GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Why Business Development & Sales?

In 2026, Account Executives overtook software engineers as the most in-demand remote job title globally — a clear signal that sales and business development have moved to the center of the modern economy. Every company, from early-stage startups to Fortune 500 enterprises, depends on professionals who can identify opportunities, build relationships, and drive revenue growth.

Business Development & Sales is one of the most dynamic, high-impact, and rewarding career paths you can pursue. Here's why:

• Universal demand. Sales and BD roles exist in every industry — tech, finance, healthcare, energy, FMCG, and beyond. The skills you develop are transferable across sectors and geographies.

• Accelerated earning potential. Unlike most entry-level roles, BD & Sales positions typically include variable compensation (base salary + commission/bonus), often outpacing peers in other functions early in their careers.

• Meritocratic career growth. Sales is one of the few fields where performance is directly measurable. Top performers are promoted faster, regardless of seniority, making it an ideal path for ambitious, results-driven professionals.

•AI is your co-pilot, not your replacement. 70% of top-performing sales teams already use AI in their daily workflows, and sales professionals save an average of 2 hours and 15 minutes per day using AI-powered tools. Rather than eliminating roles, AI is elevating them — automating repetitive tasks so you can focus on strategy, creativity, and human connection.

The 2026 Landscape: A Field Transformed

If you picture sales as cold-calling from a cubicle, think again. The profession has undergone a fundamental transformation:

• AI-powered selling is the new baseline. Only 12% of companies don't use AI for prospecting — meaning AI-assisted sales is now the industry standard, not the exception. Tools like AI-driven lead scoring, conversation intelligence platforms (Gong, Chorus, Clari), and AI roleplay simulators are reshaping how professionals learn and sell.

• Digital-first and hybrid engagement. Remote and hybrid selling have become the norm. Professionals engage clients through a mix of in-person meetings, video calls, and digital touchpoints — expanding your reach far beyond a single geography.

• Data-driven decision making. Modern sales professionals leverage CRM analytics, buyer intent data, and predictive insights to make smarter decisions. The shift is from volume-based selling ("more calls = more deals") to precision-based selling ("right prospect, right message, right time").

Revenue as a team sport. Business Development, Sales, Customer Success, and Marketing increasingly operate as an integrated revenue engine — often coordinated through Revenue Operations (RevOps) teams. Understanding how these functions interconnect gives you a significant career advantage.

Career Paths Covered in This Guide

This guide serves as your roadmap to building a successful career across the interconnected roles that make up the revenue function:

Career Path What You'll Do

Business Development & Sales Identify new markets and opportunities, build pipeline, negotiate and close deals

Key Account Management Manage and grow relationships with a company's most strategic clients

Customer Success & Customer Service Ensure clients achieve their goals with your product/service, driving retention and expansion

These roles form a career ecosystem — many professionals start in business development or sales, then specialize into account management, customer success, or sales leadership as they grow. Throughout this guide, we'll explore each path in detail, the skills you need, and how to position yourself for success.

MAIN ROLES IN SALES & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

In different companies, the Sales & Business Development roles can have various titles. Please find out the main titles:

• Business Development Representative (BDR)
• Account Manager/Account Development Representative
• Associate Account Strategist
• Sales Development Representative (SDR)/Sales Development Associate
• Customer Success/Customer Solutions/Customer Services

SALES DEPARTMENT
The sales department drives the company’s growth by creating and managing the relationship with customers.

• Business Developers: they identify new markets, a new product or service offerings and new ways of reaching existing markets. Some of the main responsibilities in this job include developing a business strategy, negotiating with clients, hitting KPI and sales targets, creating sales reports, and travelling to meet with clients.
• Account Managers: they take over from the Business Developers after the initial sales or sign-up, maintaining and developing existing client relationship, looking after commercial communications with clients and upselling or cross-selling between these clients. From beginning to post-sale, they’re involved with project management, negotiation and strategic planning. Other aspects of the job are answering client queries and finding new business opportunities among existing customers. Also, they are expected to work with internal teams, especially Customer Service and Product Development, to improve the customer experience.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT

Business development professionals work to develop a company by evaluating their performance and looking for areas to improve. Improvement may come in the form of building and maintaining relationships with allies and partners, or it may involve identifying opportunities for growth in other channels. Working in business development offers growth potential and the option to have a fulfilling career.

Business development is the identification of long-term methods to increase value through the development of relationships, markets, and customers. The core responsibility of a business developer is to grow a business. Depending on the industry, the day-to-day tasks and strategies to achieve this goal will vary, but the overall mission remains the same.

Sales focuses on identifying leads, researching and developing them, and moving them along the sales cycle toward a closing.

