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Nathaniel Brown

Professor Nelsen

Business 1010

4/24/18

Term Research Paper: Assessing a Career in Business

Job Description

Being Chief Executive officer (CEO) which is the Highest-ranking Executive in a

Company can be stressful and enjoyable at times because the responsibilities of being an

executive comes with many responsibilities such as making crucial corporate decisions and

managing the company’s operations and its resources (Staff).

As CEO you are the main point of contact between your board of Directors and your

Company Operations which sometimes being the CEO you sometimes have a seat on the board

and sometimes even Chairs it, the title CEO is sometimes called an Executive, President and

even Managing Director (Staff).

The position of CEO is much different with Smaller level-company’s and Larger Level

Company’s because CEOs of smaller companies have more of a hands-on role compared with a

CEO in a Larger Company (Staff).

General Career Path/General Education Experience

The Path to becoming CEO of a Company starts with attending College for a Business-

Related Degree but if you don’t want to pursue a Business Degree there are another Alternative

Degrees such as an Engineering Degree, and Political Science Degree but those are just a few,

Most CEOs have an MBA after finishing with their bachelor’s degree, but another part of the
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Career Path is the Experience and that usually comes with years of being in a job-related field

and moving yourself up in rank because the position of CEO is not an entry-level position and

the Education Courses in College do not provide the exposure to a number of Disciplines but

rather teaches you ways to think and interact (Staff).

Many CEOs currently have various Degrees of Studies also there are CEOs who never

attended College or Dropped-Out to pursue forming their Company’s and were successful at it,

but the top CEOs also have Ivy-League Backgrounds Compared to Students in Public

Universities (Staff).

Average Salary

The Average Salary of a CEO usually depends on the type of Company the CEO leads

and it usually comes in a form of Stock Grants because the Board of Directors usually think

rewarding them is a way of providing an incentive to for him or her to run the Company and

sometimes they will also reward shareholders (Staff).

Another factor that explains why Companies pay their CEOs extravagant Salary’s is

because some CEOs are indispensable and inextricable from the companies they are leading.

Additionally the pay of Public Company CEOs are normally set by a committee that is formed

by its members that serve on the Board of Directors who are nominated by the CEOs (Staff).

The members of the Compensation Committee tend to set the pay and they sometimes go along

with high levels of pay because they enjoy their positions but the use of peer groups to determine

pay has been a factor for burgeoning the CEO pay (Staff).

Career Outlook

The Career outlook of Chief Executive Officer is extremely competitive because it is the

most seniority job in a company. The only persons that get a position are essentially battling it
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out with their experience and the one with best experience gets the job. The outlook for the

position has an 8% increase which is faster than average in the Labor Market. There are

approximately 2.5 million jobs related to being CEO and usually people who are in this category

have an average work experience of 5 years or more (Summary).

Overall, the Career outlook for Chief Executive Officer looks very optimistic and

although there are limited amount jobs and the competition is hard, the outlook is growing every

year with people of 5 years or more of experience and new companies being developed that will

create more jobs and more opportunities for prospects (Summary)

Bio of a CEO: Elon Musk

Elon Musk is the Founder and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla a company that experiments

with a variety of technology in different settings. Elon was born June 28th, 1971 in Pretoria,

South Africa who was an introverted kid. At the age of 12, he started his pursuit in business

creating a game called “Blastar” which he sold for $500. After graduating High School he

Continued to pursue his Education at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario where he

graduated 2 years later.

(Weinberger, M).

After his time in Canada he then transferred to the university of Pennsylvania where he

finished studying Physics and economics, shortly before graduating he and a classmate rented a

10-bedroom frat house and turned it into a nightclub and this would turn into his largest

entrepreneurial experiments to date (Weinberger, M).

After Graduating Elon then went to Stanford briefly to pursue his PhD where he barely

started the program before deciding to leave and pursue forming his first company with his

brother Kimbal Musk who founded Zip2 and eventually selling the company for $341 million in
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cash and stock which earned Musk $22 million, Elon formed many companies and sold them for

money and with those companies came downfalls such as Bankruptcy and as CEO he dealt with

many Struggles but always found a way to get back up to the top and guide his company to

success that is why Elon Musk is an impeccable Leader and CEO his company and others need

in society today (Weinberger, M).

