Business Development Resume Sample

February 04, 2024

Elevate your business development career by downloading our resume sample. A treasure trove of strategies and accomplishments that will highlight your knack for driving growth and building relationships.

Business Development Manager CV [Full Sample]

Here’s a full Business Development Manager resume sample, which we wrote for a client recently.

Writing the Business Development Manager Resume

A few lines to quickly summarise what worked well for this Business Development Manager Resume. CV. CTA to download the sample before we walk through the step-by-step guide.

1. Resume Header

Ensure your header clearly states your Name, Email Address and Contact Number. There is no need to put your home address or identification number.

2. Executive Summary

The executive summary gives a quick overview of your work history. Here, we want to communicate your domain expertise and history in winning new accounts.

If possible, do also include a line or 2 with metrics about your success. An ideal resume should be geared towards the job scope of the job you are applying for.

Therefore, you should try your best to align key phrases mentioned in the job application to work you have done.

WRONG
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
  • IT Business Developer for 15+ years; closed ERP deals for major clients like Petronas, Exxon Mobil, and BP.
  • Driven and goal-oriented; surpassed sales targets for 5 years, clinching over USD 25 million in sales in FY2015.
  • Understands global business; sold to oil & gas, automotive, and semiconductor industries.
  • Strategic thinker; made plans that tapped into new markets in APAC, securing USD 100 million in new accounts.
  • Team leader; managed sales teams in 5 Asian countries, overseeing 25 staff in 8 offices.
  • Great people skills; recognized by employers for exceptional performance.
RESUMEWRITER   |   ASIA

RIGHT
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
  • Enterprise IT Business Developer with over 15 years’ experience in architecting and closing ERP solutions for Blue Chip multinational clients such as Petronas, Exxon Mobil, and BP.
  • Highly driven go-getter. Exceeded sales targets for 5 consecutive years, with a proven track record of closing over USD 25 million worth of enterprise sales contracts in FY2015.
  • Deep understanding of global business landscape with experience in selling to clients within oil & gas, automotive, and semiconductor industries.
  • Analytic thinker with ability to craft strategies which have successfully penetrated new segments of the market across APAC, resulting in capture of new accounts worth over USD 100 million.
  • People developer with track record for assembling and training high performance sales teams across 5 countries in Asia. Currently leading team of 25 staff spread across 8 offices.
  • Outstanding leadership and interpersonal skills in building relationships with people from different organisational levels and cultures.
  • Excellent interpersonal skills towards building relationships at all organisational levels, qualified leader with several employer awards for outstanding performance.

The second one demonstrates:

  • Proper explanation on each role and responsibilities.
  • Adding quantifiable results that contribute to the company always show recruiters clear abilities and your career narative.

In contrast, the first Executive Summary is poorly-written and overtly simple.

It is filled with buzzwords like “driven” or “goal-oriented” in an attempt to impress recruiters (trust us, we know!), but in reality tells us very little about the candidate’s core skills or areas of expertise.

When writing your own resume, avoid writing a generic Executive Summary! Your resume features your own career – make it all about yourself and your strengths!

Writing an effective yet succinct Executive Summary is equally challenging. Don’t fret – we’re here to help you! Just send us your Resume for a free review – we’ll look through it and share our feedback – all at no cost!

3. Key Skills: Areas of Expertise

This section includes all the keywords resume scanning softwares often use. It’s important to place key softwares/languages here relevant to the job ad you’re applying for. Scan the job application and parrot back the key phrases they’ve mentioned into your resume. Some other common phrases to include in Business Development resumes are:

  • Client Management
  • New Business Development
  • Sales Strategies
  • New Market Penetration
  • P&L Management
  • New Product Launches
  • Key Partnerships
  • Account Acquisition
Including your Business Development Skills is important, as it can be a broad role. So whether you’re experienced in market research, client relationships or identifying new business opportunities, be sure to show the areas you excel in.

4. Work Experiences

Always break your work experiences into 2 parts – your daily workscope and your achievements.

For the daily workscope, include a high level summary. Workscopes which are implied can be omitted. Remember, you want to keep your resume short and sharp for the recruiter.

At the same time, you may wish to highlight your soft skills and areas of expertise that you have demonstrated throughout your employment. Indicate instances of leadership and include technical skillsets you possess.

Present yourself as someone who is able to keep on task and achieve substantial outcomes. You may wish to pace your resume by stating the people you have worked with and the collaborations you have managed.

With the advent of complex sales tracking software, it is crucial that you’re well versed in analysing and optimising your sales campaigns based on this data. Tableau is currently the hot software to use amongst Fortune 500 companies.

WRONG
  • Managed a team of 25 associates for SAP’s software sales and marketing in the oil & gas sector, while handling comapany accounts.
  • Oversaw regional office P&L and strategies for achieving a 5-million-dollar quarterly sales target.
  • Communicated with customers in and out of Asia, understanding their needs for better product offerings and improving customer retention rates.
  • Conducted analysis to find opportunities and barriers for 6 unique software solutions in the oil and gas industry.
  • Established partnerships and negotiated agreements for mutual benefits with industry gatekeepers.
  • Provided feedback to product teams about market trends and customer satisfaction for product improvement.
RESUMEWRITER   |   ASIA

Here’s how we improved his resume’s Work Experiences.


