Inspectors general are responsible for coordinating activities that promote accountability, integrity, and efficiency in government. They provide direction for, supervise, and coordinate audits, investigations, and management reviews relating to the programs and operations. They keep management informed of fraud, abuses, and deficiencies and recommend corrective action concerning the aforementioned vices.
Inspectors general earn an average salary of $61,000 annually or $29 per hour. They perform lots of duties, including ensuring effective coordination and cooperation between the auditor general, federal auditors, and other governmental bodies to avoid duplication. They also conduct, supervise, or coordinate other activities carried out or financed by the state agency to promote the economy.
Inspectors general are usually appointed by the governor's chief inspector general. They are selected on some basis and experience in accounting, auditing, financial analysis, law, or other closely related fields. They are expected to have integrity and possess solid leadership and communication skills to boot.
What is an Inspector General?
What Does an Inspector General Do
There are certain skills that many inspectors general 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 dexterity, math skills and mechanical skills.
How To Become an Inspector General
If you're interested in becoming an inspector general, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 48.7% of inspectors general have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 16.0% of inspectors general have master's degrees. Even though most inspectors general have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Inspector General Career Paths
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 inspector you might progress to a role such as technician eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title operations manager.
Average Salary for an Inspector General
What Am I Worth?
Roles and Types of Inspector General
The role of an inspector general includes a wide range of responsibilities. These responsibilities can vary based on an individual's specific job, company, or industry.Here are some general inspector general responsibilities:
- Examines raw materials for quality and manufactured items for defects
- Assists the command inspector general (ig) in the collection of information from all sources, internal
- Inspect a wide variety of precision machine parts for size, length, finish, hardness, concentricity, plating thickness
There are several types of inspector general, including:
Quality Control Inspector
Role:
Quality Control Inspectors are in charge of looking for defects in product specifications. While that may sound like it requires schooling, you really only need a high school degree because you'll go through on-the-job training, which will tell you everything you need to know.
Things may get a little dusty on the job. So you might want to invest in a good pair of goggles to wear. Maybe even a mask to cover your nose and mouth. There's no sense in covering your lungs in a layer of dust after all.
Speaking about being on the job, you'll most likely work in a manufacturing plant. The work environments are known to be a little loud, so maybe you want to bring some ear plugs as well. You know what? Just to be safe, you might just want to put yourself in a bubble. At least, that way you'll never get hurt, right?
- Average Salary: $35,018
- Degree: High School Diploma
Inspector
Role:
You probably already know from context clues that inspectors inspect things. Sure, the joke's not great but it's not inaccurate either. There are a lot of different types of inspectors out there. So what they're inspecting really depends on what type of inspector they are.
The fact that there are many different types of inspectors is truly a good thing for the career, though. While it means you have a tougher decision to make, it also means you have a lot of job opportunities to consider. The more opportunities, the better. We don't recall anyone complaining about too much job opportunity.
The attention is in the details for inspectors. Whether you're a quality control inspector, a parts inspector, a furniture inspector, or even a police inspector your job requires you to look at the fine print. Pay attention to the little things. You don't want to miss anything as an inspector, no matter how small it is.
- Average Salary: $38,757
- Degree: High School Diploma
Quality Inspector
Role:
This job seems pretty self-explanatory. I mean you are literally inspecting the quality of a product or material. While that's the case, there are some other duties you'll have as well.
Quality inspectors take a lot of time to conduct tests on certain products to make sure they're up to the task they were built for. Then they take the measurements into account to ensure the product has been measured properly.
Quite generally, quality inspectors will work along an assembly line or within a production department. That way they can take their measurements and conduct tests while a product is being built. Sometimes you'll find a product that just doesn't make the cut.
- Average Salary: $33,197
- Degree: High School Diploma
States With The Most Inspector General Jobs
Mouse over a state to see the number of active inspector general jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where inspectors general earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.
