If you’re looking for a practical guide on how to create a business development resume, then this is the best place to be.
In this comprehensive guide you’ll:
- Explore different business development resume samples
- Learn how to set up a business development manager resume
- And also download a sample business development manager resume pdf for your inspiration
- Etc.
So if you’re ready to go “all in” with business resumes, let’s dive right in.
What is a Business Development Resume?
You have to picture business development resumes as an advertisement, and you as its product. In other words, you’re trying to sell yourself, skills and services to hiring managers, and get them to go on an interview with you.
Unfortunately, only about 5 out of hundreds of applicants actually earn an interview from a recruiting company!
What could be the reason for this?
According to a survey conducted by Manpower Group that involved 40,000 employers from 43 different countries:
On average, a single job post receives 250 resumes. While 8 out of 10 business resumes are discarded at a single 10-second glance, 4 out of the remaining resumes are discarded after a 45-second detailed review.
So if the math’s right, out of 250 resumes on a single job post, only 100 are selected for further review!
Therefore, only 6 seconds is the average time it takes for a recruiter to evaluate an applicant’s resume – so you have to make that 6-seconds count via your resume.
Business Development Manager Resume Requirements
Below are the most important and basic contents to include in your resume:
1. Contact information
Believe it or not, this is the most critical section of your business development resume.
It’d be a shame that an HR manager won’t be able to get in touch with you just because misspelled your email.
Your contact information includes the following:
- First name/ last name
- Phone number
- Country/city
- Professional email address
- Active social media profile
N.B. if you’re applying from another country or city, specify in your cover letter if you are willing to relocate or not!
2. Professional job title
This can be your current position, but usually, it has to match the position as advertised in the job ad.
Your job title could be as simple as “Senior Data Scientist or Digital Marketing Specialist.”
A basic business development manager resume contact section and job title look something like:
3. Summary
This is a simple 2-3 sentence summary of your career or specified role. A resume summary is one of the basic requirements for every resume unless you’re switching careers or a recent university graduate (in that case, you have to make use of a resume objective).
A good business development manager resume summary looks something like:
OR
4. Objective
Just like I said earlier, this is a basic requirement for university graduates and individuals switching careers with little or no experience.
A resume objective, in a nutshell, helps to communicate your goals and motivation for getting into a new field.
As it is with a resume summary, it’s best to keep your resume objective between 2-3 sentences.
Here are some examples:
For undergraduates:
For individuals going through a career change:
All these are just prerequisites of what recruiters and HR managers really want to see in your resume… Other required metrics include:
1: Growth – What did you bring in to your previous company?
Recruiters are more interested in knowing about your key performance indicators (KPI) for your past roles.
For example, if you say you’re a sales expert, you’ll be accessed by how much revenue you drove, how many new customers you brought-in, etc… And most importantly, how were you able to do achieve all these!
Depending on your stated role, recruiters would be on the lookout for terms like:
- Closed deals
- Hired candidates
- Revenue generated
- Secured partnerships
- Website traffics and leads generated
2: Cost-efficient – What did you save for your previous company?
In a lot of cases, recruiters want to know what you helped your formal company save or reduce.
So, in drafting out your business development manager resume, it’s best to find a concrete way to measure how you helped your company save (reduce) on either of the following:
- Budget
- Time
- Client’s turnover
- Employees’ turnover
- Website bounce rates
Business Development Resume Sample
Here’s an example:
>> Discovered five key areas of redundant spending while conducting an internal budget audit and saved $21,000 yearly. >> Uncovered four major bottlenecks in the hiring process and headed a task force to implement new technologies and strategies to overcome them, resulting in 37% quicker time to hire.
3: Value – How many people did you add value to?
Recruiters are not only interested in the kind of value you added to your customers and clients. They are also interested in how influential you were with the people you worked with…
When drafting out your business resume, it’s important to consider the people metrics… Use only the ones that might be relevant to your role:
- Number of fellow employees you supported (for functions like HR or IT)
- Number of customers you managed
- Number of clients or users your work impacted
- Number of team members you led
- Number of stakeholders you worked with, in a project
Below is also a perfect business development resume sample:
>>Coached and mentored a team of eight direct reports on the factory floor to ensure top-notch quality of products used by consumers. >>Ran the day-to-day and strategic HR operations for a company of 69 people.
4: Experience – How frequent did you complete tasks?
Understanding how frequently you carried out certain roles goes a long way in helping hiring managers and recruiters reading your resume understand how well-versed you are in your niche.
Recruiters and hiring managers use this to distinguish between novices and experts, by how much time spent practicing!
When drafting out your business development manager’s resume, it’s best to take a good look at the job description to see which key responsibilities and skills your recruiter got listed out.
For example:
#1: Applying for a position that lists analytical skills as a requirement, you might want to describe how you pulled weekly site reports using Google Analytics…
Note how I singled out the word ‘weekly’, this shows your hiring manager how frequent you were with your role!
#2: Applying for a PR position that lists out media relations as a requirement in the job description, you may want to describe how you pitched reporters on a daily basis.
In describing your work experience to recruiters, timing is everything. See example below:
>>Analyzed performance metrics to develop and present 5 strategic social media plans yearly. >>Spent 18 hours daily utilizing Python, R and SQL to analyze large volumes of data to aid decision-making processes.
Numbers make a huge difference when drafting out a business resume!
The above-listed requirements are a must-have for any business resume… But if you want to have an edge against your fellow applicants, you may want to consider including any of these in your resume:
Awards & Certifications
The fact that you’re able to show recruiters and HR managers of the skills and services you say you’ve got, gives you an edge over other applicants for the job.
Certifications and proof of awards is the best way to do this!
Whichever the case may be, as long as it is relevant to the position you’re applying for, feel free to add it to your business development resume.
It’s also very important to note that, even the littlest of all certifications does matter. So, that Udemy certification you got from training on the platform, don’t hesitate to include it in your resume.
Hobbies & Interests
Including this in your business development manager’s resume helps your employers understand you better!
Employers know that life is not all about work! work! work! There should also be time set out to have fun.
So, if you find some extra space in your resume, don’t be shy to show off your personality with a hobbies/interests section.
Languages
Being bi-lingual, or better still, multi-lingual gives you a major edge over the rest of applicants in a job opening.
Even if the job opening doesn’t require you to know a specific language, it can still come in handy at some point.
And please, never lie of a language skill you don’t have.
Voluntary Experience
According to a survey conducted by Deloitte:
It leaves the impression that you’d be a really devoted and loyal employee!
In fact:
Studies show that you have a better chance of getting hired simply by listing out your volunteering experience in your business resume.
Almost every resume is submitted in a business development manager resume pdf format—that’s like the basic standard.
Though, some recruiters may require that you send your resume in an MS Word format… If they do, please comply!
Finally, click here to download the business development manager resume pdf sample.
But make sure you understand the business development manager job description before submitting your application.