preparator Career Path | See the Career Paths People Really Take

designer

office manager

producer

assistant curator

administrative assistant

photographer

first officer

account manager

meat cutter

preparator

artist

An accounts manager is a person who manage the company account and maintains the company's existing relationships with a client or group of clients so that they will continue using the company for business and also serves to understand the customer's demands, plan how to meet these demands, and generate sales for the company as a result. They also assist with data processing, handle complaints, and ensure that customers get the best possible experience. Responsibilities of account managers are problem-solving skills to help resolve customer needs, manage customer expectation and lead them to customer satisfaction, make sure all deliverables fulfill customers’ requirements, comminicate with cleitns, review performance of team, conduct training to upgrade teh skills of individuals, up-to-date understanding of the industry's consumer behavior, strong customer service and interpersonal skills, exceptional analytical skills, time management, and multitasking skills, advanced motivational and negotiation skills, and strong organizational skills.

Discover the journey of an account executive in ad sales, from starting as a sales assistant to earning a six-figure salary. Learn about daily tasks, client interactions, and the importance of building connections in this dynamic, rewarding industry.

<h2>Advertising Sales</h2><p>There's kind of a ladder. You start as a sales assistant, then a sales planner if you're taking the direct sales route. Another way is working on the agency or client side of things and then moving over to the sales side.&nbsp;</p><h2><br></h2><h2>Sales Requirements</h2><p>It really requires a personality where you're interacting a lot with clients, so you have to be social. You have to be able to entertain your clients and understand them on a personal level so that they want to do business with you regularly.</p><h2><br></h2><h2>What It’s Like in Sales</h2><p>An average day for an account executive in ad sales involves going through your list and looking ahead to the next quarter. For example, if I sell TV and I’m targeting a kid-focused channel or movie, I’d aim at clients with kid products. Then you work with your marketing team internally to create a custom package. For instance, offering a promotion for a new show for a budget, like a hundred thousand dollars. You present that to the client and their representing agency.</p><p>You have a territory you work with, which sometimes involves traveling to meet clients. Some days you’re in the office working on proposals and pitches. Every day is different, which makes the job exciting and not mundane. Sometimes you’re entertaining clients, like taking them to dinner or a baseball game, to keep relationships and conversations ongoing for future campaigns.</p><h2><br></h2><h2>Advertising Sales Account Executive Salary</h2><p>The salary for an account executive in advertising varies depending on the medium. Starting salaries can range from $100K to $150K, with commission potentially adding another 50%, bringing the total up to $300K.&nbsp;</p><h2><br></h2><h2>Pros and Cons of Sales</h2><p>The job's pros, especially early in your career, include experiencing entertainment and networking. The industry is flexible, offering various career paths if you decide to pivot.</p><p>A key part of sales is meeting your quota. Missing your sales goal can affect your job status and commission. However, the connections you make are invaluable. There’s a strong community of people you work and grow with in the industry.</p><h2><br></h2><h2>Getting Started in Sales</h2><p>To get into the industry, it’s essential to understand that you can’t just jump into an account executive role. It’s rare. Be prepared to start lower and work hard, being open to different paths, whether agency or client side.</p><p><br></p>

The Administrative Assistant helps and supports managers in administrative and clerical activities.  Their role is handling administrative requests, organizing and scheduling appointments, scheduling meetings, preparing minutes of meetings, preparing reports, and maintaining appropriate filing systems.  Their responsibilities are arranging events, supporting office policies and procedures, maintaining client and employee lists, reconciling expense reports, and arranging the accommodation and travel of employees or visitors.

If you are just starting out or looking to switch careers, working in an office environment may be your ticket. Can you communicate effectively and enjoy people? Advancement opportunities may be in your future.

