There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a trade specialist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $16.59 an hour? That's $34,517 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 4% and produce 18,500 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many trade 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 initiative, analytical skills and detail oriented.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a trade specialist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 19.9% of trade specialists included customer service, while 12.2% of resumes included hvac, and 9.0% of resumes included hand tools. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the trade specialist job title. But what industry to start with? Most trade specialists actually find jobs in the finance and manufacturing industries.
If you're interested in becoming a trade specialist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 42.1% of trade specialists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 15.6% of trade specialists have master's degrees. Even though most trade 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 trade specialist. When we researched the most common majors for a trade specialist, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees. Other degrees that we often see on trade specialist resumes include master's degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a trade specialist. In fact, many trade specialist jobs require experience in a role such as customer service representative. Meanwhile, many trade specialists also have previous career experience in roles such as sales associate or consultant.
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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 trade specialist can determine their career goals through the career progression. For example, they could start out with a role such as manager, progress to a title such as sales manager and then eventually end up with the title sales vice president.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
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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, 19.9% of trade specialists listed customer service on their resume, but soft skills such as initiative and analytical skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a trade specialist. The best states for people in this position are Minnesota, New York, Rhode Island, and Delaware. Trade specialists make the most in Minnesota with an average salary of $57,947. Whereas in New York and Rhode Island, they would average $57,635 and $53,740, respectively. While trade specialists would only make an average of $51,016 in Delaware, 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. Minnesota
$57,947
Avg. Salary
2. Delaware
$51,016
Avg. Salary
3. New York
$57,636
Avg. Salary