How to Word You Want to Continue Growing With the Company for a Resume

If a business isn't growing, it's stalling. Business development is the foundation upon which company growth is built.

To succeed in business development, you need to be creative, a great communicator, and also be able to sell.

You shouldn't have to be an expert at resume writing to convince an employer that you have this skill set.

We've analyzed numerous business development resumes and documented what works and what doesn't to increase your chances of getting an interview.

To help you land your next role in 2022, we've chosen the top eight business development resume samples from this analysis, and we'll share our expert resume tips to help you put your best foot forward.

job⇧ Table of contents

Business Development Manager Resume

Why this resume works

• The first thing you have to do on your business development manager resume is convince the hiring manager you deserve an interview. Accomplish this by conveying a lot of information in a neat, clean way.
• Fill your resume with quantifiable metrics because numbers speak louder than words. Luckily, as a biz dev professional, you can point to a whole host of different metrics to demonstrate your impact (sales, up-sells, conversion rate, and retention).
• You should structure your resume in reverse-chronological format when you have a few years of experience. That is, your most recent experience should go at the top of your resume, and your oldest experience should go at the bottom.
• Your skills on your resume are comprehensive but not exhaustive. You should strike a great balance between hard skills (Salesforce, Excel, LinkedIn) and soft skills (strategic planning, negotiation, communication).

Director of Business Development Resume

Why this resume works

• When you're applying for a senior management role like a director of business development position, you need to demonstrate a clear increase in the level of responsibility you've taken on throughout your career.
  • Using action verbs like "built," "owned," "led," and "hired" are great ways to do that.
• Unless you have 10+ years of experience, you should strive to keep your resume to one page. Our data suggests this will improve your chances of getting an interview by up to eight percent!
• As a director, you're going to be a people manager. Make sure you talk about your past management experience regarding the number of direct reports and your management style.
  • Again, numbers speak louder than words here. Did your team improve their performance as a result of coaching? Did your team allow for expansion into new territories? Try to quantify this impact on your director of business development resume.

Business Development Representative Resume

Why this resume works

• Your resume objective is your chance to make a great first impression. The best way to reach that goal is to quickly summarize your top one to two skills or qualifications for the role to which you're applying. Then, talk about why you're specifically interested in the position.
• Customize your business development representative resume objective for each role to which you apply.
  • Use the area to discuss what you accomplished in your relevant job. Remember to try to quantify your impact!
• Once you have one job experience on your resume relevant to the role you're applying to, minimize the space your education takes to make room for business development representative positions.
• If your work history isn't perfectly relevant to the role you want, that's okay! Just try to think of common skillsets between these positions.
  • For example, if you worked in retail and wanted to get into biz dev, you likely had to interact with and help customers in retail. This is directly applicable to business development.

Entry-Level Business Developer Resume

Why this resume works

• If you're new to business development, you may not be sure if you have enough work experience to fill your resume.
  • Your entry-level business developer resume should prove you can create a professional resume at any stage of your career!
    • Typically we recommend including three to six bullet points per work experience (with two to four total work experiences listed). Still, it's okay to use eight to ten bullet points when you have only one job or internship.
• Projects are a great opportunity to highlight skills and experience outside of work if you have limited job experience. The best projects to include are the ones for which you're most passionate! You can check out our resume hobbies and interests guide for more details.

Business Development Associate Resume

Why this resume works

• When hiring managers review your resume, they'll only give it an average of six seconds to decide if it's worth their time.
  • Put yourself in their shoes: set a six-second timer and read your business development associate resume.
    • You'll notice that the numbers (quantitative metrics) jump right off the page!
    • Use numbers in as many bullet points as possible to quickly convey important skills, work history, and accomplishments. For tips on including your skills, check out our resume skills guide .
    • Quantitative metrics aren't just essential for fast communication; they also sell your work performance more than words can.
  • Try including metrics on your ROI, reviews, client base, client retention, reduction of client attrition, and other KPI metrics.

Business Development Specialist Resume

Why this resume works

• Add visual interest to your business development specialist resume with contrasting fonts for your headers and body text, and don't be afraid to experiment with a little bit of color at the top of your page. Our resume formatting guide can take the stress out of the process!
  • In fields that focus specifically on customer relations, it's especially appropriate to show a little tasteful personality!
• Though typically not required for the job, certifications can help you stand apart from the competition. Including certificates like CMP, CBDMP, and CSP will let hiring managers know you have the knowledge to back up your work experience.
• Using action words like "spearheaded," "developed," "orchestrated," and "collaborated" can do a lot of the heavy resume lifting for you. Additionally, you can use our free resume checker to ensure your bullets are on the right track!

