People who have great selling skills with good grades in mathematics might like the role of a department specialist. The main duty of department specialists is to properly plan and execute corporate merchandise direction to enhance the sales and profits of a company. Through effective communication, consistent accountability, and action planning, these specialists make strategies and plans to achieve effective results for corporate sales.
Many people in this profession have a bachelor's degree. Apart from developing sales goals, department specialists have knowledge of customer service, products, office procedures, company policies, or special projects. Selling skills and proficiency in mathematics can be seen on the resumes of department specialists. Persistence is the key to succeeding in this role.
Professionals in this field earn around $22 an hour, making their yearly earnings more than $45,000. Unfortunately, the career's growth is in a negative direction, so department specialists jobs are decreasing in the US.
What is a Department Specialist?
What Does a Department Specialist Do
There are certain skills that many department 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 math skills, persistence and selling skills.
How To Become a Department Specialist
If you're interested in becoming a department specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 53.5% of department specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 5.7% of department specialists have master's degrees. Even though most department specialists have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Department Specialist Career Paths
As you move along in your career, you may start taking on more responsibilities or notice that you've taken on a leadership role. Using our career map, a department specialist can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as specialist, progress to a title such as team leader and then eventually end up with the title general manager.
Average Salary for a Department Specialist
What Am I Worth?
Roles and Types of Department Specialist
The role of a department specialist 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 specialist responsibilities:
- Support dod and direct sale contract related deliverables to include scheduling, formatting,
- Types reports, daily schedules, memos, and general correspondence. Composes simple memos answers, screens,
- Customer service answer arx procedural questions troubleshoot procedural questions vs. software errors performing tier 2 business support via direct store calls, call escalations from the tier 1 help desk,
There are several types of department specialist, including:
Sales Person
Role:
As a salesperson you have to be persuasive to get the customers to purchase your product or service. But it doesn't end there. Essentially, you want to build a network of customers who continue to come back and buy from you. So you'll want to maintain a positive business experience for these customers.
As a sales person, you'll have a range of hours that you'll be working. The average sales person works between 31-40 hours a week. So, that's not too bad. You'll be able to work those hours with ease.
- Average Salary: $42,010
- Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Sales Clerk
Role:
Sales clerks are usually those employees walking around the store to assist customers with their store experience. They know a lot about certain products, so you can trust them to give you advice on which is the best one for you. They even demonstrate the features of these items and recommend alternatives, if you're on a tight budget. Pretty cool, right? They interact with people for over eight hours, as needed, probably even during weekends, as their job requires. But really, being a sales clerk can be an awesome job. I mean, believe me, if it wasn't for sales clerks, it would be hard to look for your favorite baseball cap or fashion tee.
Being a sales clerk gives you so much exposure interacting with different people and gaining your self-confidence. If you're into customer service, this might be a good stepping stone for gaining professional expertise!
- Average Salary: $25,739
- Degree: Bachelor's Degree
Department Secretary
Role:
A high school diploma is the least academic requirement for this role. Some companies prefer applicants with proven work experience in a similar role. As a secretary, you must be familiar with the office environment and tools such as Microsoft Office. You must also be able to multitask, meet up with deadlines, and possess organizational skills. The average salary of a department secretary yearly is $33,547.
