A department manager is someone who has certain responsibilities over a certain area in a store or within an organization. Take a department store in the mall for example. Each store has several departments which are split up so the store runs efficiently on all ends.
Maybe you'll be the department manager for the kids section in a store at the mall or the electronics section at a Target or Walmart. Wherever you end up, your responsibilities are very similar. You'll be in charge of the area that you're assigned. Which means you're in charge of the team who works within that area.
As department manager, you get to hire and fire individuals, as well as set goals for the team to hit. You'll even be in charge of the department's budget, although a source higher up in the company will need to approve it. And, as long as your team is meeting goals and creating success, then your role as a department manager will be simple.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a department manager. For example, did you know that they make an average of $27.97 an hour? That's $58,168 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 20,600 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many department managers 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 analytical skills, customer-service skills and communication skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a department manager, we found that a lot of resumes listed 50.6% of department managers included procedures, while 19.2% of resumes included inventory levels, and 10.3% of resumes included sales goals. 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 manager job title. But what industry to start with? Most department managers actually find jobs in the retail and manufacturing industries.
If you're interested in becoming a department manager, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 34.0% of department managers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 6.2% of department managers have master's degrees. Even though some department managers 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 manager. When we researched the most common majors for a department manager, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees. Other degrees that we often see on department manager resumes include associate degree degrees or master's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a department manager. In fact, many department manager jobs require experience in a role such as sales associate. Meanwhile, many department managers also have previous career experience in roles such as cashier or assistant manager.