What is a Partner?

The role of a partner varies from organization to organization. What a business partnership entails is defined by the industry the companies are active in, their size, and revenue strategies. A partner has various responsibilities from generating sales to discovering further partnership opportunities and cultivating the existing ones.

There is no one path that leads to becoming a partner manager. It goes without saying that this is not an entry-level position, unless perhaps you are born into a business dynasty. In which case, you would not be browsing job search engines anyway.

So for the rest of us, there is a lot of groundwork and networking that goes into acquiring this position. Needless to say, if you do make it there, it is a lucrative career, with a yearly income averaging anywhere from $68,000 to $133,000.

What Does a Partner Do

There are certain skills that many partners have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed creativity, organizational skills and interpersonal skills.

Learn more about what a Partner does

How To Become a Partner

If you're interested in becoming a partner, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 58.8% of partners have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 11.0% of partners have master's degrees. Even though most partners have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Learn More About How To Become a Partner

Partner Job Description

A partner is a specialised and well-trained professional who provides advice and manages certain employees based on their area of expertise. Regardless of their field, a partner's duties also include creating business strategies and helping create policies.

Learn more about Partner Job Description
Top Partner Jobs Near You

Partner Career Paths

As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a partner can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as vice president, progress to a title such as sales vice president and then eventually end up with the title senior vice president, sales.

Partner

Average Salary for a Partner

Partners in America make an average salary of $76,119 per year or $37 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $182,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $31,000 per year.
Average Partner Salary
$76,119 Yearly
$36.60 hourly
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What Am I Worth?

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Roles and Types of Partner

The role of a partner includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general partner responsibilities:

  • Contributes to business performance by providing strategic consulting on people strategies, organization development
  • Maintain a positive attitude and smile greet customers as they approach the cash register
  • Cooks breakfast and lunch daily, with rigid adherence to safe food handling practices

There are several types of partner, including:

Marketing Manager

Role:

A Marketing Manager is a key person with many responsibilities when it comes to finding customers for a product. They contribute to creating and consistently maintaining an identity for the products a company sells and oversees the communication and placement of this brand on the market. They create growth strategies for the business, based on data analysis; organize efforts to promote products, generate revenues, and secure a steady pool of satisfied customers.

Marketing managers find ways to make sure the reputation of their company is impeccable. They design and implement marketing campaigns and track, analyze, and evaluate their performance.

They are creative thinkers who deploy sophisticated technologies to understand the most hidden desires of consumers and are able to frame a product in a way that creates desire, while discovering the channels of communication that hit the nail on the head.

  • Average Salary: $104,550
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Marketing Director

Role:

Marketing directors are responsible for their company's branding and image. This is a super-important job. The marketing directors hold the fate of the company in the palm of their hand. Without a marketing director, the company is sure to fail. Because how else is the public going to know about said company?

Using strategies, marketing directors are able to craft the image of a company. This enables that company to compete with other companies selling similar products. You know how coaches "scout" out the competition? Well, marketing directors do that and so much more. They want their team to win.

As a marketing director, employers are looking for people with at least a bachelor's degree. On top of that, you'll definitely need some experience walking into this position. As the company's lifeline, you need to know what you're doing.

  • Average Salary: $114,906
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree

Business Development Director

Role:

Many people seem to struggle with what business development entails. Mostly, because the business itself has so many different operational activities. But what it relates to is actually the act of acquiring new business to increase sales. Within the sales team, there are generally three important roles. The business development executive is responsible for generating leads and closing new accounts. An account manager is responsible for managing the relationship of these existing accounts. Last, but not least, a business development director is responsible for setting strategic plans to effectively chase, maintain, and deliver for new and existing business accounts.

A business development director is involved in tasks such as conducting market research, developing account management strategies, identifing business opportunities, and liaising between the sales team, vendor, and customers. Besides that, they track performance targets, handle requests for proposals, and facilitate the hiring and training of sales staff.

Employers require business development directors to have a bachelor's degree related to business. In addition, three to five years of relevant work experience need to be demonstrated. This role earns, on average, $57 per hour and suits individuals who have a passion for sales and management.

