A business career is one of the most malleable classes of employment that offers varied career prospects and thriving environments. As trained professionals in the field, there are many viable grounds available for you to pitch your careers and such grounds include marketing, accounting, business management, healthcare, government agencies, non-profits, and many more. Your major duties are to analyse and improve organisational operations and performance.
Market globalization and economic diversification have continued to affect the way people carry out business transactions, both locally and internationally. The Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS) tends to corroborate this by projecting that business and financial careers will grow faster than the average between 2019 and 2029.
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Many of the top business jobs require an MBA or any other advanced business degree. However, there are good entry-level jobs in business that you can apply for with just a bachelor’s degree or even a lower qualification.
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What to Consider When Choosing a Course in Business
Is a business career right for you? To answer this, you need to evaluate your goals, strengths and weaknesses as well as the advantages and disadvantages you might encounter in your career. The truth is that there are so many benefits and developmental opportunities you would glean from being a business professional, but that does not mean that the business career is for everyone. To ensure that you are on the right track to becoming an expert in a business field, you need to consider the following:
- The advantages of studying a business course are enormous. Business careers offer great prospects for career change and advancement. You can leverage your training and skills as a business professional to apply for many positions across all industries including healthcare and governmental agencies. You can also build on your existing experience to expand your scope of knowledge and take up more challenging roles.
A professional in business must be able to thrive in a challenging environment to proffer solutions to every situation. You will need such skills as interpersonal, communication, critical thinking, leadership and social skills. Although the field is very rewarding, it requires commitment, focus and dedication to survive the competitive nature of the work environment.
- Just as there are unquantifiable advantages in the business field, there are also challenging moments. You will have to face some customers, clients and coworkers whose attention you need at all times. There is also the problem of working for long hours in the office or you may travel between schedules to diverse locations to meet the demands of the job. This may mean that you might forget yourself while trying to meet up with the challenges in your workplace.
You will need to frequently update and upgrade your skills due to the huge and competitive nature of the field. You must stay up-to-date with the trends in your career to be able to remain on top of the game. Most of the high-paying jobs in business are located in the municipal part of the country. You may need to live in the city or surrounding environments to meet up with time and distance. This may not tell well in your pocket as living in the city is more expensive than living in the countryside.
Although many careers and establishments offer advancement opportunities, it may require additional education like earning a master’s degree or obtaining a license to operate. This may also mean incurring additional financial expenses. However, the compensation is immense.
10 Exciting Careers to Pursue in Business
The following are some of the top exciting jobs you can get in business:
- Entrepreneur
Becoming an entrepreneur means that you are going to develop, launch and take full charge of any business venture you decide to go into. Whatever the outcome of the business is, you are sure to take full responsibility.
As an entrepreneur, you will handle the financial, decision-making, strategic planning and managerial activities of the organisation. The number of skilled labour to employ is your decision, depending on the needs and financial capability of the organization. You will need a bachelor’s degree in a business-based discipline to be able to handle a business better, although some entrepreneurs never earned a college degree. All they need is to learn the ropes of the business.
Salaries of entrepreneurs are mostly based on the nature of the business and its earning power. Therefore, they can earn as little as $10,000 and as high as $1 million or more in a year.
- Human Resource Managers
Human resource managers are laden with the role of recruiting, preparing, retaining and compensating hired personnel of the organisation. They ensure the organisation’s overall productivity is improved by offering strategic planning geared towards the progress of the organisation. They also make sure the employees play their role by motivating, instructing and giving them necessary training from time to time.
In addition, employee benefit programmes, incentives and attendance issues are taken care of by the human resource managers. This makes them a very integral part of a successful organisation.
Average salary: $ 100,285 per year.
- Sales Managers
Sales managers are responsible for the supervision of staff sales representatives, research sales information, develop avenues for nurturing sales potential, and inventing ways of improving the sales of the organisational products and services. These experts work meticulously with suppliers and wholesalers to monitor sales performance, understand sales potential and have an insight into the preference of customers so that the organisation maintains a maximum profit margin. Through their expert information and advice, they assist in the development of the best products that meet customers’ satisfaction, thereby increasing sales and profit.
Sales managers usually possess an associate degree in business administration or marketing. However, having a bachelor’s or master’s degree gives them an upper hand over competitors.
- Business Operations Specialists
Business operations specialists evaluate the activities of the business to ensure that the needs of the customers are met. They detect areas that need improvement, enhance customer service, and restructure operations to boost competence and certify the future success of the organisation.
Business operations specialists need strong analytical, communication and interpersonal skills. They must possess a bachelor’s degree in business management or relevant fields.
