kitchen supplier — and the structured Ready to Trade Programme — makes the Kitchen Sales Designer role at your Inverclyde depot a compelling next step for me. My background in trade sales and customer relationship management, combined with a strong commercial focus on KPI delivery and margin protection, aligns directly with what you are seeking.
My background in sales and client-facing roles has equipped me with the ability to build trusted relationships with trade professionals, conduct thorough home visits, and translate client briefs into practical, inspiring designs. I have consistently met and exceeded monthly sales targets, and I am confident in negotiating prices while maintaining design integrity and protecting depot profitability.
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Interview questions
10 questions generated from this advert.
Technical
- ›Walk me through how you would plan and present a kitchen design to a trade customer and their end client.
- ›How do you use CAD tools to create accurate kitchen layouts, and what steps do you take when measurements from a home visit don't match the original brief?
- ›Describe your approach to protecting margin during a price negotiation with a trade customer who is pushing for a significant discount.
- ›How would you use product knowledge to resolve a design query mid-project when a specified product is unavailable?
- ›What metrics would you track weekly to ensure you are on course to hit your depot sales targets and KPIs?
Behavioural
- ›Tell me about a time you exceeded a sales target — what did you do differently to achieve that result?
- ›Describe a situation where you had to build trust with a difficult trade customer. How did you approach it and what was the outcome?
- ›Give an example of when you managed multiple customer projects simultaneously. How did you prioritise and stay organised?
- ›Tell me about a time a client was unhappy with a design or product. How did you handle the complaint and resolve the situation?
- ›Describe a moment when you had to adapt your communication style to explain a complex design idea clearly to someone unfamiliar with the process.
STAR answer examples
Model answers using the Situation-Task-Action-Result framework. Adapt to your own experience.
Tell me about a time you exceeded a sales target — what did you do differently to achieve that result?
Describe a situation where you had to build trust with a difficult trade customer. How did you approach it and what was the outcome?