If you love making to-do lists, color-coding things around the house, or sorting books from A to Z, chances are you’re a super-organized person. It’s a skill the rest of us envy from behind our cluttered desks and jam-packed home screens.
While your friends and family may poke fun at your commitment to living a structured life, there are many highly sought-after jobs that are screaming out for your planning and organizational skills.
In this post, we’ll discuss some of the professional roles that require excellent time management, task prioritization, and risk assessment. We’ll also look at how you can kickstart your career with an online bootcamp.
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Top Jobs for Organized People
The following list includes some top career choices for highly organized professionals:
1. Project Manager
Project Management is synonymous with organization. A project manager is responsible for taking care of business projects from start to finish. The role includes dealing with project budgets, outlining the project scope, creating milestones, and ensuring that tasks are completed on time and with the expected quality.
Project managers often need to deal with vendors, suppliers, teams from different domains like design, manufacturing, and engineering as well as higher leadership. The job requires ultimate precision, adhering to stringent timelines, negotiation based on previous records and experience, assessing any unforeseen risks, and creating proper mitigation plans. All these activities undoubtedly require someone with great organizational and planning abilities.
In this growing field, you'll find employment in diverse industries including tech, engineering, manufacturing, construction, and pharma. The requirements for the position vary according to the type of industry and the methodologies used. For example, in manufacturing industries, Lean and Six Sigma are widely used, while for IT, Agile and Scrum methodologies are popular.
Most project managers have at least a bachelor’s degree in fields related to the industry they work in. Some have MBAs with a specialization in project management. But a degree isn’t always required.
The most common route to becoming a project manager is to gain work experience by working alongside an established PM, and then appearing for certain globally reputed certification exams like PMP (Project Management Professional) or CAPM (Certified Associate in Project Management) offered by the PMI (Project Management Institute).
A 2019 report by PMI states that non-certified PMP professionals take home about $100,000 a year, while with a PMP certification, the average salary rises to $123,000 a year.
How to Become A Project Manager: To really set yourself apart in the crowded job market, enroll in an online project management bootcamp. These intensive programs are designed by leading industry experts to teach you everything you need to get started as a PM. You’ll learn the latest planning tools like Agile and Scrum, and build a solid portfolio of work to wow prospective employers. We’ll even help you with your job search and prepare you for that big interview.
2. Financial Analyst
If you're a left-brained person with excellent mathematical and analytical abilities, a career in finance could be your calling. To become a financial analyst, you'll need strong organizational skills, a problem-solving mindset, and attention to detail.
Working as a financial analyst, your goal is to help senior decision-makers understand the finances of companies and assets, to ultimately reduce risk, boost stability, and increase profits. You’ll need to use data analysis and modeling techniques to assess balance sheets, bank statements, and cash flow.
Talented financial analysts are in huge demand in investment banks and stock-broking firms. A bachelor’s degree in mathematics, economics, or business is a prerequisite for this position, though people from backgrounds in engineering or physics (with sound mathematical foundations) are also found working in the field of financial analysis.
How to Become A Financial Analyst: An MBA is also a good option, but not always required. The role is evolving fast and many hiring managers prefer candidates with practical skills in data analysis and tech. Bootcamps can offer a more affordable and focused learning path for aspiring analysts. Contact our admissions representative to discuss your education options. Internships are an excellent way to learn on-the-job. You can also apply for junior roles in finance and look to work your way up the career ladder after several years of experience. Pass relevant certifications like Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), Certified Risk Planner (CRP), and Financial Risk Manager (FRM) to further boost your chances of success. Average salaries for financial analysts typically hover around the $71,000 mark. With experience, the figure can easily exceed $100,000.
3. Accountant
Accountancy is another job that deals with structure and precision. You'll have to keep track of finances and handle auditing, accounting, consulting, and tax-related duties for your clients. Accountants can be employed by the government, companies, or individuals. Accounting professionals check for accuracy and store records and important documents for their clients. You’ll need excellent organizational skills and an aptitude for numbers to make it in this field.
How to Become An Accountant: Most organizations require their accountants to have a bachelor’s degree, sometimes followed by certifications like Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Chartered Certified Accountant (ACCA), Certified Financial Planner (CFP), Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) or Certified Management Accountant (CMA). The average salary for an accountant is about $70,500, with the best-paid 25% earning an average of $92,910 and even the lowest-paid 25% take home around $55,070.
4. Data Engineer
A data engineer requires considerable analytical skills coupled with a problem-solving attitude. You’ll be responsible for collecting, extracting, transforming, and structuring enormous amounts of data. Your goal is to remove redundant information and streamline the data for analysis.
Working as a data engineer, you’ll need to keep data sources organized and properly recorded for future reference. If there are discrepancies in the future or data systems need to be updated, you’ll have to rely on these records.
Statistical analysis and coding in languages like Python and R may also be required. Precision, patience, and a structured approach will be needed to write efficient bug-free code.
How to Become A Data Engineer: To become a data engineer, many students opt for a degree in engineering or computer science. There are data engineers with a background in other domains related to math and physics as well. But for entry-level positions, a degree isn’t actually required. Provided you learn data engineering principles like data wrangling, database design, SQL, and data pipelines, you’ll have a great chance to land a job at a top tech firm. Many skill enhancement organizations offer courses in affiliation to reputed universities around the globe. In addition, there are certifications from companies like IBM, Cloudera, AWS, SAS, Google, and DASCA, which can lend immense value to your resume. Enroll in our data engineering bootcamp to learn the skills you need. Our big data experts will provide you with one-on-one mentoring and coaching throughout the program. On average, a data engineer can earn around $103,000 a year. This is a fast-growing field with plenty of opportunities for passionate candidates.
5. Software Engineer
Software engineers use programming and engineering principles to build smartphone apps, websites, and business tools. You’ll need to be highly organized to structure and plan your code. You’ll also need attention to detail and have the ability to use a pragmatic approach. Coders work with programs that span thousands or even millions of lines of code. The software needs to be tested and debugged for months before it’s ready for release. To achieve this, programmers need to be very systematic in their approach, insert proper comments in the code for guidance, try to keep the code as concise as possible and minimize the application size. Developers are required to document their code in the form of user guides, technical manuals, troubleshooting documents, and installation instructions. This requires a great deal of planning and order.
How to Become A Software Engineer: To become a software developer, most organizations require at least a bachelor’s degree in computer science or software engineering. Candidates from similar engineering backgrounds can also make the cut provided they strengthen their knowledge of coding languages like C++, Java, Python, Ruby, PHP, and JavaScript.
You can further boost your chances of landing a well-paid job by signing up for our software engineering bootcamp. We’ll teach you the software development lifecycle and provide you with practical experience working on software projects. You’ll build a professional portfolio of work to showcase your achievements.
You can expect to earn around $78,000 as a software engineer. But the salaries vary hugely depending on your experience, skills, type of coding languages known, geographical location, and the hiring company.
Good Luck in Your Future Career
There are many companies across the U.S. that are looking for highly organized candidates with specific technical and interpersonal skills. If you want to learn more about these career choices, check out our tech blog. You’ll find regularly updated articles on a range of career paths including software engineering, data science, and product management.
Which Tech Career is Right for You?
Ready to change your career and join the world’s next workforce? At Thinkful, we’ve got your back with various tech programs to get you equipped with in-demand skills.