Quality specialists conduct quality assurance audits. Their job is to make sure products consistently meet required standards, conditions for optimal performance are in place, and production is smooth and reliable.
As a quality specialist, you may be hired by various industries. Your tasks will vary in each case, but your basic responsibility will be to monitor both processes and their outcome. You will have to run tests and analyze technical risks, and of course, document your work and create reports on your findings to present to management.
You do not necessarily need specialized education to get started in this career, although candidates with a degree are usually preferred. With a bit of investment of your time and money, there are some certifications you can obtain to prove your skills and stand out from the crowd. In any case, the important thing is that you are intimately familiar with relevant regulations and that you have the patience and detail-oriented attitude this job requires.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a Quality Specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $33.89 an hour? That's $70,488 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 23,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many Quality 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 Creativity, Listening skills and Math skills.
If you're interested in becoming a Quality Specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 55.5% of Quality Specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 10.1% of Quality Specialists have master's degrees. Even though most Quality Specialists 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 Quality Specialist. When we researched the most common majors for a Quality Specialist, we found that they most commonly earn Bachelor's Degree degrees or Associate Degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on Quality Specialist resumes include Master's Degree degrees or High School Diploma degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a Quality Specialist. In fact, many Quality Specialist jobs require experience in a role such as Customer Service Representative. Meanwhile, many Quality Specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as Cashier or Administrative Assistant.