RIGHT
  • Lead team of 25 associates to drive sales and marketing for SAP’s suite of software solutions; specialise in solutions for clients within the oil & gas industry. In charge of overseeing accounts worth over USD 20 million in annual licensing revenue.
  • Solely responsible for sales team P&L and strategy of regional office; conceptualise and implement winning strategies to unlock untapped potential and hit quarterly sales target valued at 5 million.
  • EEstablish contact with customers within and outside of Asia; understand local needs and suggest optimum product offerings, achieving above industry customer retention rates.
  • Conduct macro analysis to identify key untapped opportunities; analyse barriers to entry including competition analysis, tender requirements, equipment lifecycle times, and customer size for line of 6 unique software solutions targeted at oil and gas industry.
  • Identify key partnerships and industry gatekeepers; negotiate partnerships to leverage on both parties’ strengths; formulate strategies to align incentives and create win-win scenarios for all parties involved.
  • Support product road mapping and development pipeline; provide continuous inputs to product teams on market trends and customer feedback pertaining to product satisfaction as well as areas for improvement.
RESUMEWRITER   |   ASIA

    The second Work Experience example is clear. Each bulletpoint specifies and details each task.

    In contrast, the former example is written in a way that sounds like the candidate didn’t contribute much. It does not sound very impressive.

    Details of their role and responsibilities are not given for the first example.

5. Key Achievements

Your achievements section is critical to differentiating your application from that of your peers. Include projects which you have led and their resulting tangible business benefits. Use quantifiable phrases to introduce your achievements.

Business benefits you may wish to indicate can be in the form of:

  • % Revenue Gains
  • Key Account Captures
  • New Market Penetrations
  • Projects Undertaken and Products introduced
  • Achievements within a time period
  • Cost Savings
RIGHT
Achievements
  • Single-handedly closed sales worth UD 25 million in FY2015; consistently achieved sales targets whilst ensuring sales costs and expenditures kept within stipulated budgets.
  • Spearheaded launch of new ERP cloud products for oil & gas clients; mapped out market entry strategy and business case, identified key accounts, crafted branding and marketing campaign;; business revenues stand at a sustainable amount of USD 10 million today, with projected revenue of 15.5 million at the closing of this financial year.
  • Pivotal team member in kickstarting collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) on cross selling of enterprise IT solutions; identified synergies between 2 software products and negotiated platform to mutual benefit in cross selling solutions.
  • Utilized long-term market analysis to configure excellent sales commission scheme for incentivising executives. Scheme successfully enhanced sales by more than 40% within 1 year of implementation.
  • Awarded “High Performer – Gold” and company leadership award of outstanding sales performance and team leadership in 2013.
RESUMEWRITER   |   ASIA

Always tie back your projects to business benefits. This is what the hiring manager and employer want to see. Ultimately, they want to know you can bring great value to their organisation.

Bonus Job Hunting Tips for Business Development Manager

Business development jobs are almost always available. In fact, many companies in Singapore are looking to fill up business roles and positions from qualified professionals.

However, a business development job will not be simply handed to you. You have to create an impressive business development resume that will catch the attention of recruiters and hiring managers.

To get started, we will show you a resume sample of a business development executive that you can use as a guide.

Key Pointers Hiring Managers Look For in Business Development Manager Resumes

  • Your ability to segment market and identify key verticals with low barriers to entry
  • Your strong domain knowledge of product and end users
  • A tenacious ability to penetrate new accounts and territories
  • Relevance of your work experience to the job you are applying for

Business Development Manager Job Opportunities

  • Join LinkedIn groups or follow companies you wish to work for to keep abreast with new job openings.
  • Alternatively, you can reach out to these headhunters in Singapore to learn about any vacancies they may be trying to fill out.

Job Hunting Tips from our Resident Headhunter

Before You Go… Common Questions Answered

How do you write business development on a resume?

As a business development manager, you are likely responsible for driving business growth within previous companies that you’ve worked for. Start with this, and expand into smaller niche areas where you have more expertise (like team leadership or training new members.

What are examples of business development experience?

There are various different aspects of business development that you can mention. This includes Enterprise Sales, New Business Growth, SaaS Solutions, Account Management, Strategic Planning, P&L Management and more.

What is the best CV format for business development?

Like most resumes, we recommend you stick with one of the more common CV formats for your Business Development Manager resume. This includes the Reverse-chronological Resume Format, the Functional Resume Format and the Combination Resume Format.

Be sure to download this resume sample, which uses our tested-and-proven resume writing techniques, as a guide for your own CV. Best part is, this sample is available for free 🙂

And before you start sending out applications, send us your resume for a free CV feedback analysis from our team. We’ll review your CV in detail, share personalised feedback on its strengths and weaknesses, and show you how you can improve it.

Harry Suresh
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