What Does a Business Development Specialist Do?

Most business development specialists list “work ethic,” “crm,” and “customer service” as skills on their resumes. We go into more details on the most important business development specialist responsibilities here:

Analytical skills can be considered to be the most important personality trait for a business development specialist to have. According to a business development specialist resume, “advertising, promotions, and marketing managers must be able to analyze industry trends to determine the most promising strategies for their organization.” Business development specialists are able to use analytical skills in the following example we gathered from a resume: “cultivated internal and external customer relationships, tracked and analyzed profit performance, and executed business reviews/customer needs analysis. “

Another commonly found skill for being able to perform business development specialist duties is the following: communication skills. According to a business development specialist resume, “managers must be able to communicate effectively with a broad-based team made up of other managers or staff members during the advertising, promotions, and marketing process.” Check out this example of how business development specialists use communication skills: “build new business relationships and maintain existing customer relationships using effective communication skills. “

Creativity is also an important skill for business development specialists to have. This example of how business development specialists use this skill comes from a business development specialist resume, “advertising, promotions, and marketing managers must be able to generate new and imaginative ideas.” Read this excerpt from a resume to understand how vital it is to their everyday roles and responsibilities, “created inventory systems and ordering protocol for professional product lines. “

In order for certain business development specialist responsibilities to be completed, the job requires the skill “interpersonal skills.” According to a business development specialist resume, “managers must deal with a range of people in different roles, both inside and outside the organization.” As an example, this snippet was taken directly from a resume about how this skill applies: “possessed strong customer goal orientation, and excellent interpersonal, communication and pc skills. “

Another common skill for a business development specialist to be able to utilize is “organizational skills.” Advertising, promotions, and marketing managers must manage their time and budget efficiently while directing and motivating staff members. A business development specialist demonstrated the need for this skill by putting this on their resume: “utilized excellent organizational and planning skills to prioritize many tasks for multiple projects and events. “

See the full list of business development specialist skills.

After discovering the most helpful skills, we moved onto what kind of education might be helpful in becoming a business development specialist. We found that 72.7% of business development specialists have graduated with a bachelor’s degree and 11.1% of people in this position have earned their master’s degrees. While most business development specialists have a college degree, you may find it’s also true that generally it’s possible to be successful in this career with only a high school degree. In fact, our research shows that one out of every eight business development specialists were not college graduates.

Those business development specialists who do attend college, typically earn either business degrees or marketing degrees. Less commonly earned degrees for business development specialists include communication degrees or finance degrees.

Once you’re ready to become a business development specialist, you should explore the companies that typically hire business development specialists. According to business development specialist resumes that we searched through, business development specialists are hired the most by Oracle, Randstad North America, Inc., and Deloitte. Currently, Oracle has 187 business development specialist job openings, while there are 128 at Randstad North America, Inc. and 34 at Deloitte.

But if you’re interested in companies where you might earn a high salary, business development specialists tend to earn the biggest salaries at Corsair, SeaChange International, and Cisco. Take Corsair for example. The median business development specialist salary is $104,377. At SeaChange International, business development specialists earn an average of $101,426, while the average at Cisco is $98,530. You should take into consideration how difficult it might be to secure a job with one of these companies.

View more details on business development specialist salaries across the United States.

If you earned a degree from the top 100 educational institutions in the United States, you might want to take a look at IBM, Oracle, and Staples. These three companies have hired a significant number of business development specialists from these institutions.

In general, business development specialists fulfill roles in the technology and professional industries. While employment numbers are high in those industries, the business development specialist annual salary is the highest in the finance industry with $63,094 as the average salary. Meanwhile, the technology and telecommunication industries pay $61,024 and $59,852 respectively. This means that business development specialists who are employed in the finance industry make 16.0% more than business development specialists who work in the construction Industry.