Development director resume examples from 2025

A resume summary is your opening statement that highlights your strongest skills and top accomplishments. It is your chance to quickly let recruiters know who you are professionally - and why they should hire you for the development director role.

Step 1: Mention your current job title or the role you're pursuing.

Step 2: Include your years of experience in development director-related roles. Consider adding relevant company and industry experience as relevant to the job listing.

Step 3: Highlight your greatest accomplishments. Here is your chance to make sure your biggest wins aren't buried in your resume.

Step 4: Again, keep it short. Your goal is to summarize your experience and highlight your accomplishments, not write a paragraph.

These four steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some development director interviews.

Your Skills section is a place to list all relevant skills and abilities. Here is how to make the most of your skills section and make sure you have the right keywords:

1. Look to the job listing. You often need to include the exact keywords from the job description. Take note of the skills listed for the job.
2. Put all relevant hard and soft skills in your skills section.
3. Be specific. If you are too broad, you may not be giving the best picture of your skills and leave the hiring manager uncertain of your abilities.
4. Be up to date. Software names change and companies merge. Don't look out of touch by being careless.
5. Be accurate. Spelling and even upper or lowercase can dramatically change meanings. Make sure you are correctly listing your skills.

These five steps should give you a strong elevator pitch and land you some development director interviews.

Your work experience should be structured:

1. With your most recent roles first, followed by earlier roles in reverse chronological order.
2. Job title, along with company name and location on the left.
3. Put the corresponding dates of employment on the left side.
4. Keep only relevant jobs on your work experience.

Remember, your resume is not a list of responsibilities or a job description. This is your chance to show why you're good at your job and what you accomplished.

Use the XYZ formula for your work experience bullet points. Here's how it works:

• Use strong action verbs like Led, Built, or Optimized.
• Follow up with numbers when possible to support your results. How much did performance improve? How much revenue did you drive?
• Wrap it up by explaining the actions you took to achieve the result and how you made an impact.

This creates bullet points that read Achieved X, measured by Y, by doing Z.

Here are great bullet points from development director resumes:

Here is the best way to format your education section:

• Display your highest degree first.
• If you graduated over 5 years ago, put this section at the bottom of your resume. If you lack relevant work experience, the education section should go to the top.
• If you have a bachelor's or master's degree, do not list your high school education.
• If your graduation year is more than 15-20 years ago, it's better not to include dates in this section.

Here are some examples of good education entries from development director resumes:

If you have any additional certifications or education-like achievements, add them to the education section.

To list, use the full name of the certification and the organization that issued it, along with the date of achievement.

If you have any of these certifications, be sure to include them on your development director resume:

1. Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE)
2. Certified Manager Certification (CM)
3. Certified Professional - Human Resource (IPMA-CP)
4. Certified Planning Engineer (CPE)
5. Certified Real Estate Inspector (CRI)
6. Project Management Professional (PMP)
7. Certified Sales Professional (CSP)
8. Program Management Professional (PgMP)
9. Professional Certified Marketer (PCM)
10. Certified Management Accountant (CMA)