Municipal Engineered Sales
for sections like About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule. Only include sections that have real content.
We need to parse the posting.
Content:
- About the Role: paragraph describing role, responsibilities, location, etc.
- What You’ll Do: list of duties.
- Qualified applicants will also possess the following knowledge, skills and abilities: list.
- What Sets You Apart: bullet points? Actually it's a paragraph with bullet-like lines.
- Why Work With Us?: paragraph about company.
- What We Offer: list of benefits.
We need to map to headings: About the role (maybe "About the role") corresponds to "About the Role". Responsibilities corresponds to "What You’ll Do". Requirements/Qualifications/Skills: we have "Qualified applicants will also possess the following knowledge, skills and abilities:" which includes knowledge, skills, abilities. Could be split into Requirements and Skills. But we can combine into one section "Requirements" or "Qualifications". The instruction: prefer few substantive sections over many thin ones. So we could have sections: About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Benefits. Possibly also "What Sets You Apart" could be part of Requirements or a separate "Preferred Qualifications". But we need to decide.
We have no explicit Pay or Schedule info, so omit those sections.
We need to use for each section heading. Use - for any list of duties/requirements/benefits. Use
for prose.
We must preserve all substantive information, not invent or summarize away detail. Remove boilerplate: EEO, equal opportunity, scam-warning, etc. Also remove duplicated lines. There's a duplicated "Proven experience in account management" appears twice; we should keep only one instance? The instruction: "Preserve ALL substantive information; do NOT invent or summarize away detail." Duplicated lines: we should not repeat them; we can deduplicate. Probably we should keep one.
Also remove "Equal Opportunity Employer This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor." That's boilerplate.
Also remove "If you’re ready to grow your career in engineered sales with a company built for the long haul, apply today." That's application instruction; remove.
Also remove "At Cogent, this isn’t just another sales job — it’s an opportunity to build long-term wealth and impact as an employee-owner." Might be part of "Why Work With Us?" but it's more like a call to action; but it's substantive? It's more promotional but still part of "Why Work With Us?" maybe keep as part of that section.
We need to keep "What Sets You Apart" content.
Let's extract sections:
About the Role paragraph:
"Central States Group, A Cogent Company, is currently seeking a Municipal Outside Sales Engineer to sell water and wastewater treatment equipment, pumping equipment and control systems. This position is responsible for sourcing new customers and accounts, growing and retaining existing accounts, and providing unparalleled customer service. Cogent is looking for professional, experienced salespeople in Iowa and Nebraska. This role requires a minimum of a Bachelor's in Engineering (or similar degree) and a minimum of two years’ experience in technical sales and account management in the attainment of challenging sales goals; or a combination of education and work experience will also be considered.This role is ideal for a consultative seller who understands municipal procurement processes, values technical selling, and is energized by uncovering opportunities to support customers."
We could keep as prose.
Responsibilities (What You’ll Do):
List items:
- Develop and execute a strategic sales plan
- Manage and grow an assigned territory and account base
- Build trusted relationships with municipal engineers, plant managers, and procurement teams
- Collaborate with inside sales, service, engineering, and operations teams to deliver exceptional customer experiences
- Track and manage pipeline activity within CRM
- Provide accurate forecasting and territory reporting
- Support customer site visits, technical discussions, and product recommendations
- Stay informed on municipal budgets, bid processes, and industry trends
Requirements/Knowledge/Skills:
"Qualified applicants will also possess the following knowledge, skills and abilities:"
List:
- Strong knowledge of water and wastewater processes and equipment applications
- Strong product knowledge in pumping and control systems
- Proven ability to prospect, close sales, and obtain referrals
- Proven experience in account management (only once)
- Goal-oriented, self-driven, and self-motivated
- Proven ability to run multiple projects simultaneously
- Excellent interpersonal and relationship-building skills
- Excellent customer follow-up and responsiveness skills
- Excellent oral, written, and listening communication skills
- Excellent organizational and time management skills
- Experience with Salesforce CRM
- Valid driver’s license and clean driving record
- Will require both time on the road and in the office. Some overnight travel (this is more a condition; could be included as a bullet or prose)
What Sets You Apart:
- Experience with pumps, fluid processing equipment, controls, or mechanical systems
- Established relationships within municipal water/wastewater markets
- Ability to position value beyond price in competitive bid environments
Why Work With Us? (company description):
"At Cogent, you’re not just an employee—you’re an owner. Our people make the difference; our shared values define us as a team and bring our vision to life. Together, our team of employee-owners is committed to helping build healthy and prosperous communities through creatively engineered solutions for our customers. We are a growing Midwest company that provides fluid processing solutions serving the local Industrial, Municipal, Commercial Building Trades, Oil and Gas markets through our family of trusted brands."
