A senior category manager is a retail professional who oversees marketing and sales strategies for a company. They coordinate with vendors, purchases, and other departments to gather information regarding market and sales trends and work to identify the needs of customers and clients. These individuals manage sales and inventory staff and are responsible for ensuring that a company's sales are successful while researching new markets to increase profit margin. A senior category manager also works closely with purchasing and marketing departments.
Many senior category managers have a bachelor's or an associate's degree in business, marketing, sales, or a related field. They should have a broad knowledge of sales trends and consumer practices and should possess strong management, communication, organizational and analytical skills. They should also be adept at interfacing with upper management, vendors, employees, and clients.
A senior category manager can make up to $123,000 per year in the US, and the field is expected to grow 8% by 2028.
How to Become a Senior Category Manager
What is a Senior Category Manager
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a Senior Category Manager. For example, did you know that they make an average of $59.15 an hour? That's $123,024 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 21,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
What Does a Senior Category Manager Do
There are certain skills that many Senior Category 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, Communication skills and Creativity.
How To Become a Senior Category Manager
If you're interested in becoming a Senior Category Manager, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 74.5% of Senior Category Managers have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 18.5% of Senior Category Managers have master's degrees. Even though most Senior Category Managers have a college degree, it's impossible 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 Senior Category Manager. When we researched the most common majors for a Senior Category Manager, we found that they most commonly earn Bachelor's Degree degrees or Master's Degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on Senior Category Manager resumes include Associate Degree degrees or Doctoral Degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a Senior Category Manager. In fact, many Senior Category Manager jobs require experience in a role such as Category Manager. Meanwhile, many Senior Category Managers also have previous career experience in roles such as Purchasing Manager or Buyer.
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Senior Category Manager 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 Director you might progress to a role such as Business Development Director eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title Senior Director Of Business Development.
Senior Category Manager Jobs You Might Like
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Average Salary for a Senior Category Manager
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Senior Category Manager Jobs You Might Like
- High Paying Senior Category Manager Jobs - $152K and Up
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Create The Perfect Resume
Our resume builder tool will walk you through the process of creating a stand-out Senior Category Manager resume.
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Top Colleges for Senior Category Managers
1. University of Georgia
Athens, GA • Private
2. University of Wisconsin - Madison
Madison, WI • Private
3. University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Minneapolis, MN • Private
4. Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN • Private
5. Howard University
Washington, DC • Private
6. Ohio State University
Columbus, OH • Private
7. University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX • Private
8. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
9. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
10. SUNY at Binghamton
Vestal, NY • Private
Find the best Senior Category Manager job for you
Senior Category Manager Jobs You Might Like
- High Paying Senior Category Manager Jobs - $152K and Up
- Entry Level Senior Category Manager Jobs
- Part Time Senior Category Manager Jobs
- Actively Hiring
- No Degree Senior Category Manager Jobs
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Top Skills For a Senior Category Manager
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, 16.5% of Senior Category Managers listed Category Strategy on their resume, but soft skills such as Analytical skills and Communication skills are important as well.
- Category Strategy, 16.5%
- Supplier Performance, 8.8%
- Strategic Sourcing, 8.2%
- Project Management, 8.1%
- Continuous Improvement, 5.4%
- Other Skills, 53.0% See All Senior Category Manager Skills
12 Senior Category Manager RESUME EXAMPLES
Build a professional senior category manager resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 12+ resume templates to create your senior category manager resume.
Best States For a Senior Category Manager
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a Senior Category Manager. The best states for people in this position are Rhode Island, Minnesota, New York, and Washington. Senior Category Managers make the most in Rhode Island with an average salary of $148,294. Whereas in Minnesota and New York, they would average $144,208 and $138,650, respectively. While Senior Category Managers would only make an average of $135,670 in Washington, 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. Rhode Island
$148,294
Avg. Salary
2. New York
$138,650
Avg. Salary
3. Minnesota
$144,208
Avg. Salary
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