Business Development Associate

Thomas; Manchester; Remote; GBP 26,000 - 38,000; Full time

Job summary

Thomas is seeking a commercially driven BDA-level professional to identify and convert opportunities across the Benelux region. You will engage organisations with a mix of calls, emails, and social outreach, running discovery conversations and progressing prospects through the early sales cycle.

Two-language fluency (Dutch and English) is essential, and a proactive, curious mindset with strong questioning and rapport-building skills is required to succeed in a fast-evolving, AI-powered people

Qualifications

• Fluent in Dutch and English is essential.
• Outbound prospecting mindset and willingness to initiate conversations.
• Experience using modern sales tools to engage and qualify opportunities.

Responsibilities

• Create new business opportunities by researching target organisations and initiating contact (phone, email, LinkedIn).
• Run discovery conversations to understand priorities, challenges, and buying process.
• Develop opportunities and progress prospects through early sales stages and beyond.
• Make commercial conversations by linking customer challenges to expected outcomes.
• Build and manage the Benelux territory in collaboration with the account executive.
• Maintain a clean Salesforce pipeline and contribute to reliable forecasting.

Skills

Dutch fluency

English fluency

Prospecting

Tools

Salesforce

LinkedIn

Job description

About Thomas

At Thomas, we imagine a world of limitless human potential — where people thrive through self-awareness and authentic connection.

For over 45 years, we’ve been pioneers in talent assessment. But now, we’re transforming. We’re evolving from a trusted assessment provider into a disruptive AI-powered people science platform, uniting behavioural insight, data, and technology to revolutionise how people and teams work together.

Our new Connection Intelligence (CXI) platform, is redefining collaboration — helping organisations unlock intelligent team profiling, behaviour comparison, and personalised growth at scale.

We’re shaping a new era of workplace intelligence.

Job Purpose

We’re looking for someone who enjoys starting conversations, understanding what makes businesses tick and creating opportunities from scratch.

Working closely with our Benelux Account Executive, you'll identify organisations that could benefit from Thomas, engage prospective customers and turn initial conversations into qualified commercial opportunities.

This isn't a role where you'll spend your career simply booking meetings.

As your capability develops, you'll have the opportunity to take ownership of more of the sales cycle, from prospecting and discovery through to progressing and, depending on experience, closing opportunities yourself.

We're deliberately open on level. You might be at the beginning of your commercial career with the potential to become an excellent salesperson, or already have B2B sales experience and be ready to join us at Senior BDA level.

What matters is the evidence that you can succeed.

What you'll be doing

• Creating new business opportunities: Researching and engaging target organisations across Benelux through phone, email, LinkedIn and modern sales technology, including AI.
• Running discovery conversations: Understanding a prospect's business priorities, people challenges and buying process, and identifying where Thomas could create meaningful value.
• Developing opportunities: Taking responsibility for progressing prospects through the early stages of the sales process and, as your experience develops, taking ownership of more of the sales cycle.
• Having commercial conversations: Connecting customer challenges to outcomes Thomas can help deliver rather than simply presenting product features.
• Building the Benelux territory: Working closely with the Benelux Account Executive to identify priority organisations, plan territory activity and develop our presence across the region.
• Managing your pipeline: Keeping Salesforce accurate, progressing opportunities with discipline and contributing to reliable forecasting based on customer evidence.
• Working across Sales and Marketing: Sharing what you're hearing from prospects and helping us continuously improve our targeting, messaging and campaigns.

What we’re looking for

There are two genuine essentials for this role:

• You’ll need to be professionally fluent in both Dutch and English, as you’ll be having commercial conversations with customers and prospects in both languages.
• You’ll need to genuinely want to prospect. Outbound business development is a core part of this role, so you should be comfortable picking up the phone, contacting people you haven't spoken to before and creating opportunities rather than waiting for them to come to you.

Beyond that, we’re looking for someone who:

• communicates confidently and builds rapport quickly;
• asks good questions and is genuinely curious about businesses and the problems they're trying to solve;
• takes ownership and follows things through;
• can handle rejection without losing momentum;
• learns quickly and responds well to coaching and feedback;
• stays organised when managing multiple prospects and priorities; and
• is comfortable learning and using modern sales technology.

You don't need to tick every box

For a BDA-level appointment, previous SaaS or B2B sales experience isn't essential. We're interested in the underlying capabilities that could make you successful.

You may have developed those through sales, recruitment, customer service, hospitality, retail, account management, fundraising, entrepreneurship or somewhere completely different.

For appointment at Senior BDA level, we'd normally expect previous B2B sales or business development experience, including evidence of generating your own pipeline, conducting discovery conversations and consistently delivering against commercial targets.

Experience with Salesforce, LinkedIn or other sales technology is helpful, but we won't rule out a strong candidate simply because they've used different tools.

Previous experience in HR technology, psychometrics or Thomas products is not required.

Why this role?

This is an opportunity to build more than just prospecting experience. You'll develop your capability across outbound sales, discovery, commercial conversations, pipeline management and ultimately greater deal ownership. You'll work closely with experienced sales colleagues, receive coaching as you develop and have access to modern sales technology, including AI, to help you work smarter.

You’ll also be selling technology backed by more than four decades of psychological science at a point when Thomas is evolving its proposition and how it goes to market.

Thomas Assess – Our Talent Assessment Tool

At Thomas, we use our own science to make hiring decisions, because we believe in what we build. Our Thomas platform helps us understand the behaviours and traits that predict success in this role, giving both you and us deeper insight and fairness in the process.

Be part of something transformative.

Join us and help take CXI, and the future of people science, to the world.