How To Become A Media Executive: What It Is and Career Path

What is a media executive and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

2 min read

Quoted expert

Tobias Sellier

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a media executive. For example, did you know that they make an average of $36.92 an hour? That's $76,792 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 10% and produce 33,700 job opportunities across the U.S.

What general advice would you give to a media executive?

Tobias Sellier

Senior Director, American Public Power Association

There are exciting opportunities to work for community-owned, not-for-profit, hometown public power. From engineers and customer service representatives to lineworkers and administrative professionals, there are many opportunities. And utility employees, being essential workers, even during these challenging times, there are still many jobs that will need to be filled.

ScoreMedia ExecutiveUS Average

Salary

6.0

Avg. Salary $76,792

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 8.15%

Black or African American 3.04%

Hispanic or Latino 8.67%

Unknown 5.32%

White 74.58%

Gender

female 59.09%

male 40.91%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a media executive

Explore media executive education requirements

Most common media executive degrees

Bachelor's

77.3 %

Master's

11.2 %

Associate

5.0 %

Start to develop specific media executive skills

Skills	Percentages
Facebook	11.10%
Instagram	10.39%
Twitter	9.33%
YouTube	6.80%
Press Releases	5.69%

Complete relevant media executive training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New media executives learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a media executive based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real media executive resumes.

Research media executive duties and responsibilities

Manage company website including photography of all images, update images and information as necessary.
Boost ads for certain target audiences on Facebook.
Prepare and deliver effective monthly reports to prove ROI.
Optimize user experience to increase registration and purchase by analyzing key performance indicators and A/B testing results to refine acquisition funnel.

Get media executive experience

Generally, it takes 8-10 years to become a media executive. The most common roles before becoming a media executive include internship, account executive team lead and marketing internship.

Prepare your media executive resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your media executive resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a media executive resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable media executive resume templates

Build a professional media executive resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your media executive resume.