Number Of Inspector General Jobs By State
| Rank | State | Number of Jobs | Average Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 4,858 | $50,565 |
| 2 | Pennsylvania | 2,174 | $52,159 |
| 3 | New York | 1,975 | $52,032 |
| 4 | Massachusetts | 1,229 | $49,932 |
| 5 | New Jersey | 1,024 | $55,557 |
| 6 | Washington | 865 | $55,229 |
| 7 | Oregon | 589 | $41,681 |
| 8 | Texas | 575 | $43,228 |
| 9 | Florida | 515 | $48,787 |
| 10 | Utah | 480 | $48,438 |
| 11 | Connecticut | 438 | $68,922 |
| 12 | Georgia | 380 | $40,995 |
| 13 | Ohio | 306 | $47,904 |
| 14 | Nebraska | 300 | $50,703 |
| 15 | Virginia | 278 | $52,790 |
| 16 | North Carolina | 272 | $44,439 |
| 17 | New Hampshire | 263 | $48,265 |
| 18 | Idaho | 237 | $44,252 |
| 19 | Maine | 236 | $43,842 |
| 20 | Indiana | 228 | $43,226 |
| 21 | Illinois | 214 | $36,426 |
| 22 | Colorado | 212 | $47,139 |
| 23 | Michigan | 201 | $48,998 |
| 24 | Delaware | 188 | $51,262 |
| 25 | Rhode Island | 182 | $53,966 |
| 26 | Maryland | 177 | $63,603 |
| 27 | Tennessee | 171 | $45,117 |
| 28 | Minnesota | 164 | $42,176 |
| 29 | Arizona | 157 | $53,737 |
| 30 | South Carolina | 149 | $44,808 |
| 31 | Missouri | 146 | $44,834 |
| 32 | South Dakota | 143 | $44,596 |
| 33 | North Dakota | 135 | $43,928 |
| 34 | Wisconsin | 121 | $38,770 |
| 35 | Kentucky | 109 | $45,517 |
| 36 | Alabama | 107 | $42,150 |
| 37 | Mississippi | 79 | $42,311 |
| 38 | Vermont | 77 | $44,895 |
| 39 | Louisiana | 70 | $62,479 |
| 40 | Nevada | 70 | $50,227 |
| 41 | Iowa | 67 | $44,821 |
| 42 | Kansas | 63 | $43,971 |
| 43 | Arkansas | 52 | $44,631 |
| 44 | Oklahoma | 51 | $51,864 |
| 45 | New Mexico | 49 | $53,388 |
| 46 | Montana | 44 | $44,206 |
| 47 | West Virginia | 41 | $46,760 |
| 48 | Hawaii | 14 | $37,577 |
| 49 | Wyoming | 11 | $41,629 |
| 50 | Alaska | 10 | $46,111 |
Top Skills For an Inspector General
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, 15.1% of inspectors general listed ig on their resume, but soft skills such as dexterity and math skills are important as well.
Choose From 10+ Customizable Inspector General Resume templates
Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Inspector General templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Inspector General resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.
Inspector General diversity
Inspector General Gender Distribution
After extensive research and analysis, Zippia's data science team found that:
- Among inspectors general, 30.8% of them are women, while 69.2% are men.
- The most common race/ethnicity among inspectors general is White, which makes up 55.8% of all inspectors general.
- The most common foreign language among inspectors general is Spanish at 57.1%.
Online Courses For Inspector General That You May Like
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‘Investigating and Prosecuting International Crimes’ is the second course in Leiden University’s new series on International Law in Action. The first course covered international courts and tribunals in The Hague in general. This second course provides an insider perspective into the work of international criminal courts and tribunals. You will learn about the investigation and prosecution of international crimes in The Hague. Atrocities produce unspeakable forms of violence. We will explore...
2. Cybersecurity Compliance Framework & System Administration
This course gives you the background needed to understand the key cybersecurity compliance and industry standards. This knowledge will be important for you to learn no matter what cybersecurity role you would like to acquire or have within an organization. You will learn the basic commands for user and server administration as it relates to security. You will need this skill to be able to understand vulnerabilities within your organizations operating systems. You will learn the concepts of...
3. Compliance Training for Employees
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Best States For an Inspector General
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as an inspector general. The best states for people in this position are Connecticut, Maryland, Louisiana, and New Jersey. Inspectors general make the most in Connecticut with an average salary of $68,922. Whereas in Maryland and Louisiana, they would average $63,603 and $62,479, respectively. While inspectors general would only make an average of $55,557 in New Jersey, 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. Connecticut
$68,922
Avg. Salary
2. District of Columbia
$75,185
Avg. Salary
3. Pennsylvania
$52,159
Avg. Salary
How Do Inspectors General Rate Their Jobs?
Top Inspector General Employers
Most Common Employers For Inspector General
| Rank | Company | Average Salary | Hourly Rate | Job Openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Department of Homeland Security | $81,842 | $39.35 | 13 |
| 2 | NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration | $70,421 | $33.86 | 5 |
| 3 | U.S. Department of State | $63,240 | $30.40 | 10 |
| 4 | U.S. Environmental Protection Agency | $62,360 | $29.98 | 5 |
| 5 | U.S. Department of the Treasury | $60,176 | $28.93 | 12 |
| 6 | U.S. Department of Defense | $59,048 | $28.39 | 10 |
| 7 | USAF Police Alumni Association | $50,767 | $24.41 | 50 |
| 8 | United States Marine Corps | $50,689 | $24.37 | 14 |
| 9 | National Guard | $50,396 | $24.23 | 5 |
| 10 | Air National Guard | $49,216 | $23.66 | 5 |
Inspector General Videos