What We Offer (benefits):
List:
- Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP)
- 401(k) with company match
- Profit-Sharing Plan
- Health, Dental, Vision & Life Insurance
- Ongoing training and career growth opportunities
We could also include the sentence: "At Cogent, this isn’t just another sales job — it’s an opportunity to build long-term wealth and impact as an employee-owner." Might be part of Why Work With Us or Benefits; but it's more promotional; we could include as a paragraph under Why Work With Us.
We need to avoid duplication: The sentence about employee-owner appears also in Why Work With Us? Actually the first sentence of Why Work With Us? includes "At Cogent, you’re not just an employee—you’re an owner." The later sentence repeats similar idea. We can keep one.
We'll produce sections:
About the role
...
Responsibilities
- ...
...
Requirements
- ...
...
Maybe combine "What Sets You Apart" into Requirements as preferred qualifications; but we could add a separate section "Preferred qualifications". However instruction: prefer few substantive sections over many thin ones. So we could incorporate "What Sets You Apart" into Requirements as additional bullet points.
But we need to preserve all info; we can add them under Requirements as bullet points.
Similarly, "Why Work With Us?" could be a section "About the company" but not required heading list includes Benefits, Pay, Schedule. Not required to include company description; but we could include as a section "About the company" but not in allowed headings list? The allowed headings list includes About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule. It doesn't list "About the company" or "Why Work With Us". However we could still include a section if we want, but the instruction says: "use for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule)." The e.g. suggests those are examples, not exclusive. But they say "IMPORTANT: include a section ONLY when the posting has real, specific content for it — never emit a heading followed by filler/placeholder text". So we can include a section for company description if we want, but we need to decide if it's substantive. It is substantive. However the instruction also says "Prefer a few substantive sections over many thin ones." So we could combine company description into Benefits or maybe into About the role? But About the role is about the role, not company. Could add a section "About the company" but not in the list; but it's okay as it's a heading. However they gave examples; not strict.
But to be safe, we could include a section "Why work with us?" as a heading, but it's not in the examples. Might be okay. However they said "use for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule)." This implies those are the expected headings; but they didn't forbid others. However to follow the spirit, we should stick to those headings. So we should try to map all content to those headings.
We have:
- About the role: we have that.
- Responsibilities: we have that.
- Requirements: we have knowledge, skills, abilities, plus what sets you apart (preferred qualifications). Could also include education and experience from About the role? Actually About the role already includes education and experience requirements. But we could keep that in About the role; but we might duplicate. Better to keep education/experience in Requirements section. However About the role currently includes that sentence. We could move that to Requirements and keep About the role more focused on role description. But we must preserve all info; we can keep it in either place but not duplicate. Let's split: About the role paragraph will be the role description without the education/experience sentence. Then Requirements will include education/experience plus knowledge/skills plus what sets you apart.
But we need to ensure we don't lose any info. Let's extract the education/experience sentence: "This role requires a minimum of a Bachelor's in Engineering (or similar degree) and a minimum of two years’ experience in technical sales and account management in the attainment of challenging sales goals; or a combination of education and work experience will also be considered."
We'll put that in Requirements.
Now About the role paragraph will be: "Central States Group, A Cogent Company, is currently seeking a Municipal Outside Sales Engineer to sell water and wastewater treatment equipment, pumping equipment and control systems. This position is responsible for sourcing new customers and accounts, growing and retaining existing accounts, and providing unparalleled customer service. Cogent is looking for professional, experienced salespeople in Iowa and Nebraska. This role is ideal for a consultative seller who understands municipal procurement processes, values technical selling, and is energized by uncovering opportunities to support customers."
That seems fine.
Now Responsibilities: list as above.
Now Requirements: include education/experience, knowledge/skills/abilities list, plus what sets you apart bullets.
