Career Development Specialist connects individuals with potential employers and helps career seekers learn to interview, job hunt, and resume writing skills. They help you choose a profession, improve your skills, and advance along a job path and bring you closer to your ideal job, skill set, and lifestyle.
Generally, you need to possess a bachelor's degree or associate degree in training and development, human resources, education, or instructional design to become a Career Development Specialist. Additionally, experience in business administration or social science will help you in securing a better post.
Most of the graduates who approach this field end up laying claim to annual earnings at $45,166. The current median pay for a Career Development Specialist ranges from $33,915 to $61,150 in the U.S. However, this figure can vary significantly depending upon your experience and skills.
How to Become a Career Development Specialist
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a career development specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $22.95 an hour? That's $47,739 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 9% and produce 28,900 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Career Development Specialist Do
There are certain skills that many career development specialists 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 communication skills, creativity and instructional skills.
How To Become a Career Development Specialist
If you're interested in becoming a career development specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 64.1% of career development specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 18.5% of career development specialists have master's degrees. Even though most career development specialists have a college degree, it's possible 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 a career development specialist. When we researched the most common majors for a career development specialist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or master's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on career development specialist resumes include associate degree degrees or high school diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a career development specialist. In fact, many career development specialist jobs require experience in a role such as case manager. Meanwhile, many career development specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as administrative assistant or customer service representative.
Career Development Specialist Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of case manager you might progress to a role such as director eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title human resources vice president.
Average Salary for a Career Development Specialist
What Am I Worth?
Top Colleges for Career Development Specialists
1. Northwestern University
Evanston, IL • Private
2. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
3. Harvard University
Cambridge, MA • Private
4. San Diego State University
San Diego, CA • Private
5. Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, MD • Private
6. Boston University
Boston, MA • Private
7. New York University
New York, NY • Private
8. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
9. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN • Private
10. Washington University in St Louis
Saint Louis, MO • Private
Top Skills For a Career Development Specialist
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, 9.1% of career development specialists listed professional development on their resume, but soft skills such as communication skills and creativity are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Career Development Specialist Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Career Development Specialist templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Career Development Specialist resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Career Development Specialist Demographics
Career Development Specialist Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among career development specialists, 71.1% of them are women, while 28.9% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among career development specialists is White, which makes up 68.4% of all career development specialists.
- The most common foreign language among career development specialists is Spanish at 87.0%.
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Best States For a Career Development Specialist
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a career development specialist. The best states for people in this position are Washington, New York, Texas, and New Hampshire. Career development specialists make the most in Washington with an average salary of $66,086. Whereas in New York and Texas, they would average $57,882 and $57,303, respectively. While career development specialists would only make an average of $55,066 in New Hampshire, 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. Texas
$57,303
Avg. Salary
2. Pennsylvania
$53,094
Avg. Salary
3. Wyoming
$49,460
Avg. Salary
How Do Career Development Specialist Rate Their Jobs?
Top Career Development Specialist Employers
Most Common Employers For Career Development Specialist
| Rank  | Company  | Average Salary  | Hourly Rate  | Job Openings  |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Doe Fund | $58,626 | $28.19 | 13 |
| 2 | Hope Network | $49,881 | $23.98 | 6 |
| 3 | YTI Career Institute | $49,733 | $23.91 | 7 |
| 4 | Ultimate Medical Academy | $49,556 | $23.82 | 13 |
| 5 | Gerald R. Ford International Airport | $49,296 | $23.70 | 5 |
| 6 | United Way of Central Alabama | $48,911 | $23.51 | 6 |
| 7 | Maximus | $48,832 | $23.48 | 25 |
| 8 | Education Corporation of America | $48,688 | $23.41 | 7 |
| 9 | US Air Conditioning Distributors | $48,340 | $23.24 | 6 |
| 10 | Prospect | $48,118 | $23.13 | 4 |