Here find the article on the Differences between Sales and Business Development.

Business development & Sales departments are expected to work closely with Customer Services/ Customer Success teams.

CUSTOMER SERVICE

Customer service is more in-the-moment and reactive. It’s about zeroing in on specific issues and complaints, such as a technical malfunction or customer confusion surrounding a certain process or application, and figuring out the most effective way to solve them—all while providing customers with the best possible experience. Ideally, customers will walk away with their problems solved—and an increasingly positive perception of their relationship with your organization.

CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Customer success, meanwhile, is about the big picture. It involves taking customer data insights and turning them into strategic actions that will help your customers achieve their business goals (which, in turn, will help you achieve your own). The idea is to accomplish this while providing customers with a great experience. The focus is on optimizing the value your customers derive from their investment in your products or services.

Here find the article on Customer Success vs. Customer Service: How they work together.

Tech companies are hiring worldwide for Business Development & Sales roles, especially junior profiles (internships and graduate programs).

Check out the Careers webpages of the main Top Tech companies where you can find opportunities in the area of Sales & Business Development.

Recommendation: use the search engine tool filtering by job type, area, region/country, and using keywords, like business development, sales, graduate, etc.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT & SALES IN THE FINANCIAL SECTOR

In Financial Sales roles, your job is to sell a financial services company’s products and services or to help clients select financial products or services. This often includes insurance, banking services, investments, and similar products. Clients can be private individuals or corporate clients.

This is a highly-skilled role and one that carries with it a great amount of responsibility, as the market and its products are in constant change.

If you work in financial sales, your job will likely consist of connecting customers with suitable or customized financial products. Financial products often include insurance and investment products.

Some subsectors in Finance to consider if interested in Sales & Business Development roles:

GLOBAL MARKETS (SALES & TRADING)
When people think of investment banking, they tend to imagine the trading floor. Although sales & trading is just one part of a bank’s work, it is where a lot of its commercial activity takes place.

In simple terms, traders buy and sell products like equity (stocks) and debt (bonds) and commodities (like oil and natural gas) and execute foreign exchange deals that make an incremental profit.

• Read detailed guide on Sales & Trading here: Global Markets (Sales & Trading)
• Some leaders in this area include Barclays, Citi, JPMorgan, Bank of America, Deutsche Bank, etc.

PRIVATE WEALTH MANAGEMENT (PRIVATE BANKING)
Private wealth management refers to investment management and financial planning for individual investors. The private wealth sector has grown considerably as global wealth has increased and as individuals have taken on more of the responsibility for managing their own financial resources. Private wealth managers can help individual investors seek the benefits as well as navigate the complexities of financial markets.

• Read detailed guide on Private Wealth Management here: Private Wealth Management
• Some leaders in this area include Morgan Stanley, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, Bank of America, etc.

FINTECH
It’s also worth mentioning that fintech is one of the growing trends in the financial sector, with numerous opportunities in Business Development and Sales.

• Read Corporate Finance Institute’s intro to Fintech here: Fintech
• Some leaders in this area include Revolut, N26, Klarna, Qonto, Capchase, Moonfare, etc.

For detailed info on opportunities in the finance sector, check out our Finance Professionals Online Guide.

Main Industry Sectors where sales and business development profiles are in demand:

CONSTRUCTION SECTOR
In this sector sales and business development profiles with a technical background are generally in demand due to the type of products they sell, as well as the type of interlocutor (Purchasing, Site Managers, Installation Managers, etc.).

• Main roles in demand: Commercial Technicians, KAM, Product Managers, Sales Executives, Inside Sales, etc.
• Examples of companies: 3M, Sika, Knauf, Saint Gobain, Hilti, Makita, Uralita, etc.

*Many of the industrial companies that manufacture building products also have an industry-focused division.

CHEMICAL SECTOR
Generally, sales are technical and can range from the sale of chemical specialties and commodities, as well as finished products for Industry (abrasives, industrial adhesives, protection equipment, instrumentation, tools, machinery, etc.).

Generally, these are sales with a technical component, and the interlocutors the salespeople focus on are usually from the purchasing and technical departments.

• Main roles in demand: Insides Sales, Technical Sales, Sales Executive, KAM, Product Manager, Business Development Roles, etc.
• Examples of companies: BASF, Ravago Chemicals, Brenntag, 3M, Henkel, Avery Dennison, Nitto, Dow Chemical, Air Liquide, Dupont, etc.

MANUFACTURING SECTOR
This sector encompasses a number of sub-sectors such as petroleum, plastics, electronics, computers, metal fabrication, wood, leather and paper, etc.

