Vice President of Business Development Sample
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For many companies, the Vice President of Business Development plays a vital role in identifying growth opportunities, forging partnerships, and expanding market access. These executives are often responsible for everything from setting sales goals and negotiating contracts to providing leadership for sales and marketing teams. To compete for this position, you need a VP of Business Development resume that powerfully conveys your skills, experiences, and achievements.
But how do you go about creating that type of resume? What format do you use, and which types of information should you include if you really want to capture an employer’s interest? In this VP of Business Development resume guide, we’ll answer those questions, provide key tips and tricks, and offer up a resume example that can help you learn to create your own stellar resume. If you’re looking to take the next step in your career journey, we have you covered.
How to write a resume
There’s more to writing a compelling resume than just documenting your skills and experience. As you might expect, every job seeker’s resume achieves that goal in one way or another. To truly stand out from those rival candidates, your resume needs to do something more; it needs to present a compelling narrative that sells you as the best person for the position. The following tips, tricks, and sample resume can provide the insight you need to take your resume to the next level of competitive success.
Apply the right format
Format and structure are vitally important for any successful resume. For an executive position, you will want to select either a reverse chronological format or a combination resume. In most cases, the reverse chronological will be the best option since it outlines your work experience in a clear and linear manner. That makes it easier for an employer to see your career progression and development as an executive.
Choose a simple structure
When it comes to structure, the simplest is best. Try to avoid creative resume outlines and instead focus on developing your narrative using a straightforward approach that groups different types of information into distinct sections. The following outline shows some of the most common and effective information sections that you can use to tell your unique story.
Contact details: Positioned right at the top of your resume, this section should contain all the information that any employer will need to reach you if they want to schedule an interview or offer you the job. Make sure that you include your full name, physical location, a working phone number, email address, and LinkedIn or other professional social media URL.
Executive summary statement: Gone are the days when resumes relied on an objective statement that outlined your career goals. Today’s employers want to see a brief summarization of your skills, experiences, and major accomplishments. Use just three to five sentences in this paragraph and try to create a compelling elevator pitch that demonstrates your potential value to the organization.
Core competencies: This section includes both hard and soft skills. Try to use the same terminology the company used in its job description to ensure that your resume can satisfy any applicant tracking system the employer might be utilizing during its resume screening process.
Professional history: Your work history goes in this section and should include your previous job roles in reverse chronological order – beginning with your current or most recent position. Make sure that you include bullet point achievements for every position to highlight your business development talents and abilities. Use quantifiable achievements with real numbers to drive home the value you’re offering to the prospective employer.
Education: A good education section should include simple things like the names of the colleges you attended, the degree you earned, and the dates you graduated. You may also want to include details about your course of study, as well as any additional certifications and notable achievements.
Achievements: If you really want to emphasize your accomplishments for previous employers, add a separate section to highlight those achievements. Again, try to use real numbers to quantify the value you provided to your employers.
Proofread and edit everything
Once you’ve completed your first resume draft, spend as much time as needed to thoroughly proofread and edit the document. Go over it multiple times to eliminate any spelling and grammatical errors, and review for content. Remove any irrelevant information to ensure that the entire document is concise and targeted to the job you’re seeing.
Finally, have a trusted friend or family member read through it once or twice to ensure that it delivers the message you need to convey. If any problems are identified, revise it until it meets your expectations.
VP of Business Development resume example
A few words of advice are always helpful, but sometimes it helps to see those words in action. To that end, we have a VP of Business Development resume example that you can refer to as you create your own resume document. You can use this example as a template, modifying it to align with your own skills and experiences, or you can just use it as a guide.
Name
Title
City, State or Country if international
Phone | Email
LinkedIn URL
VICE PRESIDENT OF BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT PROFESSIONAL
Award-winning Vice President of Business Development reflecting expertise in providing successful customer-specific solutions catering to a wide array of industries on a global scale, including: OEM’s for the Medical, Government, Semiconductor, Biotechnology, and Alternative Energy. Drive new business through providing excellent customer service and establishes strategic partnerships with stakeholders and executives to increase channel revenue. Outstanding success in building and maintaining relationships with key decision-makers, establishing large volume accounts and ensuring client retention and loyalty. Able to succinctly articulate complex principles and to demonstrate product function to both business and technical users. Well organized with a track record that demonstrates self-motivation, perseverance and the creativity to achieve both personal and corporate goals. Extensive face-to-face interaction with a focus on client relationships, as well as management of partnering account teams to identify opportunities, then architect, position, and close new projects to provide all customers with exceptional results.