Digital Coordinator Business Developer Resume

Why this resume works

• When writing your digital coordinator business developer resume, you'll want to make sure you're highlighting what's most important.
• We invite you to check out our free resume builder for helpful guidance! We recommend organizing your work experience in reverse-chronological order, with your most recent experience at the top of the page. This will ensure hiring managers see your current (and likely most relevant and impressive) job title.
  • Consider including an Activities section.
    • Activities sections are a great place to highlight interests and hobbies relevant to business development.
    • Including an activity like a foreign language demonstrates your drive and dedication to self-improvement. Mentorship activities highlight your interpersonal skills, leadership, and team-building skills.

Senior Business Development Manager Resume

Why this resume works

• When you have many years of experience as a senior business development manager, you may need to showcase more than three work experiences.
  • When including four or more, make sure you're concentrating the bulk of your bullet points on your most recent/relevant jobs.
    • Your resume can taper down on bullet points towards the bottom of the page.
      • This will help employers get the most important information without adding non-essential fluff.
• Wondering how long each bullet point should be?
  • We recommend keeping your senior business development manager resume points concise. Try to make each bullet no more than 200 characters.
    • If you're going over the character count, consider breaking it down into multiple points.

How to Format Your Business Development Resume

Formatting your business development resume correctly is more important than you might think. Good formatting ensures your resume is readable, logical, and complete. When your resume isn't formatted well, it can be difficult for hiring managers to read, hard for ATS to understand, and just not visually appealing. Let's start by reviewing the key elements of resume formatting, including:

• Your resume formatting options
• Your contact header information
• How to ensure the ATS and recruiters read your resume

Your resume format options

Applicants' preferences for formatting change over time. In 2022, the most popular resume formats are reverse-chronological, functional, and combination/hybrid.

Specific pros and cons for each type of format:

1. Reverse-chronological format: This format highlights your career growth in business development by placing your most recent work experience at the top and your oldest work experience (which likely had the least job responsibility) at the bottom of the page.
2. Functional format: This type of formatting is all about highlighting your skills. It's typically chosen by applicants with employment history gaps.
3. Combination/Hybrid format: This format includes a reverse-chronological structure and equal weight between work experience and skills.

For business development resumes, we always recommend the use of reverse-chronological formatting. This type of formatting highlights your professional development, and it's a favorite of hiring managers. It's the preferred format for hiring managers due to its popularity, ease of skimming, and logical flow.

Your contact header information

You should list your name at the top of your resume in the header. Make sure to center it, and use the largest font on your resume (around 24-point). Right below your header, include the job title you're seeking in a slightly smaller font (around 20-point font). Your header is also a great place to have some color. Consider using color as the header background or as a text color.

On the right or left side of your resume, somewhere just below the header, you'll want to include the following in a list using standard font size:

• Email
• Phone number
• City/State (optional)
• Professional links, such as LinkedIn (optional)

It can be hard to visualize what this will look like on your resume and how exactly to add color to your professional business development resume. Check out the visual below, or these resume examples for inspiration on achieving a professional yet visually appealing header.

How to ensure the ATS and recruiters read your resume

It's not uncommon for a single business developer job posting to receive more than 200 applicants. Hiring teams couldn't possibly give each applicant careful consideration, so they use ATS.

Applicant tracking system software, or ATS, was created in response to the explosion of online job applications that enabled vast numbers of job seekers to apply to job postings. Hiring managers use ATS to track keywords in your resume and match them to pre-selected words that the hiring team is seeking. If ATS doesn't think an applicant is a good fit for the job, their resume can be thrown out before any person has a chance to read it.

Use the following techniques to ensure both ATS and recruiters can read your resume:

• Margins : Use standard one-half to one-inch margins.
• Fonts: Keep to the basic professional fonts; no cursive!
• Font size: Use about 24-point font for your name, 20-point font for your job title, and 10-12 point font everywhere else on your resume.
• Header names : Keep your font size the same for section headers and body text, but use bold lettering to make your headers stand out. You can also try using all caps to make your section headers easier to see.
• Skills: Ensure your skills are highly specialized to the business development job you're seeking. Check the business development job description to ensure you'll have enough matching keywords (but never plagiarize).
• Logical order: Use reverse-chronological order because it's the format ATS operates best with, and hiring managers tend to prefer it.
• One page: Ensure your resume is exactly one page.

Make the changes above to your resume to ensure ATS can read it, or use our resume builder to automatically format your resume correctly.

