There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being an assistant director of development. For example, did you know that they make an average of $30.41 an hour? That's $63,263 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 6,300 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many assistant directors of development 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 leadership skills, problem-solving skills and speaking skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be an assistant director of development, we found that a lot of resumes listed 10.7% of assistant directors of development included donor database, while 9.7% of resumes included alumni, and 8.2% of resumes included special events. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the assistant director of development job title. But what industry to start with? Most assistant directors of development actually find jobs in the education and non profits industries.
If you're interested in becoming an assistant director of development, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 43.8% of assistant directors of development have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 40.1% of assistant directors of development have master's degrees. Even though most assistant directors of development have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become an assistant director of development. When we researched the most common majors for an assistant director of development, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on assistant director of development resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become an assistant director of development. In fact, many assistant director of development jobs require experience in a role such as assistant director. Meanwhile, many assistant directors of development also have previous career experience in roles such as internship or administrative assistant.
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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, an assistant director of development can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as development director, progress to a title such as development vice president and then eventually end up with the title development vice president.
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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, 10.7% of assistant directors of development listed donor database on their resume, but soft skills such as leadership skills and problem-solving skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as an assistant director of development. The best states for people in this position are New York, New Jersey, California, and Pennsylvania. Assistant directors of development make the most in New York with an average salary of $97,075. Whereas in New Jersey and California, they would average $79,513 and $79,484, respectively. While assistant directors of development would only make an average of $78,364 in Pennsylvania, 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
$97,075
Avg. Salary
2. District of Columbia
$91,687
Avg. Salary
3. Pennsylvania
$78,365
Avg. Salary