There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a department chairperson. For example, did you know that they make an average of $33.14 an hour? That's $68,929 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 7% and produce 13,500 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many department chairpeople 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 speaking skills, writing skills and critical-thinking skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a department chairperson, we found that a lot of resumes listed 18.4% of department chairpeople included department chair, while 17.8% of resumes included professional development, and 9.7% of resumes included new faculty. 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 department chairperson job title. But what industry to start with? Most department chairpeople actually find jobs in the education and health care industries.
If you're interested in becoming a department chairperson, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 23.6% of department chairpeople have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 51.5% of department chairpeople have master's degrees. Even though most department chairpeople 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 department chairperson. When we researched the most common majors for a department chairperson, we found that they most commonly earn master's degree degrees or bachelor's degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on department chairperson resumes include doctoral degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a department chairperson. In fact, many department chairperson jobs require experience in a role such as teacher. Meanwhile, many department chairpeople also have previous career experience in roles such as instructor or chairperson.