  • Average Salary: $117,784
  • Degree: Bachelor's Degree
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States With The Most Partner Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active partner jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where partners earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Partner Jobs By State

RankStateNumber of JobsAverage Salary
1California2,874$82,465
2New York1,167$112,301
3Texas1,097$56,925
4Illinois855$76,439
5Massachusetts771$97,368
6Florida722$55,267
7New Jersey641$103,339
8Washington608$79,366
9Pennsylvania574$91,718
10North Carolina539$64,760
11Virginia525$96,547
12Georgia466$63,311
13Ohio395$71,298
14Oregon342$65,562
15Minnesota321$66,548
16Arizona304$59,204
17Colorado285$52,975
18Missouri283$57,070
19Michigan241$82,101
20Maryland238$83,358
21Indiana233$64,466
22Wisconsin231$65,952
23Utah218$55,500
24Tennessee171$57,381
25Connecticut164$94,097
26Kansas146$55,255
27Arkansas134$54,314
28New Hampshire114$96,823
29Kentucky113$63,528
30Nevada103$70,291
31South Carolina100$61,468
32Louisiana100$56,251
33Idaho96$58,588
34Nebraska96$56,718
35Iowa86$59,863
36Maine83$88,142
37Oklahoma83$54,049
38Rhode Island74$92,909
39Alabama73$56,945
40Montana62$61,221
41New Mexico62$59,780
42Vermont51$101,267
43North Dakota42$78,757
44Mississippi37$58,567
45Delaware35$90,663
46West Virginia33$70,996
47Alaska20$81,800
48South Dakota19$64,347
49Wyoming17$60,751
50Hawaii14$42,719

Partner Education

Partner Majors

Business
22.6 %
Law
13.9 %
Accounting
7.4 %

Partner Degrees

Bachelors

58.8 %

Masters

11.0 %

Doctorate

10.9 %

Top Colleges for Partners

1. University of Georgia

Athens, GA • Private

In-State Tuition

$11,830

Enrollment

29,474

2. University of Wisconsin - Madison

Madison, WI • Private

In-State Tuition

$10,555

Enrollment

30,360

3. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Minneapolis, MN • Private

In-State Tuition

$14,760

Enrollment

31,451

4. Howard University

Washington, DC • Private

In-State Tuition

$26,756

Enrollment

6,166

5. University of Texas at Austin

Austin, TX • Private

In-State Tuition

$10,610

Enrollment

40,329

6. University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$56,225

Enrollment

19,548

7. Ohio State University

Columbus, OH • Private

In-State Tuition

$10,726

Enrollment

45,769

8. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,584

Enrollment

10,764

9. Stanford University

Stanford, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,354

Enrollment

7,083

10. Northwestern University

Evanston, IL • Private

In-State Tuition

$54,568

Enrollment

8,451

Top Skills For a Partner

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 15.6% of partners listed patients on their resume, but soft skills such as creativity and organizational skills are important as well.

  • Patients, 15.6%
  • Customer Service, 14.3%
  • Healthcare, 7.6%
  • Patient Care, 7.2%
  • Project Management, 5.3%
  • Other Skills, 50.0%

Choose From 10+ Customizable Partner Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Partner templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Partner resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

Partner Resume
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Partner diversity

Partner Gender Distribution

Male
Male
62%
Female
Female
38%

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:

  • Among partners, 37.7% of them are women, while 62.3% are men.

  • The most common race/ethnicity among partners is White, which makes up 74.6% of all partners.

  • The most common foreign language among partners is Spanish at 45.6%.

Online Courses For Partner That You May Like

Advertising Disclosure  

1. Product Management (Part Time)

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Balance business viability, technical feasibility, and customer desire to lead products and features toward long-term success. Learn from a seasoned expert. This course is offered in person and live online, in a remote classroom setting...

2. Digital Marketing (Part Time)

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Build confidence and capability to apply modern marketing strategies on the job. Drive growth with multichannel campaigns powered by data and customer insight. This course is offered in person and live online, in a remote classroom setting...

3. How to Build A Startup

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The main idea in this course is learning how to rapidly develop and test ideas by gathering massive amounts of customer and marketplace feedback. Many startups fail by not validating their ideas early on with real-life customers. In order to mitigate that, students will learn how to get out of the building and search for the real pain points and unmet needs of customers. Only with these can the entrepreneur find a proper solution and establish a suitable business model...