The main characteristic is that companies have a production process, usually several industrial plants and the optimal management of the supply chain and production process is essential to optimize the profitability of sales.

Generally, sales and business development profiles in this sector negotiate with technical and purchasing departments.

Main roles in this sector: Sales Executive, Inside Sales, BDM, KAM, Product Manager, etc.
Examples of companies: Siemens, Honeywell, Caterpillar, Drager, Emerson, ABB, Johnson Controls, etc.

AUTOMOTIVE SECTOR
Tiered supply chains are common in industries such as automotive manufacturing, where the final product is made up of many complex components and sub-assemblies that must meet stringent quality, manufacturing, and business standards.

Within the automotive sector, we must differentiate between two main blocks:

Manufacturers: Ford, Nissan, Daimler, Porsche, Ferrari, SEAT, BMW etc.

Auxiliary Sector (TIER 1 / TIER 2):

• Tier 1
  They sell mainly to car manufacturers. They are Tier 1 suppliers. Manufacturers of fully finished systems, subsystems and components for direct supply to the vehicle manufacturer. Examples of multinational TIER 1 ( VALEO, Faurecia, Benteler, Lear, Antolin, Fagor, Plastic Omnium etc.)
• Tier 2
  They sell mainly to TIER 2 ( Tier 2 (Tier 2) suppliers are responsible for manufacturing for Tier 1 (Tier 1) the parts required for the manufacture of suitable components, using raw materials supplied by Tier 3 or Tier 3 suppliers, with whom they are closely linked.)

Generally, sales and business development profiles are more in demand in TIER 1 and TIER 2, and the interlocutors are usually the purchasing and technical departments.

Main roles in demand: Sales Engineers, Sales Executive, Inside Sales, KAM, Product Manager, AfterSales, etc.

ENERGY SECTOR
In this sector, the renewable energy subsector is the most in demand.

We are mainly divided into two blocks:

• Sales of projects (solar energy, wind, biomass, hydrogen, photovoltaic self-consumption, hybrids, energy communities, etc.). The type of interlocutor that the commercials in this sector focus on varies according to the project type and size.
• Product sales (batteries, solar panels, trackers, electrical /electronic components, etc.). Generally for the sale of projects, the sale is more consultative as it is an intangible.

The most demanded profiles in this sector are Commercial Engineers, KAM, BDM, Sales Executives, Technical Sales, etc.

Examples of companies: EDP, X Elio, GRI, Vestas, Ampere, Powen, Capital Energy, Perfecta Energía, Solaria, GE, Siemens Gamesa, etc.

In the industrial world, the sales and business development jobs are usually related to B2B, that is, the selling of services or products manufactured by the company you are working for, to another company.

Energy Brokers:
Energy brokers are the liaisons between energy producers and consumers of energy products. They work with residential or commercial energy companies. They negotiate the prices of energy products and contracts to help lower energy costs for daily operations for businesses and monthly energy bills for homeowners. Energy brokers also forecast the supply and demand of energy and monitor the flow of energy as consumer demand changes. Approximately 2,200 energy brokers are employed in the energy industry.

firsthand.co/professions/energy-brokers

What a professional in the FMCG sales & BD role will be expected to do:

Business Development and Sales are a main part role in the FMCG, as ultimately the business depends on sales. As all companies within that sector are B2C and not B2B and focus on short term sales, it goes without saying that Sales and BD roles have a huge impact on the overall performance of the company. The FMCG is a very competitive and mature market that employs both on trade and off trade (traditional channel like carrefour). As the most important channel is retail in FMCG, Sales & BD roles are directly linked to the success of the company.

Graduate programs are good entry point for candidates looking to enter the BD & sales spectrum but another effective way to enter the FMCG world is from an internal sales position. Coming from an internal sales position successfully prepares you for a client-facing, account-management role. Having sales experience in FMCG leads to successful growth as you get to learn about brands, consumers, market and competition in the most direct and effective way. Usually, one enters a field sales position and can progress onto key account manager and eventually can become a sales director or head of sales. Career growth in FMCG is quite steady and linear as you are rewarded for the performance you give.

PRACTICAL ACTIVITY I - GET TO KNOW THE MARKET

Now that you have learned more about the job role of Business Development & Sales, make a list of the Top 10 companies you would like to work at. This is the minimum number of companies you should have under your radar, as getting a job is a job itself and you need to really work on it to get the best opportunity!

To do so:

• Check out the company website to get some insights on how their business works
• Chek out their LinkedIn page and start following them
• Speak with at least 3 Alumni working in your area(s) of interest.
  You can use IE Firsthand Platform or your personal network of people working in those companies/sectors/functions.