- Average Salary: $35,473
- Degree: Bachelor's Degree
States With The Most Department Specialist Jobs
Mouse over a state to see the number of active department specialist jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where department specialists earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Number Of Department Specialist Jobs By State
Rank | State | Number of Jobs | Average Salary |
---|---|---|---|
1 | California | 2,257 | $57,510 |
2 | Texas | 1,792 | $43,802 |
3 | Florida | 1,787 | $40,906 |
4 | New York | 1,159 | $59,304 |
5 | Pennsylvania | 1,125 | $53,946 |
6 | Georgia | 1,090 | $42,858 |
7 | Illinois | 1,049 | $48,513 |
8 | North Carolina | 1,010 | $49,562 |
9 | Ohio | 937 | $50,954 |
10 | New Jersey | 790 | $51,311 |
11 | Michigan | 776 | $48,043 |
12 | Virginia | 749 | $47,993 |
13 | Massachusetts | 734 | $62,661 |
14 | Washington | 654 | $58,066 |
15 | Indiana | 578 | $48,542 |
16 | Maryland | 576 | $49,368 |
17 | Minnesota | 574 | $51,445 |
18 | Arizona | 559 | $45,776 |
19 | Wisconsin | 555 | $49,378 |
20 | Tennessee | 521 | $47,413 |
21 | Colorado | 514 | $49,544 |
22 | Missouri | 483 | $42,508 |
23 | Iowa | 471 | $47,747 |
24 | Alabama | 411 | $44,391 |
25 | South Carolina | 396 | $48,102 |
26 | Oregon | 389 | $56,955 |
27 | Connecticut | 342 | $61,275 |
28 | Louisiana | 340 | $37,431 |
29 | Utah | 286 | $42,535 |
30 | Kentucky | 282 | $47,638 |
31 | Kansas | 238 | $47,580 |
32 | Oklahoma | 228 | $44,557 |
33 | Arkansas | 224 | $47,437 |
34 | Nevada | 206 | $53,696 |
35 | Nebraska | 203 | $48,827 |
36 | New Hampshire | 201 | $58,924 |
37 | Mississippi | 199 | $43,843 |
38 | New Mexico | 174 | $43,415 |
39 | Maine | 158 | $58,496 |
40 | Idaho | 151 | $51,980 |
41 | Delaware | 134 | $51,298 |
42 | Hawaii | 126 | $74,553 |
43 | Montana | 126 | $52,304 |
44 | West Virginia | 125 | $43,619 |
45 | Rhode Island | 119 | $60,190 |
46 | South Dakota | 101 | $51,918 |
47 | Alaska | 98 | $58,468 |
48 | Vermont | 90 | $58,498 |
49 | Wyoming | 77 | $48,786 |
50 | North Dakota | 75 | $45,482 |
Top Skills For a Department 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, 14.1% of department specialists listed product knowledge on their resume, but soft skills such as math skills and persistence are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Department Specialist Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Department Specialist templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Department Specialist resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Department Specialist Demographics
Department Specialist Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among department specialists, 62.4% of them are women, while 37.6% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among department specialists is White, which makes up 56.9% of all department specialists.
- The most common foreign language among department specialists is Spanish at 46.5%.
Online Courses For Department Specialist That You May Like
1. Customer Insights: New Product Development Orientation
This course is the first in the Customer Insights and New Product Development (CIPD) specialization. It will introduce learners to the tools and process of gathering customer insights for identifying and developing new product opportunities. Through an integrated set of five modules and hands-on project experiences, learners will acquire the knowledge and skills to turn their ideas gained from understanding customer needs into innovative new products...
See More on Coursera2. Audit - Financial Statement
Learn the audit process from planning to audit report form a Certified Public Accountant (CPA)...
See More on Udemy3. Financial Accounting-Adjusting Entries & Financial Statement
Adjusting entry creation, posting adjusting entries to a worksheet, creating financial statements from the trial balance...
See More on UdemyBest States For a Department Specialist
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a department specialist. The best states for people in this position are Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Department specialists make the most in Hawaii with an average salary of $74,553. Whereas in Massachusetts and Connecticut, they would average $62,661 and $61,275, respectively. While department specialists would only make an average of $60,190 in Rhode Island, 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. Hawaii
$74,553
Avg. Salary
2. Maine
$58,496
Avg. Salary
3. New Hampshire
$58,924
Avg. Salary
How Do Department Specialist Rate Their Jobs?
Top Department Specialist Employers
Most Common Employers For Department Specialist
Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | General Atomics | $64,207 | $30.87 | 25 |
2 | Gap Inc. | $62,951 | $30.26 | 23 |
3 | Baxter International | $62,772 | $30.18 | 24 |
4 | Mankato Clinic | $50,198 | $24.13 | 21 |
5 | Larimer County | $49,868 | $23.98 | 19 |
6 | Shopko Optical | $43,953 | $21.13 | 31 |
7 | Qurate Retail | $42,060 | $20.22 | 19 |
8 | The Fresh Market | $41,653 | $20.03 | 22 |
9 | Target | $39,638 | $19.06 | 60 |
10 | Albertsons Companies | $39,632 | $19.05 | 51 |