How to Write an Effective Business Developer Resume

We know that writing an effective resume can feel like a daunting task. You can help avoid any frustration or pitfalls on your business developer resume by taking it section by section and following this guide. We recommend having this article open in one tab and your resume in another, so you can go back and forth while making revisions. You can also use our resume builder if you're feeling frustrated or have a time crunch. Now, let's get into the bulk of actually writing your resume:

• Using a resume objective or summary statement
• How to include your work experience
• Choosing the right skills
• Education and certificates
• Customizations
• Proofreading your resume

Clearing the confusion: an objective or summary?

Many prospective business developers are rightfully confused by the resume objective and summary . What are they? What's the difference between them? Do I need one on my resume? Why would I use one if it's not required?

This section will answer all of those questions and give you some examples of both resume objectives and summary statements.

An objective is an opening paragraph for your resume. It includes the job title you're seeking, your number of years of experience, specific skills that make you a good candidate, and the company to which you're applying. Though not a required section on your resume, it's a good idea to include an objective if you have limited work experience or are going through a significant career change.

On the other hand, a resume summary is a paragraph at the end of your resume, and it can be thought of as a short synopsis of your work experience. The summary emphasizes skills and how they were used at previous jobs successfully (using metrics). A summary is best-suited for applicants with at least 10+ years of experience in business development.

Let's review a few examples of both strong and weak objectives and summaries:

Example 1: Driven applicant with 2 years of experience. Seeking a job where my business skills will help the company thrive.

• Analysis: This objective does include years of experience, which is good. But, it is altogether too vague. Make sure you mention a specific job title, several particular skills, and the company name.

Example 2: Data-driven business developer with 3+ years of experience getting results for 2 start-ups turned Forbes Businesses to Watch. Seeking employment with GearStarter, where my expertise in CRM and process optimization can contribute to exponential company growth.

• Analysis: This objective is pretty good! It contains a specific job title, years of experience, job-specific skills, and a company name. Hiring managers would be instantly intrigued by this job candidate.

Example 3: I have many years of experience in restaurant work and office roles.

• Analysis: This summary would be a waste of space on your resume.

Example 4: Analytical business developer with over 11 years of experience collaborating with medium and large businesses, including 2 Fortune 500 companies. From CRM use, data analysis, lead generation, strategic planning, and more, I am confident that my skills in utilizing data-driven techniques and relationship building would boost the ROI for GoodFuel.

• • Analysis: This summary is specific, appropriately used, and demonstrates clear company value.

How to include your work experience

Focus on including two to four job experiences on your business developer resume. We know it can be tempting to include every work experience you've ever had. Still, including relatively irrelevant jobs you had as a teenager is not useful when you have many years of relevant work experience. When you've held several job titles, be choosy about which two to four you include on your resume.

How to write your work experience descriptions

Make your work experience examples professional, interesting, and impressive. Use action verbs such as "spearheaded," "orchestrated," or "developed" to start each of your bullet points, and use active voice throughout (rather than passive). This will ensure that you take ownership of your resume, avoid cliche and overused words, and display confidence.

You also want to avoid personal pronouns, such as "me" or "I," in your work experience. The hiring manager knows you're writing about yourself, so avoid taking up the extra space and dooming your resume to the "unprofessional" pile. You'll also need to decide on punctuation. You can either end all of your bullet points with periods or leave them off. It's up to you; just be consistent. Finally, pay special attention to using consistent verb tenses. All of your past experience needs to be in the past tense, and you can choose whether you want to include your current experience in the past or present tense.

Here are some examples of good business developer resume bullet points that incorporate all of the above advice:

• Prospected and qualified potential customers with targeted advertising, improving conversion rate by over 20%
• Conducted multi-channel outreach to prospects by leveraging 3 forms of CRM management tools
• Developed marketing campaign featuring educational business material, resulting in $200K net profit

These examples are great bullet points for any business developer resume because they use action verbs, active voice, consistent punctuation, avoid personal pronouns, and are all written in the past tense.

How to quantify your impact as a business developer

One of the most important things you include on your business development resume is metrics. Numbers showcase your job impact in a way that words alone cannot. Aim to have metrics on at least 50 percent of your bullet points, but don't be afraid to add more if you can. Here are some of the best ways to leverage metrics when you're discussing your previous business development roles:

• Increased revenue: Arguably, increased revenue is the most important job of a business developer. Highlight how much you've increased gross company revenue during your tenure.
• Conversion rates: Have customer conversion rates gone up as you've adopted new systems for reaching customers? Did you use targeted advertising, answer questions within minutes or hours, or did you use multi-channel outreach to increase conversion rates?
• Leads: It's not just important to tell hiring managers that you increased revenue. Tell them how you did it. Perhaps you reached 25 percent more leads through the CRM processes you've developed? Maybe you initiated a successful referral program? Or perhaps you've collaborated on building social media campaigns?
• Data analysis: It's important to discuss how you've utilized data from CRM and related software to get results. Make sure you don't neglect to mention how your data analysis has improved the ROI for acquisition at your company.