CORE COMPETENCIES
Strategic Market Positioning
Business Development
Brand Promotion
Solution Selling
High-Impact Sales
Territory Growth/ Development
Customer Service
Contract Negotiation
Training/ Development
Account Management
Project Management
Relationship Building
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Vice President of Business Development
COMPANY NAME | CITY, ST | MM/YYYY to MM/YYYY
Responsibilities
Lead product development while focusing on results, earning increased revenues of over $XXX.
Spearhead efforts to develop new products and continuously deliver profit driven revenue models.
Collaborate in cross-departmental teams, analyzing complex projects and developing product requirements to successfully lead business development efforts.
Streamline technical service and logistics aspects of new product lines, saving over $XX M annually.
Increase annual revenues by 50% annually taking a declining market to high-levels of sales within only one year.
Initiate cost benefit analyses for existing product lines and newly introduced products, ensuring top ROI.
Develop marketing and sales communication strategies, with new marketing campaigns resulting in an increase of brand recognition by over 40%.
Sales Manager
COMPANY NAME | CITY, ST | MM/YYYY to MM/YYYY
Responsibilities
Managed xx major accounts successfully through an acquisition/merger, adding $XX in monthly revenue.
Consistently achieved monthly sales quota by XX%.
Developed a team of 25 dedicated sales agents, growing territory revenues by over 20% in two years while creating a team focused on collaboration, teamwork, and results.
Designed a new line of management and sales to capitalize on market penetration, creating three categories, including Executive, Field, and Direct phone groups, ensuring maximum level of client support.
Expanded the Field agent team responsible for meeting our groups upon their arrival.
Created new strategic alliances in new markets resulting in greater marketing penetration.
Developed lasting relationships with contracts at which prove to be an excellent referral source.
Marketing Associate
COMPANY NAME | CITY, ST | MM/YYYY to MM/YYYY
Responsibilities
Fostered high service and client loyalty serving as a liaison for key, large scale telecom providers both locally and abroad.
Managed SWOT analysis on product positions with focus on increasing ARPU while lowering costs.
Introduced several new product lines successfully with emphasis on reducing churn whilst increasing customer brand loyalty.
EDUCATION
Complete School Name, City, St/Country: List Graduation Years If Within the Last Ten Years
Complete Degree Name (Candidate) – Major (GPA: List if over 3.3)
Relevant Coursework: List coursework taken (even include those you are planning on taking)
Awards/Honors: List any awards, honors or big achievements
Clubs/Activities: List clubs and activities in which you participated
Relevant Projects: List 2-3 projects you have worked on
Key hard & soft skills for a VP of Business Development
Like any major executive position, the role of a VP of Business Development requires a mix of well-developed technical skills and keen interpersonal abilities. Your resume needs to reflect that unique combination of core competencies in a way that showcases your business acumen and leadership skills. Below, we have listed some vital hard and soft skills that you should consider including in the core competencies section of your resume.
Key hard skills for a VP of Business Development
Hard skills include technical abilities and other talents that you’ve acquired through formal education, hands-on training, and other developmental processes. These core competencies are essential for fulfilling your role as a Vice President of Business Development. Some examples of key hard skills for your resume include:
Territorial growth strategies
Market positioning
Brand promotion
Training and development
Product development
ROI optimization strategies
Business development
Essential soft skills for a VP of Business Development
Of course, you use more than just hard skills in your executive role. You also utilize an array of soft and interpersonal skills to perform your duties and interact with others. Your VP of Business Development resume should include several of these vital skills to ensure that hiring managers understand why you’re the best candidate for the position. Below are some of the many skills you could include on your resume.
Excellent verbal and written communication
Relationship building
Contract negotiation
Critical thinking
Analytical thinking
Team building and collaboration
Leadership
Summary & last words
When you’re pursuing a role in an executive position, it is vital to have a stellar resume that effectively highlights the potential value you can offer to any employer’s leadership team. By choosing the right format and structure and including crucial information about your skills, experience, achievements, and other qualifications, you can deliver a compelling narrative to earn a critical job interview. Remember, the most successful resume is one that markets your capabilities and value in a way that showcases you as the absolute best candidate for the job!
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