Getting Into the Automotive Industry: 5 Career Paths to Consider

It would be difficult to find a place in the modern world where cars are of importance in some way. Cars also require human intervention during every stage of their lifespan. Which is to say, the processes that involve manufacturing, selling, and maintaining cars all require some level of expertise in each of those respective areas. There might just be a career in the automotive industry that interests you, and here are a few suggestions that can help you get started in your career search.

For anyone to own a car they had to buy it from someone, and that is where an automotive sales associate comes into play. Working as an automotive sales associate usually involves a salary that assumes you are making money on sales commissions, so if this is your career of choice you should make sure you are motivated to learn about selling cars and adapting to potential buyers. One advantage of being a sales associate is that they are needed wherever things are being sold; you should have less trouble finding a job in this field if you have a solid resume in automotive sales.

Inspecting cars is a requirement in some states, so vehicle inspectors become necessary to make sure vehicles are to be properly inspected. Conducting car inspections are not altogether different from going through the motions of general maintenance, either, so building a career in the automotive inspection can help you branch out into different fields within the industry as well as giving you a better ability to maintain your car.

A consumer’s decision to buy a car is often influenced by what advertisements they see or what information is available about a particular business, so there might be a career to be made in automotive marketing as well. Similar to developing an ability to sell a product in person, a career in marketing is useful outside of the automotive industry as well and it gives you a variety of other career options so long as you remain up to date with contemporary marketing strategies. For example, geofencing marketing techniques can tell you if a cellphone advertisement is worth using by notifying you when someone who has viewed the advertisement visits that advertisement’s place of business.

Car technicians are knowledgeable of the inner workings of a car, and they can be useful to pretty much anyone that wants to build or fix an automobile. In addition to knowing what to look for in a car, a potential car technician should ideally be comfortable doing the relevant routine maintenance on your own. Despite the technical expertise required to call oneself an automotive technician, though, they will often still have to interact with customers to better solve problems relating to the cars that need fixing. Almost any job worth having will have difficulty in general without good communication skills, so make sure you are capable of articulating and recording the problems you might encounter in a car that needs maintenance if you plan on being a technician.

Diesel technicians, in particular, are a specific kind of car technician that fills a specific niche in the automotive industry. While jobs in this field do require some education, the job growth for diesel technicians is steadily improving as well. While attaining automotive and diesel certifications could take a couple of years, you might also be able to get an associate’s degree that would qualify you for the position should you wish to have the option of improving your degree later.

The automotive industry offers a variety of jobs to choose from, so even if you don’t initially get the job you are aiming for it might be worth building connections within the industry with a different job you might be interested in. Regardless of what you choose, though, the most important part of your job is your passion to see it through.

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