Average salary: $73,570 per year
- Agent and Business Managers
Agents work closely with professionals, performers and artists while ensuring the interests of their clients are guaranteed. They discuss and supervise contracts as well as take on supplementary professional and public relations issues when required.
Business managers perform parallel roles as agents for organisations. They manage duties and functions on behalf of the business. In addition, they delegate job roles to employees and manage financial plans for the organisation.
The least qualification required of agents and business managers is a bachelor’s degree in business administration, public relations or any relevant field. Excellent communication skills and thorough knowledge of business practices within the industry are required of their job positions.
Average salary: $73,740 per year.
- College Admissions Representative
A business professional may consider working in a college environment as it allows them to work with students. Working with the admission office is a way to enhance their career. They draw upon their communication, presentation and persuasive skills to reach out to prospective students.
As an admission representative, you are responsible for developing marketing plans that would assist in promoting the college and encouraging more applicants into the college. You will also draw upon your teamwork skills to collaborate with other members of the staff to carry out projects and deliver programmes.
You will need at least a bachelor’s degree in sales or marketing or a related field.
- Healthcare Administrator
An administrator in healthcare must know a vast majority of business topics like accounting, budgeting, marketing, business law, ethics, human resources, management and information technology. S/he plans, manage and supervises the delivery of healthcare.
A healthcare administrator must have teamwork, critical thinking, presentation, analytical and communication skills that help him to succeed in his job.
Average salary: $100,980 per annum
- Corporate Attorney
An attorney in corporate or business law draws upon his knowledge in business entities and practices developed during his education. This position is quite challenging and so, you must employ your research, writing and presentation skills to carry out your duty.
Average salary: $122,960 per year
- Business Reporter
As a business reporter, you could work in print, broadcast or electronic media. You would be required to provide a wide reportage of events and expansions in the business and financial sector.
In addition, you would develop excellent communication and presentation skills necessary for you to put together content about the business world. So, you may not practically be a business professional, rather, you may decide to report business to the world by working in a media house. This means that you will need to take some courses in journalism or a related field aside from your business degree.
Average salary: $46,270 per annum
- Social Media Manager
A social media manager builds on his/her tech-savvy skills of marketing, management and communications to coordinate an organisation’s online presence by leveraging social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, and so on. This activity boosts business activity, establish brand personality and exposes the organisation to the world, thereby, increasing the audiences and improving sales.
As a social media manager, you are responsible to develop content and devise strategic plans, to improve the brand visibility of your organisation as well as measuring the influence on online promotions. You would need to work closely with the members of the staff to gather the necessary information about the organisation that needs to grace the online space to increase its online visibility. This means that you must have people skills to be able to perform your duty pragmatically.
Average salary: $51,433 per year
These are the Most Profitable And In Demand Careers To Pursue Today
Work-life Balance in Business
The time an individual spends on work should be balanced by spending some time with friends and family and taking care of other personal demands outside work. This is what work-life balance entails. The world we live in has got to the point where a career-oriented person has the potential to be connected to work 24/7. This could mean that even after work hours, the person is obligated to keep working. This makes it difficult to draw a line between work time and non-work time.
To achieve work-life balance, you can do the following:
- Set boundaries appropriately: to set boundaries, you could set time aside for specific personal life interests. You can also choose to take some business-related messages or emails on your phone, instead of a computer. Take official break times during the day to allow yourself to unwind and rejuvenate during your work period. This allows for a healthy balance or you would burn out.
- Leverage delegation:
You can never do everything, no matter how strong you are. Delegation helps to reduce the workload on your table while increasing productivity. If you have so many tasks at hand with little time to accomplish them, you can delegate them to people with the same skillsets as you. This could mean that you might need to part with some money. But the joy of freeing yourself a bit is worth it. If you are an entrepreneur with several employees, you can delegate duties to them based on their positions. If they are efficient enough, they may not need your supervision to carry out their tasks. But if they are not, you may have to hold their hands and put them through. With time, they would be able to take care of certain things without your attention.
- Prioritise your tasks:
Decide the tasks that need immediate attention, and those that can be attended to later. This helps to get the important things done as well as identify what’s truly important.
- Minimise distractions:
Anything that keeps you from working efficiently during your work hours is a distraction. In this digital era, a lot of things pose as distractions; in form of social media, phone calls, messages, etc. You need to avoid such form of distractions.
Business jobs are very interesting with rewarding pay, but you would need to get yourself prepared for your tasks. Business skill development can translate to several industries, as opposed to degree programmes that are specific to a particular field. You will have a lot of in-demand career opportunities as you climb the ladder of success.