<h2>Office / Administrative Support Education</h2><p>Technically you don't need a degree to get into this field. This is a great career for anybody just getting started or anybody who has been in another career and wants a good career change. A degree can definitely help you in this career especially if the position is asking for management and this will help you especially if you want to supervise or if the position allows you to supervise others.</p><p><br></p><h2>Skills</h2><p>It takes just somebody who is <strong>willing to learn</strong> who's a good <strong>people person </strong>and somebody who just really likes to <strong>help others</strong>. Being able to <strong>adapt</strong> is a very important skill in this position. Your company that you'd be maybe working with may change their needs. <strong>Technology </strong>is always changing to be able to adapt and to <strong>grow</strong> with that is very important depending on your company. Strong <strong>excel skills</strong>. Being able to have strong <strong>communication skills</strong> is going to be key to be able to work with and communicate with your managers, your customers, internal and external.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><h2>Role Pro</h2><p>One big pro of this is you can work in an in-person setting, hybrid or remote.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><h2>Role Advancement</h2><p>In my current company that I work for I started as an admin assistant and I developed this position to be more of a management position. I've taken that to managing people and now actually taking over onboarding and doing more HR role, payroll.</p><p><br></p><h2>Role Challenges</h2><p>A Con can be that you can be working under a lot of pressure with a lot of competing demands especially if the company has a lot of internal and external customers. This career is definitely customer service related so if you don't like working with people I do not recommend it.</p><p><br></p>

An Artist is a person involved in an activity linked to creating art, practicing the arts, or illustrating an art.  Their role is to generate and develop artistic ideas, sketch out ideas, and make models in response to a brief or commission.  Their responsibilities are to meet deadlines, work in a workshop or off-site, adhere to health and safety procedures, source materials, develop relationships with suppliers, plan projects and create publicity, write project suggestions for galleries, competitions or artist residencies, carry out financial planning, carry out self-promotion activities, apply for residencies and competitions, write funding applications, liaise with gallery owners, curators and other artists, curate individual and group shows, negotiate a sale or commission, and maintain a portfolio.

If you love art and love to create, have you considered making a living selling what you create? Paul has been a professional twig artist for over 30 years. Check out what he has to say about his career as well as some of his art pieces. 

<h2>Why I choose this Medium</h2><p>I'm an artist. I make twig art. I loved art and I art and it really rings a bell with me and I just had to go with it. I went to art school and I saw somebody else's work and it triggered the twig idea - the using twigs as my medium. You know it's taken a long time and I've had successes and failures. I’ve been doing this for over 30 years and every step is kind of exciting even when sometimes it's more boring and drudgy. In general it's very fulfilling.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><h2>My Average Day as an Artist</h2><p>The average day depends on if I have an order and I know specifically somebody wants and then I have to build it. But if I'm just on my own and have free time I might collect twigs. I'm always kind of looking around when I drive around. So either that or being in my studio/space in the backyard and I put them together. Sometimes I'm working on the computer and trying to entice art advisors or interior designers to buy my art.</p><p><br></p><h2>How to Get Into This Field</h2><p>You need to have a body of work or something to show what you do and what you're trying to try to get out there. You can do it. You can go to school but today it's about promoting yourself.&nbsp; With the internet, it's wide open and you can do it easily. But it's a lot of work and you got to decide who you're going to write to. You still work hard at it. I would recommend you make yourself a website and send that around. I don't know what&nbsp; artsy little store you might have around you.- It could be around the country and get into ones so you could consign your art there. That's one way or work with an art advisor or work with an art gallery or anything and you can keep doing new shows and such.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><h2>Pros and Cons of being an Artist&nbsp;</h2><p>You can really get into it and love what you do then it's just a great thing. Cons are if you're not Picasso or somebody and have your name out there it could be a long road. But its still worth it. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

The Assistant Curator helps to arrange projects and exhibits with artists, lenders and arts institutions.  Their role is delivering modern and contemporary exhibitions and commissions for an art institution.  Their responsibilities are organizing the transport and insurance of art pieces, producing catalogs, contributing ideas to the gallery’s program, and liaising with internal departments and the professional art world.

A Designer creates visual trends through media like typography, illustration, photography and layouts.  Their role is producing excellent visual work, generating a host of ideas, selecting the best ones, and selling them to other members of the team and to clients.  Their responsibilities are staying up to date with industry trends, encouraging others to share their ideas, communicating productively with management and clients to keep them up-to-date with project milestones, creating a direction for projects, and guiding team members.

A First Officer is the second pilot to assist the captain in flight preparation and operation of an aircraft.  Their role is  notifying the captain of any variations in standard flight operations, and supporting the captain with take-offs and landings.  Their responsibilties are to perform navigation of charts, prepare the weight and balance forms for each flight, assist the captain with in-flight operations and tasks, supervise the fuelling, ground power unit, baggage loading and appropriate servicing of the aircraft, communicate with air traffic control during flight, take-off and landing, update the aircraft logbook, examine the aircraft for operational and technical performance, and act and control operations and procedures in the event of an emergency.

