It seems that everything you touch turns to gold, but it’s not magic—it’s your skill set. Your keen sense of strategy helps you seamlessly navigate massive takeovers and come out on top.
Outlining a large business expansion plan might seem like second nature to you, but outlining a resume is another story. How can you recommend yourself to potential employers with equal ease?
Writing a great cover letter and a solid resume is the key to landing your next role. You’re in the right spot—our business development executive resume templates have helped hundreds of execs land their dream jobs.
Why this resume works
- Tons of business development executives boast the same skills and experience (or way more) as you; mark yourself out as a unicorn candidate by tailoring your resume to the job description.
- Ideally, a job-winning business development executive resume should feature the specific keywords from the ad. Then, don’t overlook the importance of a thoughtfully curated work history section that emphasizes your capability to outdo yourself or outshine competitors. For instance, see how Mikelle talks about exceeding 2019 regional sales growth targets by 31%.
What Matters Most: Your Business Development Executive Skills & Work
The list of skills that help you excel as a business development executive is almost as long as your past achievements. From relationship building to complex financial analysis, you’ve got a skill set to cover all the bases.
While your client acquisition and retention skills are crucial, now is the time to highlight your technical abilities. This will help you get past applicant tracking systems (ATS) often used by recruiters.
Underscore your skills in market research, sales prospecting, and portfolio management. Don’t forget to mention relevant CRM software, such as Salesforce. Additionally, you can include other tools like Tableau and Qualtrics.
9 most popular business development executive skills
- Market Analysis
- Financial Forecasting
- Salesforce
- HubSpot
- Microsoft Excel
- Tableau
- Google Analytics
- Sales and Negotiation
- Customer Acquisition
Sample business development executive work experience bullet points
Your path to get to this point is paved with relevant achievements. The work experience section of your resume is where you need to make the most of them.
This is not the place to be generic or vague, so don’t be modest! You know how important data can be, so use it to your advantage. Rely on recognizable metrics to emphasize your biggest wins.
Have you led a merger that delivered $4 million in revenue? Highlight that. Similarly, if your negotiation skills resulted in a 11% increase in market share, make it known.
Here’s how to showcase your best accomplishments:
- Managed a portfolio of 30+ client accounts, achieving a 95% retention rate through effective relationship management
- Developed a market entry strategy for a new geographical region, resulting in a 22% increase in market penetration
- Led a team in securing a partnership with a Fortune 500 company, leading to a multi-year contract worth $9 million
- Conducted market analysis and identified a niche segment, prompting the development of a specialized product line that generated $450,000 in revenue within the first year
Top 5 Tips for Your Business Development Executive Resume
- Showcase your skills through past achievements
- Just listing “business acumen” on your resume isn’t convincing, so include achievements that prove your business prowess. Focus on demonstrating your impact on revenue, growth, market expansion, client acquisition, and strategic partnerships.
- Highlight leadership abilities
- As a business development executive, you collaborate with teams, clients, stakeholders, and potential partners. Demonstrate your interpersonal skills by highlighting initiatives you’ve spearheaded and project teams you’ve led.
- Include relevant certifications and education
- Formal training and specialist certifications assure hiring managers that you have a strong base of industry knowledge. Popular business development certifications include the CBD and CPBD. Throw them in, and add any marketing and leadership certifications, such as Lean Six Sigma.
- Tailor your resume
- Responsibilities can vary, so paying attention to the specifics of each job description is essential. Understand exactly what the company wants from its new exec and respond in kind. For example, if the company is expanding to a new region, show off the marketing campaign you led.
- Mention relevant professional affiliations
- If you’re a member of any professional associations, like the AMA (American Management Association), including these on your resume can help showcase that you’re an active community member. It’s always good to show you’re well-connected and keep your hand on the pulse.
As a business development executive, your role is centered around driving revenue, so those are some of the best metrics to include. Talk about sales targets you’ve surpassed and the way you were able to increase market share.
Yes, cover letters are a potent tool as they allow you to elaborate on elements in your resume, provide context, and add a personal touch. Your resume should focus on your technical skills, but the cover letter lets you talk about developing customized solutions for specific clients and collaborating with dozens of experts on a large project.
The perfect resume always fits on one page. It’s challenging, but your resume template only has one very specific job to do, and that’s to hold concise and keyword-dense content. Let the numbers do the talking.
Stephen is the co-founder and CEO of BeamJobs. He started his career in data fulfilling the dream of little kids everywhere: working for an insurance company. He then moved on to work in edtech for a company called Chegg before venturing out to start BeamJobs. Things have come a long way after countless “learnings” (fancy word for mistakes), and BeamJobs has now helped 2.5M+ people create their perfect resume. Stephen and BeamJobs have been featured on awesome sites like Business Insider, Chicago Tribune, Dallas News, Baltimore Sun, the Daily Press, Zendesk, HubSpot, and loads more.