We need to avoid duplicate "Proven experience in account management". We'll include once.
Also include "Will require both time on the road and in the office. Some overnight travel." Could be a bullet.
Now Benefits: list as above.
We should not include Pay or Schedule sections.
Now we need to output HTML fragment only.
Let's craft.
We'll need to escape any HTML special characters like — but we can keep as is; it's okay.
We'll produce:
About the role
Central States Group, A Cogent Company, is currently seeking a Municipal Outside Sales Engineer to sell water and wastewater treatment equipment, pumping equipment and control systems. This position is responsible for sourcing new customers and accounts, growing and retaining existing accounts, and providing unparalleled customer service. Cogent is looking for professional, experienced salespeople in Iowa and Nebraska. This role is ideal for a consultative seller who understands municipal procurement processes, values technical selling, and is energized by uncovering opportunities to support customers.
Responsibilities
- for any list of duties/requirements/benefits. Use
for prose. We must preserve all substantive information, not invent or summarize away detail. Remove boilerplate: EEO, equal opportunity, scam-warning, etc. Also remove duplicated lines. There's a duplicated "Proven experience in account management" appears twice; we should keep only one instance? The instruction: "Preserve ALL substantive information; do NOT invent or summarize away detail." Duplicated lines: we should not repeat them; we can deduplicate. Probably we should keep one. Also remove "Equal Opportunity Employer This employer is required to notify all applicants of their rights pursuant to federal employment laws. For further information, please review the Know Your Rights notice from the Department of Labor." That's boilerplate. Also remove "If you’re ready to grow your career in engineered sales with a company built for the long haul, apply today." That's application instruction; remove. Also remove "At Cogent, this isn’t just another sales job — it’s an opportunity to build long-term wealth and impact as an employee-owner." Might be part of "Why Work With Us?" but it's more like a call to action; but it's substantive? It's more promotional but still part of "Why Work With Us?" maybe keep as part of that section. We need to keep "What Sets You Apart" content. Let's extract sections: About the Role paragraph: "Central States Group, A Cogent Company, is currently seeking a Municipal Outside Sales Engineer to sell water and wastewater treatment equipment, pumping equipment and control systems. This position is responsible for sourcing new customers and accounts, growing and retaining existing accounts, and providing unparalleled customer service. Cogent is looking for professional, experienced salespeople in Iowa and Nebraska. This role requires a minimum of a Bachelor's in Engineering (or similar degree) and a minimum of two years’ experience in technical sales and account management in the attainment of challenging sales goals; or a combination of education and work experience will also be considered.This role is ideal for a consultative seller who understands municipal procurement processes, values technical selling, and is energized by uncovering opportunities to support customers." We could keep as prose. Responsibilities (What You’ll Do): List items: - Develop and execute a strategic sales plan - Manage and grow an assigned territory and account base - Build trusted relationships with municipal engineers, plant managers, and procurement teams - Collaborate with inside sales, service, engineering, and operations teams to deliver exceptional customer experiences - Track and manage pipeline activity within CRM - Provide accurate forecasting and territory reporting - Support customer site visits, technical discussions, and product recommendations - Stay informed on municipal budgets, bid processes, and industry trends Requirements/Knowledge/Skills: "Qualified applicants will also possess the following knowledge, skills and abilities:" List: - Strong knowledge of water and wastewater processes and equipment applications - Strong product knowledge in pumping and control systems - Proven ability to prospect, close sales, and obtain referrals - Proven experience in account management (only once) - Goal-oriented, self-driven, and self-motivated - Proven ability to run multiple projects simultaneously - Excellent interpersonal and relationship-building skills - Excellent customer follow-up and responsiveness skills - Excellent oral, written, and listening communication skills - Excellent organizational and time management skills - Experience with Salesforce CRM - Valid driver’s license and clean driving record - Will require both time on the road and in the office. Some overnight travel (this is more a condition; could be included as a bullet or prose) What Sets You Apart: - Experience with pumps, fluid processing equipment, controls, or mechanical systems - Established relationships within municipal water/wastewater markets - Ability to position value beyond price in competitive bid environments Why Work With Us? (company description): "At Cogent, you’re not just an employee—you’re an owner. Our people make the difference; our shared values define us as a team and bring our vision to life. Together, our team of employee-owners is committed to helping build healthy and prosperous communities through creatively engineered solutions for our customers. We are a growing Midwest company that provides fluid processing solutions serving the local Industrial, Municipal, Commercial Building Trades, Oil and Gas markets through our family of trusted brands." What We Offer (benefits): List: - Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) - 401(k) with company match - Profit-Sharing Plan - Health, Dental, Vision & Life Insurance - Ongoing training and career growth opportunities We could also include the sentence: "At Cogent, this isn’t just another sales job — it’s an opportunity to build long-term wealth and impact as an employee-owner." Might be part of Why Work With Us or Benefits; but it's more promotional; we could include as a paragraph under Why Work With Us. We need to avoid duplication: The sentence about employee-owner appears also in Why Work With Us? Actually the first sentence of Why Work With Us? includes "At Cogent, you’re not just an employee—you’re an owner." The later sentence repeats similar idea. We can keep one. We'll produce sections:
About the role
...
