Cars, new and used, are considered an important part of modern life, and the automotive industry is one that can employ a wide variety of people. Technicians, managers, and marketing professionals are only a few of the kinds of people who can find a job working with automobiles in some capacity. Depending on your discipline, you could even cross-train inside the auto industry or into another industry entirely. If you think the auto industry is a place that you would like to work, here are some ways to start off your career.
Automotive Technician
The technically-minded can find a job repairing cars that are broken if they are willing to undergo some training. Whether a car simply needs an oil change or major bodywork is required after a car wreck, there needs to be someone willing to do the physical work required to actually fix the car. Making sure your training is relevant is particularly important, so even if you already know how to work on cars, getting automotive and diesel certifications will help you keep your resume relevant in the current job market. Cars aren’t purely mechanical vehicles anymore; indeed, many modern cars can be expected to have 100 million lines of code that help them work properly. When taking certification classes for car repair, in many cases you can expect to learn about car’s electrical systems as much as its engine or brakes.
Marketing
Knowing how to make sure the right audience finds the right product can be tricky, but it’s a business that can find work in almost any industry. If you already have experience in marketing, you could apply for a marketing job, and if you ever find that job isn’t working out for you, there is a decent chance that you will have an easier time working in another industry than those working in other disciplines. Still, marketing is a quickly evolving field, and taking the initiative to learn the current marketing strategies for your particular field in your particular area takes a fair amount of dedication; for example, you would use a different strategy for marketing cars for sale in Ghana than you would in Italy or India, and the marketing curriculum you are likely to find in a classroom may not apply to the specific details of your new job.
Car Sales
Selling cars on the sales floor can be a decent job if you like interacting with people. Selling cars, new or used, takes persistence, a desire to work on your feet, and the ability to keep going after failed attempts at a sale. The rewards are also usually commensurate to how many cars are sold because car salespeople can expect to get a commission on every car that they sell. Most importantly, though, a car salesman will, ideally, have a genuine interest in building relationships with people and a desire to take matters into their own hands when it comes to selling cars.
You will ultimately find more success if you enjoy the work that you do on some level, and the automotive industry can provide jobs for many different skillsets. If you want to interact with people, work with cars, or even manage a business, the automotive industry is a major employer in the modern age, and failing to at least consider your options in this sector would be ill-advised. Even research and development into automated cars and environmentally friendly fuel alternatives is not off the table for the ecologically-minded, making it a truly interesting industry indeed.
