ATS Keywords
Business Development Manager CV Keywords That Beat the ATS
Most Business Development Manager applications are filtered by an applicant tracking system before a recruiter ever opens the CV, and generic sales language rarely matches what the software is scanning for. ATS parsers look for specific nouns, such as partnership types, CRM platforms, and deal metrics, rather than adjectives like 'driven' or 'passionate', so matching the right keywords to the job posting is often the difference between an interview and an automatic rejection.
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Must-Have Keywords
Include these keywords in your CV to improve your ATS score.
Strengthen Your CV
Power Phrases
Use these multi-word phrases to strengthen your CV.
Avoid These
Words to Avoid
Remove these overused or weak words from your CV.
ATS Score
Before & After ATS Optimization
Before
Missing Keywords
After
Added Keywords
Formatting
ATS-Friendly Format Tips
Use standard section headers, such as 'Professional Experience', 'Skills', and 'Education', rather than creative titles like 'My Journey', which many parsers fail to recognize.
Avoid tables, text boxes, and multi-column layouts; ATS software often scrambles or drops content placed inside them.
Spell out acronyms at least once, writing 'Customer Relationship Management (CRM)' so the CV matches searches for either the full term or the abbreviation.
Save and submit as a .docx unless the posting explicitly requests a PDF; some older ATS platforms still parse Word documents more reliably.
List CRM and sales-tool names explicitly, such as Salesforce, HubSpot, or Pipedrive, rather than just 'CRM software', since recruiters often filter by specific platform.
Use standard bullet points instead of custom icons or symbols, which can render as blank characters or broken text after parsing.
FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
Not word-for-word, but you should mirror the core terms. If the posting says 'strategic partnerships', use that phrase rather than a synonym like 'alliance building', since most ATS platforms do literal or near-literal keyword matching.
Yes. Listing 'Salesforce' or 'HubSpot' by name is more likely to match a recruiter's filtered search than the generic term 'CRM software', since many ATS searches are run against specific tool names.
Two to four times across your summary, experience bullets, and skills section is usually enough to register as relevant without triggering keyword-stuffing filters some newer ATS platforms flag.
Modern ATS platforms such as Workday, Greenhouse, and Lever parse PDFs fine, but older or smaller-company systems can still struggle, so a clean, text-based .docx is the safer default unless a PDF is specifically requested.
Yes. A dedicated skills section is one of the easiest places for an ATS to find exact-match keywords, but back every listed skill up with a bullet point of proof in your experience section, or a recruiter reading the parsed CV will notice the gap.
Aim for a match well above 80% against the specific job posting's keywords, since many companies set an automatic cutoff around 75-80% and never route lower-scoring CVs to a human recruiter.
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