Using these types of metrics, we created work experience bullet points that could fit any strong business development resume:

• Crafted a holistic paid acquisition strategy, leading to a 38% ROI for every dollar spent
• Initiated data analysis processes that enabled a deeper understanding of consumer trends, contributing to the creation of 3 unique metrics to track consumer habits
• Launched Requests for Proposals (RFPs), collaborating with 19 contractors while meeting 97% of profitability targets and ROIs

How to choose skills for your business developer resume

You must choose the right skills on your resume if you want it to be seen by a hiring manager. A successful business development resume doesn't overlook the skills section. A specific skills section provides insight into your areas of expertise and ensures ATS can find matching keywords on your resume.

Here are some of the best skills to include on your business development resume:

1. ROI and Data Analysis
2. Lead Conversion
3. Sales Pitches
4. Presentations
5. Lead Qualification
6. Relationship Building
7. Tactful Communication
8. Campaigns
9. CRM Salesforce
10. Leadership

The most successful skills sections are those that include a lot of hard skills. Hard skills, such as "CRM" and "Sales Pitches," are job-specific, easy to quantify, directly valuable for the job, and trainable (but they require years of experience to do well). These are the types of skills that demonstrate a clear understanding of the job, and hiring managers actively seek these applicants. These resume skills are some of the best, most sought-after in the business development industry.

Soft skills, such as "time management," "organization," and "collaboration," can play a supporting role in your skills section. They're important skills, but harder to quantify and demonstrate, and they're generally important for most jobs inside and outside the business development world. Remember that specificity is important to why you're applying for business development jobs.

What to know about education, certs, and more

In the field of business development, there are no standardized job qualifications. However, many hiring managers will expect you to have a bachelor's degree in a relevant field, such as business, management, or marketing. Some jobs may require applicants to hold an MBA or other graduate degrees, but this is not the norm across positions in the field.

Highlight your highest level of education briefly, your years in the workforce, and any specialized certifications you have. Though they're often not required, Certified Marketing Professional, Blockchain and Digital Marketing Professional, Digital Marketing Specialist, and other credentials as shown in the example below give an extra edge with hiring managers.

We typically don't advise business developers to include interests and hobbies on their resumes.

A few pointers for when interests and hobbies may be appropriate for your resume:

• Consider including interests, hobbies, or activities if you have minimal work experience. Interests, hobbies, and projects can sometimes stand in for work experiences!
• Include unique interests and hobbies if your potential employer values individuality in their employees.
• Think about whether your interests, hobbies, or activities demonstrate a high level of commitment and focus. For example, hobbies such as Olympic Powerlifting prove that you're a results-driven, focused, and dedicated person.

This candidate hints at soft skills with spot-on activities.

Make your business development resume unique to the job

Remember to tailor your business development resume for every job to which you apply. It will help ATS recognize keywords and show the employer that you're genuinely interested in the job. Pay special attention to customizing your resume objective or summary (if used) with a specific job title and company name. Your skills section should also be customized to the job, which you can do by carefully reading the job description. Finally, every bullet point you include should be carefully edited to highlight the most important skills and job duties listed in the job posting.

Edit and proofread your resume

You may be tempted to submit your business development resume for five job postings the second you finish writing it, but stop for a second! Give yourself a day or two to rest your eyes and brain so that you can proofread your resume with fresh eyes. Send it off to friends and family for edits, or take advantage of BeamJob's free resume checker . You may be surprised to realize you misspelled a few words or used inconsistent punctuation, which hiring managers might consider a dealbreaker for the job.

Well on Your Way to Your Next Business Development Job

You should be proud of yourself for reading through this entire resume guide! The hardest part of working on your resume is getting started, and now you're ready to put in the work and get your dream business development job in 2022. Use our resume checker to upload your completed resume and check it against our AI-powered tips. On the other hand, if you haven't started on your resume or want to begin from scratch, use our resume builder, which has built-in AI-powered tips and proper formatting to help set you in the right direction.

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Source: https://www.beamjobs.com/resumes/business-development-resume-examples