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' above design skills.
📊 Quantify your sales wins: e.g. 'Exceeded monthly sales targets by 22% for 6 consecutive months, contributing £180k in depot revenue' to stand out against candidates with design backgrounds.
🚗 Explicitly state your full UK driving licence and vehicle access in your CV header or skills section — the advert flags home visits as a core duty and lists this as a hard requirement.
🎯 Highlight any experience conducting client consultations or home surveys, even outside kitchens (e.g. flooring, bathrooms, windows) — the advert values the consultative process as much as design knowledge.
🤝 Showcase relationship-building with trade professionals (builders, contractors, developers) if applicable — Howdens' entire model is trade-first, so B2B relationship experience is a strong differentiator.
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 sales KPIs by 18% over 8 consecutive months in a trade-facing role, generating £210k in incremental revenue through consultative upselling and repeat customer development.
- •Conducted 15+ client home visits per month to survey spaces, assess requirements and produce tailored kitchen design proposals, achieving a 74% quote-to-order conversion rate.
- •Negotiated pricing on 40+ kitchen projects per quarter, protecting an average gross margin of 32% while maintaining a 96% customer satisfaction score across the depot.
Free to copy — tailoring requires a 30-sec CV upload.
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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 — serving over 460,000 trade professionals — makes the Kitchen Sales Designer role at your Thirsk depot a compelling next step. With a proven track record of exceeding sales targets and KPIs in customer-facing roles, and a genuine eye for design, I am confident I can drive depot performance while delivering the consultative service your trade customers rely on.
My background in trade sales and client relationship management has equipped me with the skills to conduct thorough home visits, translate client briefs into practical designs, and negotiate pricing confidently without compromising margin. I hold a full UK driving licence and am comfortable managing multiple projects from initial consultation through to completion. I look forward to completing Howdens' Ready to Trade Programme to sharpen my CAD and product knowledge further.
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Interview questions
10 questions generated from this advert.
Technical
- ›Walk me through how you would plan a kitchen layout for a client with an L-shaped room of 4m x 3.5m using CAD tools.
- ›How do you use product knowledge to upsell or cross-sell joinery and hardware alongside a kitchen sale?
- ›Describe your process for conducting a home visit — what do you measure, assess and record?
- ›How would you handle a situation where a customer's design wish list exceeds their budget while protecting your margin?
- ›What steps do you take to stay current with kitchen design trends and new product ranges?
Behavioural
- ›Tell me about a time you exceeded a sales target — what approach did you take and what was the outcome?
- ›Describe a situation where you had to manage a difficult trade customer relationship and bring it back on track.
- ›Give an example of when you had to negotiate confidently on price — how did you balance the customer's needs with protecting margin?
- ›Tell me about a time you managed multiple client projects simultaneously — how did you prioritise and stay organised?
- ›Describe a situation where attention to detail in a design or order prevented a costly error for a customer.
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 approach did you take and what was the outcome?
Give an example of when you had to negotiate confidently on price — how did you balance the customer's needs with protecting margin?