For all the companies on your list, identify the following:

• The subsector they belong to
• Two potential roles you would like to apply to: search in the IE Career Portal, Company Web Page, JobTeaser, and LinkedIn.
  Tip for LinkedIn: save your searches in order to receive notifications for new openings!
• One industry trend applied by the company (this will be super helpful when preparing for the application process)
• Research the interview feedback for your target companies, via Glassdoor or Wikijob.

Once you have the target list, expand your research. You can download this spreadsheet and fill it out! This will help you get started on your internship/job search and start preparing for the application process, by tracking all the opportunities you are going to apply for.

DESIRED STUDENT PROFILE

In most cases, you'll need experience in sales, marketing, or business management. Certain skills are also vital to your success in this field, including those in sales, communication, negotiation, marketing, data analysis, and project management. By building these skills, you can increase your chances of success in the field of business development and sales.

Working in sales requires self-confidence and persistence.

Sales workers need to have good interpersonal skills and get along with many types of people. They also must be able to listen to the customer's needs and preferences, both before and after a sale. Success often depends on building a relationship with the client.

Main skills for Business Development & Sales background

PRACTICAL ACTIVITY II - CV CUSTOMIZATION

This is the moment to apply the knowledge acquired in the previous sections and boost your applications!

1. Tailor your CV using the keywords and key insights from the previous sections. Use the IE CV Template as your base. You can introduce the keywords mainly in the professional summary, although you can use the following sections as well: "Relevant Subjects", "Thesis Project", "Relevant Experience" and "Extracurricular Activities".
2. Review the description of your experiences mentioned in your CV. Make sure you rephrase them using keywords from the specific sector of the company and from the job description.
3. Upload your CV as a one-page PDF format to the Career Portal, so you can use it for your applications. We have direct connections with lots of good companies, so don't miss out the opportunity of applying to what they publish in the portal.

Make sure to check all Talent & Careers communications in order to see more options how to gain experience.

WHAT ABOUT INTERNSHIPS IN SALES AND BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT?

Carrying out an internship in order to gain more experience in this area will be a plus. It can be an internship in sales, customer services, public relations, business development, or other related areas.

You can start applying to internships as soon as your first year of studies (but remember to check the calendar of Internship Periods with your Academic department first).

Take into account that companies usually offer long-term internships internships to penultimate or last-year students.

That is why it is important to gain more experience through extracurricular activities, virtual internships (like those mentioned above) or look for summer or part-time internships in smaller companies or startups during your first years of studies.

PRACTICAL ACTIVITY III: GAIN EXPERIENCE AND ENRICH YOUR CV

Here you have your To-Do List of actions to strengthen your professional profile:

• Join IEU Clubs, and make sure you’re active.
• Complete at least 1 virtual experience.
• Attend at least 5 sector-specific events per year/Attend the IE Talent Forum or sector-specific recruitment events.
• Network with at least a couple of IE alumni working in your sector of interest.

STEPS OF THE RECRUITMENT PROCESS

Application is usually done online, on the company’s website (check first with your Career Advisor if you can have a referral before you apply)

WHERE TO APPLY

Use the list of the companies which have been mentioned above for each sector.

Create a “target list” of the companies you're interested in, check the requirements, and if applicable apply directly through their career websites or through referral.

Referral programs: Some Tech companies, like Google, Amazon, Salesforce, etc. have a referral program, which is a deliberate recruitment strategy rewarding staff for referring suitable and qualified candidates from their pool of contacts. T&C can help you find the right career referral, but only when you haven't applied through the official webpage yet.

It might not apply to other sectors, where you need to apply directly through the careers webpage.

Reach out to IE Alumni: who are currently working in the companies of your interest. Try to secure informal informative meetings for insights and advice. You can use the IE Alumni Directory and LinkedIn.

WHERE TO APPLY

GRADUATE PROGRAMS
A fast-tracked 1-2 or even 3-year career pathway for a specific organization or industry. Usually, you are offered industry-specific training, professional development, and networking opportunities.

Many graduate programs also offer the opportunity to perform multiple roles in an organization on a rotating basis, giving you more exposure to a range of different jobs within your chosen field. These programs usually start in September, and the application process can be started up to one year beforehand. For example, Graduate Jobs & Schemes.

Remember about Resources from Talent & Careers:

• Talent Forum and other specific recruiting events organized virtually or on-campus.
• Talent & Careers Weekly Newsletter: E-mail sent by Talent & Careers every week (events, competitions, internship opportunities, graduate programs etc.).
• Career Portal: Talent & Careers’ job platform where you upload your CV and apply to opportunities.

OTHER GUIDES:

• Client Service Managers
• Sales Engineers
• Sales Managers
• Sales Representatives