Personal Finance ©2012

Chapter 2: Economics and the Global Economy

Careers That Count!

Explore careers in finance and related areas by learning more about the job outlook, career clusters, and career pathways for each job profiled in the chapters of Personal Finance. As you do the research activities and examine these careers, you might discover other jobs that interest you.

Career Clusters A career cluster is a group of similar occupations and industries. Career clusters were developed by the U.S. Department of Education as a way to organize career planning. These are some of the career clusters that are featured in Personal Finance:

• Finance – includes services for financial and investment planning, banking, insurance, and financial management.
• Business Management and Administration - includes careers involved in planning, organizing, directing, and evaluating business operations. Careers in this field are available in every part of a business.
• Architecture and Construction – includes careers in designing, planning, managing, building, and maintaining projects and locations.
• Marketing – includes careers involved with planning, managing, and performing marketing activities to reach the objectives of a business or organization.
• Education and Training – includes careers involved in planning, managing, and providing education and training services, and related learning support services.
• Government and Public Administration – includes careers involved with planning, managing, and providing government legislative and administrative services at all levels.

Career Pathways A career pathway is an area of concentration within a career cluster. Each pathway contains a group of careers requiring similar academic and technical skills as well as similar industry certifications or postsecondary education.

Budget Analyst

Career Cluster – Business Management and Administration

Business Information Management Workers in this pathway perform a company's financial operations, tracking sales and expenses, planning budgets, handling invoicing, receiving payments, preparing tax statements, and more. Jobs include:

• Information Systems Manager
• Accounting Clerk
• Top Collections Executive
• Adjuster
• Bookkeeper
• Billing Supervisor
• Price Analyst
• Information Technology Director
• Project Manager Librarian
• Payroll Clerk

Research online to learn more about career clusters and the Business Management and Administration career cluster.

Research Activity

1. Go to the Bureau of Labor’s online Occupational Outlook Handbook to learn more about this career. Find out the job outlook and salary range for this career and write them down.
2. List two job openings for this job or a related job in any U.S. city. Go to an online job site to find job openings for this career.