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Best States For a Partner

Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a partner. The best states for people in this position are New York, New Jersey, Vermont, and Massachusetts. Partners make the most in New York with an average salary of $112,301. Whereas in New Jersey and Vermont, they would average $103,339 and $101,267, respectively. While partners would only make an average of $97,368 in Massachusetts, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.

1. New York

Total Partner Jobs: 1,167
Highest 10% Earn:
$207,000
Location Quotient:
1.6

$112,301

Avg. Salary

View 1,167 Partner Jobs In NY

2. Vermont

Total Partner Jobs: 51
Highest 10% Earn:
$197,000
Location Quotient:
1.17

$101,267

Avg. Salary

View 51 Partner Jobs In VT

3. New Jersey

Total Partner Jobs: 641
Highest 10% Earn:
$195,000
Location Quotient:
1.42

$103,339

Avg. Salary

View 641 Partner Jobs In NJ
Full List Of Best States For Partners

How Do Partners Rate Their Jobs?

1/5

5 Stars

4 Stars

3 Stars

2 Stars

1 Star

Partner Reviews

1.0
Sep 2019
Pros

Independence in working when I want and litigating cases I want to handle.

Cons

Business development sucks. Hard to have a life, litigate a full caseload, and then be expected to bring in new clients constantly. The business side is horrible for those who just want to practice law.

Working as a Partner? Share your experience anonymously.
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Career Growth
Work/Life balance
Pay/Salary

Top Partner Employers

We've made finding a great employer to work for easy by doing the hard work for you. We looked into employers that employ partners and discovered their number of partner opportunities and average salary. Through our research, we concluded that Stewart's Shops was the best, especially with an average salary of $48,834. Meta follows up with an average salary of $172,880, and then comes Starbucks with an average of $42,910. In addition, we know most people would rather work from home. So instead of having to change careers, we identified the best employers for remote work as a partner. The employers include Autodesk, VMware, and Veeva Systems

Most Common Employers For Partner

RankCompanyAverage SalaryHourly RateJob Openings
1Kirkland & Ellis$306,528$147.3733
2McKinsey & Company Inc$291,132$139.9752
3IBM$275,608$132.5042
4Accenture$240,743$115.7428
5Pwc$233,255$112.1448
6Ernst & Young$186,774$89.8050
7Meta$172,880$83.12255
8Salesforce$153,176$73.64168
9Apple$149,830$72.0344
10Microsoft$124,038$59.6327
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Partner Videos

Ex-Partner: $1M Salaries Should Satisfy BigLaw Partners
What Does It Mean to Be an HR Business Partner?
YouTube Partner: What does it mean?

Becoming a Partner FAQs

How Hard Is It To Become A Partner At A Big 4 Company?

Yes, it's hard to become a partner at a Big Four company. Becoming a partner at a Big Four firm is highly competitive because of the perceived status, undoubted financial rewards, and an endorsement of one's skills and experience in the accounting profession that comes with working as a partner in a Big Four company.

How Long Does It Take To Become A Partner At Big 4?

It takes 15 to 20 years to become a partner at Big Four. When starting your career, it may take several years of work experience before landing an entry-level position at a Big Four. After that, it takes at least ten to 15 additional years of Big Four managerial experience before being eligible for a partnership at a Big Four.

How Long Does It Take To Become A Partner?

It takes ten to 15 years to become a partner. This is the time it takes for someone to typically become a partner at the Big Four, either at the national or regional firm. This does not include the time needed to earn a college degree.

What Are The Pros And Cons Of Being A Silent Partner?

The pros of being a silent partner include less responsibility and effortless investing, while the cons are legal risk, financial risk, and zero influence in the activities of the business in which you partner.

What Does It Mean To Be Made A Partner?

To be a partner means that you go from being an employee of the firm (and being paid a salary) to becoming a part-owner of the firm and sharing in the firm's profits (and liabilities). However, this is not always the case. Because of changes in the law industry, what it means to be a partner has changed.

Associate Vs Partner

An associate is a professional that a company employs, while a partner is a professional who usually owns part of the company.

Associate roles at companies are usually entry-level in nature. They are starting positions that give the employee the ability to grow and be promoted within the company.

Have more questions? See all answers to common executive management questions.

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Updated April 6, 2023