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 sales target achievement — the advert explicitly prioritises 'results driven with experience of reaching sales targets and KPI' as the first requirement.
📊 Quantify your sales results wherever possible: e.g. 'Exceeded monthly sales targets by 22% for 8 consecutive months, contributing £180k to depot revenue'.
🎯 Highlight any CAD or design software experience (even basic) in your skills section — the advert lists CAD as preferred, so any exposure (e.g. Winner, ArtiCAD, SketchUp) will differentiate you from candidates with none.
🤝 Emphasise trade or B2B customer relationship experience — the advert repeatedly stresses building 'trusted relationships with trade customers', so cite specific trade sectors (builders, contractors) you have worked with.
🚗 Confirm your full UK driving licence and vehicle access clearly in your CV header or profile — this is a stated essential requirement for conducting home visits.
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 B2B sales targets by 18% over 10 consecutive months, generating an additional £95,000 in depot revenue through proactive trade customer outreach.
- •Conducted 12+ home visits per week to measure and design bespoke kitchen layouts using CAD software, achieving a 74% quote-to-order conversion rate.
- •Negotiated pricing agreements with 40+ trade accounts, protecting an average gross margin of 31% while retaining 95% of the customer base year-on-year.
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 Ready to Trade Programme's structured CAD and sales training — is precisely what draws me to the Kitchen Sales Designer role in Stevenage. With a proven track record of hitting sales targets and KPIs in a trade-facing environment, and a genuine eye for design, I am confident I can drive depot performance while delivering the exceptional customer experience Howdens is known for.
My background in trade sales and customer relationship management has equipped me with the skills to build trusted, long-term relationships with contractors and builders, negotiate confidently on price without compromising margin, and manage design projects from initial home visit through to completion. I am comfortable working to demanding depot targets and thrive when accountable for measurable commercial outcomes.
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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 using CAD software.
- ›How do you use product knowledge to resolve a customer query mid-project when a chosen product is out of stock?
- ›Describe the process you follow when conducting a home visit to measure and assess a client's kitchen space.
- ›How do you balance protecting margin while still negotiating a price that wins the sale?
- ›What KPIs have you tracked in a previous sales role, and how did you manage underperformance against them?
Behavioural
- ›Tell me about a time you exceeded a sales target — what actions did you take to get there?
- ›Describe a situation where you had to build trust with a sceptical trade customer. How did you approach it?
- ›Give an example of when you managed multiple customer projects simultaneously. How did you prioritise?
- ›Tell me about a time a customer was unhappy with a design or product. How did you resolve it?
- ›Describe a time you identified a sales opportunity that others had overlooked and converted it into revenue.
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 actions did you take to get there?
Describe a situation where you had to build trust with a sceptical trade customer. How did you approach it?