In the business world, having a solid educational background is just as crucial as honing the leadership and operational skills you use to successfully run your business every day. To accomplish that goal, colleges offer several different types of business degrees at both the bachelor’s and master’s levels. One such degree—a degree that’s useful, pragmatic, and teaches plenty of crucial skills—is in organizational management. Organizational management is all about solving group goals and fostering success at the organizational level.
How managers accomplish this varies, but they hold an important place in every organizational structure. Managers are typically responsible for planning, organizing, staffing, directing, coordinating, reporting, and budgeting. An organizational manager does all of these and more, across an assortment of industries. Getting into organizational management can lead to a well-paying, successful, and satisfying career. Here is just a small sampling of the amazing careers you can get into with a degree in organizational management.
Human Resources
Every business has an HR department and it’s easily one of the most vital gears keeping the organization running smoothly. So how can a degree/background in organizational management help you here, when it seems like HR and OM are two conflicting fields? By combining the two! When the typically skills-heavy HR position is combined with the strategic planning and casual OM style, it can result in balanced business operations, compliance with laws/regulations, and happier, more engaged employees for a business. Not only that, but HR management has a strong job outlook well into the future, so it may be worth considering for your career.
Business Consulting
Consultation is an interesting vocation. At its most basic level, consultation is merely someone seeking to help a business solve a problem. Consultants are valuable to many industries and can be a great career path for someone with the right skills, business acumen, and creative mind. Some of the most in-demand areas where businesses may need consultants are human resources, strategy, and IT. In a consulting role, an organization will hire you to assess, analyze, and develop a strategy for the organization. This can come as a series of reviews or meetings, but it’s a unique situation every time and relies on one’s skills to pull their client through any troublesome situation.
Technology Careers
In almost everything we do today, technology tends to take center stage. When one considers all the constantly changing technology and what it takes to get most tech initiatives off the ground. An online organizational management degree prepares you for the strategic communication and problem-solving that’s so essential to many IT and other jobs in the tech sector. An IT manager can use most of this knowledge to coordinate an entire company’s computer systems, handle recruiting/training, manage the technology budget, and help with troubleshooting various issues.
Project Manager or Project Coordinator
The satisfactory completion of a long term project is a wonderful feeling. But running that project can be equally fulfilling and challenging. Managing a project successfully requires strategic planning, analysis, and plenty of communication. Better project planning invariably leads to better company performance. The skills needed in this area are aptly covered with a degree in organizational management. With that in mind, becoming a project manager may be a superb career option. Another option might be acting as a project coordinator, which is pretty versatile as well. Careers in that field often involve working in technology or construction, but your mileage may vary.
Insurance Underwriter
Insurance underwriting is just another exciting part of working in the insurance industry. Unlike a claims adjustor or an insurance broker, the insurance underwriter is directly responsible for deciding if the insurance firm decides to provide coverage or not. As an underwriter, you’d also be making decisions regarding coverage amounts and the cost of any premiums to the insured individual or organization. Becoming an underwriter typically requires a bachelor’s degree. Because providing insurance coverage involves a significant understanding of risk, an organizational management degree definitely helps.
Many of the skills you learn while earning the degree translate wonderfully to the requirements of being in such a position. Analyzing applications, assessing risk, screening applicants based on certain criteria, a great deal of communication, and devising coverage amounts/premium prices are all vital components of working as an insurance underwriter. Insurance underwriting is a great career for someone who maintains a strong interest in financial or insurance matters and has superb attention to detail. You also have to be able to make quick, incisive decisions in the field. With a background in organizational management, you’ll already have the skills and knowledge required to identify, comprehend, and ultimately prevent risks.