1. SUNY College of Technology at Delhi
Delhi, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$8,360
Enrollment
3,142
Explore Jobs
Find Specific Jobs
Explore Careers
Explore Professions
Best Companies
Explore Companies
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 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.
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 45.5% of department managers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 4.7% of department managers have master's degrees. Even though most department managers have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
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 store manager you might progress to a role such as district manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title district manager.
Department Manager
What Am I Worth?
The role of a department manager includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general department manager responsibilities:
There are several types of department manager, including:
Responsible for overseeing the entire operation, the manager has a lot of responsibility on his/her or her shoulders. When we say the entire operation, we mean planning, directing, and leading the organization.
Managers should expect to work a little more than a normal 40-hour week. Since they're in charge, they're expected to be available. That's why managers end up typically working 50 hours a week, sometimes you may get away with only working 45 hours, though.
The education requirements for managers vary depending on who you work for. You might be required to have a bachelor's degree, but you might also get away with an associate degree. Now, there are some management positions that require a master's degree but, again, it really all depends on where you take your management career.
An important job for store managers is to attract customers into their stores through new strategies. They also have sales goals that they must meet each month and can achieve those goals through training, motivating, mentoring, and giving feedback to their staff.
A store manager's goal is to make sure every customer is satisfied with the customer service they received. The saying, "every customer is right," is definitely not a factual statement, but it's a store manager's motto.
All of these responsibilities lead up to something greater. That's right, 45-50 hour work weeks. Someone has to stay late and make sure the store is perfectly ready for the next day. Typically, this won't be a high stress job, unless it's the holidays or a tax-free weekend. Did someone say Black Friday shopping? Good luck!
A supervisor is an individual who oversees workplace operations. What separates a supervisor from a manager is that the supervisor does not have hiring and firing authority nor do they have budget authority. They are mainly responsible for the employees' work and actions.
Department Supervisors facilitate business operations in a particular area. Their day-to-day duties include training employees, tracking work performance, developing budget reports, and troubleshooting issues. Besides that, a department supervisor also assists managers in improving business processes and communicating corporate policies to employees.
Employers require department supervisors to have a relevant bachelor's degree in specialized industries such as engineering, but require a minimum of a high school diploma and a focus more on work experience, as in the case of retail sales. They earn, on average, $26 per hour and can lead to bigger roles, such as manager and director of operations.
Mouse over a state to see the number of active department manager jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where department managers earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Delhi, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$8,360
Enrollment
3,142
Farmingdale, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$8,306
Enrollment
9,394
Philadelphia, PA • Private
In-State Tuition
$55,584
Enrollment
10,764
Athens, GA • Private
In-State Tuition
$11,830
Enrollment
29,474
West Lafayette, IN • Private
In-State Tuition
$9,992
Enrollment
33,495
Stanford, CA • Private
In-State Tuition
$51,354
Enrollment
7,083
Waco, TX • Private
In-State Tuition
$45,542
Enrollment
14,159
Alfred, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$8,570
Enrollment
3,721
Syracuse, NY • Private
In-State Tuition
$51,853
Enrollment
14,759
Muncie, IN • Private
In-State Tuition
$9,896
Enrollment
15,529
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, 37.6% of department managers listed inventory management on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and customer-service skills are important as well.
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Department Manager templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Department Manager resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
1. Introduction to Operations Management
Learn to analyze and improve business processes in services or in manufacturing by learning how to increase productivity and deliver higher quality standards. Key concepts include process analysis, bottlenecks, flows rates, and inventory levels, and more. After successfully completing this course, you can apply these skills to a real-world business challenge as part of the Wharton Business Foundations Specialization...
2. Complete Inventory Management in Microsoft Excel & TALLY ERP9
Inventory, StockControl, Inventory Control, Microsoft Excel inventory, Stock Calculation, Inventory Valuation, LIFO, FIFO, WACC...
3. Operational Risks Management ORM
Operational Risks Management ORM Case Studies for Risk Management, Compliance, Audit, IS Security, Banking Professionals...
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a department manager. The best states for people in this position are New Jersey, New York, California, and Virginia. Department managers make the most in New Jersey with an average salary of $95,153. Whereas in New York and California, they would average $85,519 and $79,584, respectively. While department managers would only make an average of $79,162 in Virginia, 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 Jersey
$95,153
Avg. Salary
2. New York
$85,519
Avg. Salary
3. Virginia
$79,162
Avg. Salary
Improving the sales and providing high quality customer service
Not enough support from manager
Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | H&M International | $72,772 | $34.99 | 463 |
2 | Walmart | $45,665 | $21.95 | 25,693 |
3 | Nordstrom | $45,049 | $21.66 | 1,975 |
4 | Hobby Lobby | $44,245 | $21.27 | 631 |
5 | Target | $37,596 | $18.07 | 553 |
6 | Sears Holdings | $35,819 | $17.22 | 606 |
7 | The Home Depot | $35,493 | $17.06 | 2,714 |
8 | Office Depot | $35,329 | $16.99 | 813 |
9 | Safeway | $35,130 | $16.89 | 423 |
10 | Menards | $34,920 | $16.79 | 766 |
It takes 3 years of professional experience to become a department manager. That is the time it takes to learn specific department manager skills, but does not account for time spent in formal education. If you include the normal education requirements to complete a college degree, then it takes 6 to 8 years years to become a department manager.