Hire a Business Development Executive in India — 2026
A Business Development Executive opens new accounts rather than servicing existing ones — research, outreach and getting a first meeting with people who did not ask to hear from you.
Employers already hiring Business Development Executives on MyInternships.in
What a Business Development Executive actually does
- Research and build target account and prospect lists
- Run outbound outreach across calls, email and LinkedIn
- Qualify prospects against agreed criteria before passing them on
- Book and sometimes run first meetings with decision-makers
- Maintain accurate CRM records and pipeline hygiene
- Feed market objections and competitor intelligence back to the team
- Support proposals, quotations and follow-through to closure
Skills to screen for
Must have
Worth paying more for
Qualifications employers ask for
- Any graduate; BBA/MBA common for B2B
- Strong written English for email outreach
- Local language for regional markets
What it costs to hire a Business Development Executive
Indicative Indian market ranges. Metro and specialist roles sit at the upper end.
What makes this hire hard
Test written outreach with a live exercise — most BD work happens in email and LinkedIn now, and the ability to write something a stranger will reply to is rarer than confident speech. Ask for actual meeting-booking numbers; candidates who cannot quote their own activity metrics usually did not have any.
Questions that separate a real candidate from a padded CV
- 1Write me a cold email to this prospect right now.
- 2How many meetings did you book per month, from what activity volume?
- 3How do you research an account before reaching out?
- 4What do you do after four unanswered follow-ups?
A realistic Business Development Executive interview process
- 1.CV screening
- 2.Written outreach exercise
- 3.Cold-call role-play
- 4.Pipeline and metrics discussion
- 5.Sales head round
Hiring a Business Development Executive — questions employers ask
BDE or Sales Executive — what is the difference?
A BDE opens new accounts and is measured on pipeline created; a sales executive typically converts and manages. Advertise the one you mean, because the skill sets and temperaments differ.
What predicts BD success?
Activity discipline and written clarity. Talent for conversation matters less than doing the unglamorous research and follow-up consistently.
Should BD carry a revenue target?
Usually a pipeline or meetings target rather than closed revenue, since they do not control the close. Mixing the two demotivates good BD people quickly.
Related roles employers hire alongside this one
Hiring a Business Development Executive?
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