Responsibilities
- ... ...
Requirements
- ... ...
for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule)." The e.g. suggests those are examples, not exclusive. But they say "IMPORTANT: include a section ONLY when the posting has real, specific content for it — never emit a heading followed by filler/placeholder text". So we can include a section for company description if we want, but we need to decide if it's substantive. It is substantive. However the instruction also says "Prefer a few substantive sections over many thin ones." So we could combine company description into Benefits or maybe into About the role? But About the role is about the role, not company. Could add a section "About the company" but not in the list; but it's okay as it's a heading. However they gave examples; not strict. But to be safe, we could include a section "Why work with us?" as a heading, but it's not in the examples. Might be okay. However they said "use
for section headings (e.g. About the role, Responsibilities, Requirements, Qualifications, Skills, Benefits, Pay, Schedule)." This implies those are the expected headings; but they didn't forbid others. However to follow the spirit, we should stick to those headings. So we should try to map all content to those headings. We have: - About the role: we have that. - Responsibilities: we have that. - Requirements: we have knowledge, skills, abilities, plus what sets you apart (preferred qualifications). Could also include education and experience from About the role? Actually About the role already includes education and experience requirements. But we could keep that in About the role; but we might duplicate. Better to keep education/experience in Requirements section. However About the role currently includes that sentence. We could move that to Requirements and keep About the role more focused on role description. But we must preserve all info; we can keep it in either place but not duplicate. Let's split: About the role paragraph will be the role description without the education/experience sentence. Then Requirements will include education/experience plus knowledge/skills plus what sets you apart. But we need to ensure we don't lose any info. Let's extract the education/experience sentence: "This role requires a minimum of a Bachelor's in Engineering (or similar degree) and a minimum of two years’ experience in technical sales and account management in the attainment of challenging sales goals; or a combination of education and work experience will also be considered." We'll put that in Requirements. Now About the role paragraph will be: "Central States Group, A Cogent Company, is currently seeking a Municipal Outside Sales Engineer to sell water and wastewater treatment equipment, pumping equipment and control systems. This position is responsible for sourcing new customers and accounts, growing and retaining existing accounts, and providing unparalleled customer service. Cogent is looking for professional, experienced salespeople in Iowa and Nebraska. This role is ideal for a consultative seller who understands municipal procurement processes, values technical selling, and is energized by uncovering opportunities to support customers." That seems fine. Now Responsibilities: list as above. Now Requirements: include education/experience, knowledge/skills/abilities list, plus what sets you apart bullets. We need to avoid duplicate "Proven experience in account management". We'll include once. Also include "Will require both time on the road and in the office. Some overnight travel." Could be a bullet. Now Benefits: list as above. We should not include Pay or Schedule sections. Now we need to output HTML fragment only. Let's craft. We'll need to escape any HTML special characters like — but we can keep as is; it's okay. We'll produce:
About the role
Central States Group, A Cogent Company, is currently seeking a Municipal Outside Sales Engineer to sell water and wastewater treatment equipment, pumping equipment and control systems. This position is responsible for sourcing new customers and accounts, growing and retaining existing accounts, and providing unparalleled customer service. Cogent is looking for professional, experienced salespeople in Iowa and Nebraska. This role is ideal for a consultative seller who understands municipal procurement processes, values technical selling, and is energized by uncovering opportunities to support customers.
Responsibilities