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 $21.4 an hour? That's $44,512 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 9% and produce 28,900 job opportunities across the U.S.
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.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a career development specialist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 9.1% of career development specialists included professional development, while 8.0% of resumes included job search strategies, and 6.5% of resumes included potential employers. 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 career development specialist job title. But what industry to start with? Most career development specialists actually find jobs in the non profits and education industries.
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 43.7% of career development specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 36.6% 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.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the right jobs to get there.
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.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
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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, 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.
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, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. Career development specialists make the most in Washington with an average salary of $65,278. Whereas in Connecticut and New Jersey, they would average $58,720 and $58,438, respectively. While career development specialists would only make an average of $52,618 in New York, 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. Rhode Island
$52,432
Avg. Salary
2. New Hampshire
$52,332
Avg. Salary
3. New Jersey
$58,439
Avg. Salary