Sales executive (maternity cover)

Closing date: 19th January 2025 at 12:55am

Salary: £28,500 per annum (pro rata)

Contract: This is a fixed-term contract running from February to September 2025.

An exciting opportunity has arisen to join our HQ, Pavilion and Mills & Boon, and Avon divisions, providing support to Key Accounts.

This role involves working with retailers, the publishing divisions, as well as the wider UK sales team, and there is sales account responsibility for Mills and Boon series.

The successful candidate will possess an extremely high level of organisation and attention to detail, as well as an ability to rapidly acquire a high level of competency on company systems and confident use of Microsoft Office applications, notably Excel.  Most of all we’re looking for personable, bright individual who can learn quickly and use their own initiative.   

The role offers great sales experience, including shadowing the account handlers for major UK retailers and the potential for the right candidate to begin looking after some accounts directly.

Working across the HQ Fiction and HQ and Pavilion Nonfiction lists, as well as the Avon list, it’s a real opportunity for gaining an unmatched insight into the commercial UK Trade book market. As well as being heavily customer-facing, the role will work across major Fiction and NonFiction Brands and Genres, from authors including Adele Parks, Linwood Barclay, CL Taylor, Davina McCall and Paul Ainsworth. 

Responsibilities

• Administrative support to the HQ & Avon Sales team
• Compile sales reports and circulate relevant sales information across the team
• Customer communication for Mills and Boon series titles
• Distribute advance samples / proofs to retailers / team
• Create internal and external PowerPoint presentations
• Answer internal and customer queries quickly and effectively
• Ad-hoc administrative tasks e.g. formatting presentations, creating graphs and charts through Excel 
• Liaise with the Field Sales team, Divisional Sales teams, Marketing, PR, Distribution and Editorial, Commercial Finance
• Process customer orders in a clear and timely manner, liaising with Glasgow distribution, credit control and customer services to ensure the effective distribution of orders so that invoices may be raised and books despatched in the business’ best interests
• Raise any required marketing PO’s
• Collating data from customer reports across the business
• Keeping abreast of the commercial book market and being an ambassador for HQ and Avon titles

Knowledge, skills and experience

• Sales admin experience
• Customer service experience
• Experience of maintaining and developing working relationships
• Knowledge Word, Excel and PowerPoint
• Experience of producing sales presentations
• Experience of working in a busy environment and managing priorities
• Account experience desired but not essential
• Ability to communicate at all levels, both written and verbally
• Professional, reliable, able to work quickly under pressure and use own initiative
• Effective team player
• Organised, efficient, proactive and able to hit deadlines
• Good attention to detail
• Willing to take on new challenges
• Keen interest and passion for books particularly across commercial fiction and non fiction

Benefits

• Hybrid working model (3 days in the office)
• 28 days holiday plus bank holidays (option to buy and sell holiday days) 
• Enhanced pay for maternity, paternity, adoption and shared parental leave 
• Private healthcare cover and life assurance 
• Summer Hours  
• Free access to HeadSpace, employee assistance programme (24 hour helpline), mental health first aiders, and a wellbeing portal 
• Season ticket loans (from day 1 for entry level) and cycle to work scheme 
• Relocation Rent Support Loan  
• Employee networks: HC All In (open forum), Elevate (for ethnic minority colleagues), HarperParents, Menopause at Work, Pride at HC, Social Mobility Network and Neurodiversity at Work
• Unlimited training on our Learning and Development portal, management courses (up to MA level) and mentoring programmes 
• Virtual GP and eyecare vouchers 
• Gym membership discount 
• Onsite physiotherapy (London only) 
• Charitable donation matching and 2 volunteering days 
• We're a certified Carbon Neutral company
• Green Electric/Hybrid Car Benefit Scheme (salary sacrifice)
• With Trees for Life we plant a tree in the Highlands of Scotland for every permanent hire
• Free e-books and audiobooks, digital newspaper subscriptions and discounts on books 
• Subsidised canteen and retail discounts 
• Onsite prayer room 

At HarperCollins, we value authenticity and integrity in our recruitment process. To ensure a fair and accurate evaluation of all applications, we ask that all responses to assessment questions reflect your own thoughts, experiences, and capabilities. This allows us to fairly assess your knowledge, skills, and experience to determine how they align with the role. We value diverse perspectives and genuine contributions, even if answers are not perfect. The use of AI tools or external assistance to generate responses is discouraged unless explicitly permitted for specific tasks.

If you wish to discuss anything regarding this position and/or your application to this role, please reach out directly to stephanie.jemmett@harpercollins.co.uk with subject heading ‘Vacancy Query’ plus the job title and we will aim to get back to you within 5 working days.

Please note, if you are interested in the role you would need to submit your application via Applied which you can access by clicking the 'Apply' button. We do not accept email applications.

We welcome and encourage applications from candidates who are under-represented in the creative industries. 

Please state in your application that you found this role through Creative Access.