A Meat Cutter uses saws, slicers, knives and power cutters to section large pieces of meat into smaller cuts that customers can prepare at home.  Their role is to work with potentially dangerous tools to cut, trim, handle, wrap, weigh and price merchandise meat products.  Their responsibilities are to comply with local and government weight, measure and labeling laws, increase sales through good customer service, ensure quality control and good departmental conditions, manage products while complying with production standards, ensure departmental sanitation with rotation and pricing, handle reductions properly, run market department equipment, check meat deliveries, and rewrap meat.

An Office Manager oversees administrative support for a company in order to keep the office running smoothly.  Their role is overseeing the general office operation by greeting visitors, coordinating appointments and meetings, and mentoring, supervising, training and coaching office staff.  Their responsibilities are answering a high volume of incoming phone calls, delivering optimal customer service to clients, managing staff calendars and schedules, delegating assignments to ensure maximum productivity, and coordinating domestic and international travel.

A Photographer captures images or videos for clients in a studio, on location, or at an event.  Their role is to work with their clients to determine what types of poses and looks make the best picture composition.  Their responsibilities are to prepare the studio by setting up lights and props, perform editing after a photoshoot, meet with clients before photoshoots to gauge their needs and expectations, purchase props needed for photoshoots, find appropriate locations for shoots, prepare necessary release forms for events, and remain up to date with the latest editing software.

Whether you choose to go to college or study on your own, learn the qualifications every photographer should know to be successful.

<h2><strong>Why I Choose Photography</strong></h2><p>I needed something that could be flexible in time and allow me to work when I needed to work and be with my family when I needed to be with my family.</p><p><br></p><h2><strong>Photographer Schedule</strong></h2><p>I do most of my photography work on the weekends because that is when families are available and you want family sessions done.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><h2><strong>Education</strong></h2><p>You can pretty much become a photographer on your own these days. I'm completely self-taught. I took advantage of a lot of the online training and education courses that are available on the internet. I looked up photographers that I admired and liked their work and they had similar business models that I wanted to have and a lot of them offer educational courses.</p><h2><br></h2><h2><strong>Photographer Requirements&nbsp;</strong></h2><p>The number one thing is a good camera. This is mine. You also need to have good people skills, a really good computer ( I use a Mac) and editing software. I edit all of my photos in the Adobe products of Lightroom and Photoshop. You&nbsp; need to have some basic business and organizational skills in order to make sure that you invoice your clients appropriately and get paid when you need to get paid and deliver products by delivering the final galleries when you promise them to your clients. You also need to have some sort of program website platform where you deliver your photos to your clients so that they can download them and keep them and use them for themselves and some sort of software that you can invoice people on and communicate with your clients.&nbsp;</p><p><br></p><h2><strong>Getting Started in Photography</strong></h2><p>Get a camera and just start shooting. Get some online education and training. Learn how to use the camera well.&nbsp; Practice, practice, practice. Learn about editing. Figure out your style. What do you want your pictures to look like? Go for it and start taking pictures of people for free. I did a lot of free sessions before I started charging just to get practice and build a portfolio and really feel more confident in my work and that I could legitimately charge people for this. Just get out there, get a camera and start shooting.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

The Preparator installs and takes down museum exhibitions.  Their role is deconstructing and constructing walls, packing objects to be shipped to a new location, unpacking incoming objects, and arranging for a new installation.  Their responsibilities are producing the layout of graphic elements and signage, designing and constructing shipping crates, casework and exhibition furniture, and troubleshooting the technical issues for audio, visual and mixed media exhibitions.

The Producer tends to the business and financial matters involved in making a movie, television show or stage production.  Their role is to supervise production and maintian the budget, timeline and quality of the finished product. Their responsibilities are hiring staff for the production, coordinating the activities of writers, directors, managers, cast memebrs and other personnel throughout the production process, raising money and setting the budget and size of a production, establishing management policies, approving major production changes, monitoring post-production processes to ensure accurate completion of details, performing management activities such as overseeing budgeting, scheduling and marketing, and attending meetings with staff to discuss production progress and check-ins to ensure production objectives goals are met.

Preparator Career Path