Sales & Business Development Resume Template
The Best Resume for Sales & Business Development
Sales is the one job where your resume should practically write itself — because everything in sales has a number attached to it. Quota. Attainment. Average deal size. Ramp time. Pipeline generated. If your resume doesn't have numbers everywhere, you're leaving your best tool in the bag. From executive recruiters who've placed VPs of Sales, enterprise AEs, and BD leads at the most competitive companies in the world.
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Resumes created
10 sec
To impress a screener
👩
JESSICA LANG
💻 Software Developer
🌟 Skills
JavaScript★★★★★
React★★★★☆
Leadership★★★★★
📬 Contact
📱 (123) 456-7890
🏆 Awards
🥇 Employee of Month
Jessica Lang
Passionate & Innovative | Problem Solver | Team Player | Change Maker
Results-driven professional with a demonstrated history of delivering impactful solutions. Passionate about leveraging synergistic technologies.
💼 Experience
⚡ Role Title
🏢 Some Company · Jan 2021–Present
Collaborated cross-functionally with diverse stakeholders
Leveraged cutting-edge best practices and agile methodologies
🛠️ Skills
⚡
Before — the resume that gets ignored
After — click to build yours in seconds! ↑
The 10-Second Rule
What a sales hiring manager looks for on a resume, in order of importance:
Sales resumes get reviewed fast and with a specific lens: Did they hit quota? What were they selling, to whom, and at what deal size? What's their ramp time? Did they carry a bag or manage a team? The screener — whether it's a recruiter or a Sales VP doing their own initial review — is answering those questions before anything else. Make those answers impossible to miss.
What a screener processes in under 10 seconds:
① Quota Attainment
% of Quota · Years at or Above · President's Club
This is the single biggest signal on any sales resume. If you hit quota consistently, say so explicitly and early. "108% of quota in FY24, 122% in FY23, President's Club 2022" is a three-line story that gets you an interview. If your attainment was inconsistent, frame your best years and context your misses.
Quota = The Whole Story
② Deal Profile
ACV · Cycle Length · Segment · Complexity
Enterprise AE and SMB SDR are both "sales," but they're completely different roles. Your deal profile — average contract value, typical sales cycle, buyer persona, deal complexity — needs to be clear so screeners can evaluate fit. An enterprise hiring manager won't assume you've closed seven-figure deals if you don't say so.
Profile = Fit Signal
③ Employer & Market
Salesforce? Gong? Series B SaaS? Legacy enterprise?
Where you've sold matters enormously. Product-led vs. outbound, PLG motion vs. field sales, established brand vs. scrappy startup — each requires a different skill set. Use a company overview bullet to give screeners the context they need to understand what kind of sales you've actually done.
Company = Sales Context
④ Pipeline & Activity
Pipeline generated · Outbound volume · Conversion rates
Beyond quota, show your work: pipeline generated per quarter, outbound sequence conversion rates, sourced vs. inbound split, number of accounts managed. These metrics tell a hiring manager whether you can originate pipeline or if you've only closed handed-to-you leads — a significant distinction.
Activity = Methodology
⑤ The Goal of a Sales Resume
A sales resume that doesn't have numbers is like a sales call where you never ask for the close. You know better. Numbers in every bullet. Quota attainment front and center. Deal profile explicit. Make it so easy for the hiring manager to say yes that they feel like they'd be losing a deal if they didn't call you.
A resume is a blunt tool to land a phone call — and if anyone knows how to make a clear, compelling pitch to move someone to action, it's a sales person. Apply that skill to your own resume. Clear, specific, numbered, and unambiguous about what you've achieved.
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What actually works
✅ DO THIS on your sales & business development resume
- Include quota attainment in every relevant role — percentage, rank, President's Club.
- Specify your deal profile: ACV, cycle length, segment (SMB/Mid-Market/Enterprise).
- Show pipeline generated, not just revenue closed — especially for BDR/SDR roles.
- Include a company overview bullet: what does your company sell, to whom, at what scale?
- List your tech stack: CRM, sequencing tools, forecasting tools, enablement platforms.
- Separate sourced pipeline from inbound if you do both — it matters.
❌ NEVER DO THIS
- Don't write a single bullet without a number in it. "Exceeded expectations" is not a sales bullet.
- No summaries. "Results-oriented sales professional with a passion for building relationships…" is the worst opener you could write.
- Don't claim quota attainment you can't defend in a reference check or a detailed interview question.
- Don't list your responsibilities — list your results. Nobody cares that you "managed a pipeline." What was in it?
- Don't use a multi-column or styled resume. Sales hiring managers are busy. They want signal fast.
- Don't omit President's Club or top performer recognition — it travels extremely well in sales hiring.
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The advice and product this site offers is solid. My responses from employers shot up, going from maybe 1 out of 50 applications to 1 out of 10.
Dan · Technical Support Engineer
Common questions
Best Sales & Business Development Resume FAQ
Answered honestly by Colin McIntosh, founder of Sheets Resume Builder and full-time executive recruiter.
What if I didn't hit quota? How do I handle that on my resume?
First, context matters. If you missed quota in a year where 80% of your team also missed, that's market/product/leadership — not you. You can say "87% of quota in FY23 (team median: 82%)" and turn a miss into a relative win. What you shouldn't do is just leave quota off entirely — experienced sales hiring managers will assume the worst if it's absent. Include attainment, contextualize where needed, and be prepared to discuss it directly. Honesty and self-awareness about a tough year tends to land much better than a resume that's clearly hiding something.
Should I include BDR/SDR experience on my AE resume?
Yes — but keep it brief if you've been an AE for a few years. Your SDR experience shows you understand the full funnel and have done outbound. That's valuable. One to three bullets on your SDR role, focused on outbound volume, pipeline generated, and conversion to qualified opportunity. Once you have 3+ years of AE experience, the SDR section should be a one-liner or removed entirely — your space is better spent on your closing track record.
How do I list sales experience if I've been in a hybrid sales/account management role?
Split the bullets to show both sides clearly: new logo acquisition (quota, ACV, close rate) and expansion/retention (NRR, expansion revenue, churn prevented). Hybrid roles are increasingly common, especially at startups, and the ability to do both is genuinely valuable. Just make sure the resume reader can understand both dimensions of what you did — a bullet that says "managed accounts while also closing new business" is less useful than two bullets that each have numbers behind them.