Pros and Cons of Being CEO

One of the many Pro’s you will face as CEO will be being held responsible for the

Strategy and what to Build? How to get to market? And where to Focus? Your Ideas will always

be the first to be put to the test where you hope they succeed and not fail and Being CEO, you

are allowing people of your company to trust you and guide the company because they believe in

the vision and your set (Strategy Herscher, P.).

A Con you will face would mean you will harder than you have ever worked in your life,

and its even harder being a CEO for Small-Level Company that is trying to get off the ground

that will require more time and days set aside that will require you to stay physically fit and

exercise to survive a stressful workload (Herscher, P.).

Secondly, Another Pro as CEO is getting to set the Culture for Company is the most

important responsibilities that you have because it involves not only what you say to your

employees but the actions you take. It can become a Centerpiece of their leadership in the

Company along with turning the focus on other areas in the company that will help assist in

better recruitment and increase their impact with the community (Herscher, P.).

A Con as CEO would be its your Company and that you are responsible for keeping the

company afloat and come up with solutions for your team, but it will not be everyday that you

face struggles, but you hopefully find your routine that works best for you as CEO (Herscher, P.)
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Your “Fit” with this Career

Becoming CEO of my company or some other company out would best suite me in the

near future, if I do decide to form my own company but after learning more about the process of

getting a job in the field, I learned that it extremely competitive and that it takes a lot of

experience to get to the top, and that its virtually impossible to jump into a CEO position without

working in an entry-level position and working your way up the chain.

I have learned that being chief executive officer takes lots of time and you need to be prepared to

manage your life and find time for yourself to be able to lead a large or small level company to

success and the biggest way to avoid having a large workload is by delegating tasks to people

that can do them and rely on your team.

Being CEO is a one of the biggest but scariest opportunities that few get, the position has

so many great benefits to it such as High Pay and other things that Corporate CEOs do for fun

although some people disagree strongly about CEOs being paid way more than the workers that

work for them but the reality in Large Corporations is that it takes way more work to run and

operate than working a 8 hour day because CEOs work overtime everyday and have limited time

to spend with their family and that is a big commitment.

Overall, I think I could handle the position, but I personally would not pursue it unless I

made sure I can do the job but maybe one day when I have more experience than the average

employee, although the money is tempting I think I value my happiness and freedom too much to

be responsible of many others but I still have more education and life experience to pursue and

being CEO is definitely the last on the list for right now.
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This Assignment has been interesting, and I have learned a lot from it and I will be able

to take away some information from it such as learning how to spend my time wisely and

organize my life overall and to spend time thinking about what I want to do in life.
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Commentary: Here's Why So Many CEOs Start the Job Unprepared. (2018, April 24). Retrieved April 25,

2018, from http://fortune.com/2018/04/24/egon-zehnder-ceos-leadership/

Herscher, P. (2015, January 27). Top 5 Reasons You Do, and Don't, Want to be CEO of Your Own

Startup. Retrieved April 25, 2018, from https://www.inc.com/penny-herscher/top-5-reasons-you-

do-and-don-t-want-to-be-ceo-of-your-own-startup.html

Staff, I. (2018, April 10). Chief Executive Officer - CEO. Retrieved April 25, 2018, from

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/ceo.asp

Summary. (2018, April 13). Retrieved April 25, 2018, from https://www.bls.gov/ooh/management/top-

executives.htm

Stadler, C. (2015, June 14). How To Become A CEO: These Are The Steps You Should Take. Retrieved

April 24, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/christianstadler/2015/03/12/how-to-become-a-

ceo-these-are-the-steps-you-should-take/#824dba712170

Trammell, J. (2014, May 01). Lead From the Top: 5 Core Responsibilities of a CEO. Retrieved April 24,

2018, from https://www.entrepreneur.com/slideshow/299855#1

Weinberger, M. (2017, September 15). The incredible story of Elon Musk, from getting bullied in school

to the most interesting man in tech. Retrieved April 25, 2018, from

http://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-elon-musk-2016-7#musk-also-recently-started-

another-company-the-boring-company-which-is-more-interesting-than-its-name-suggests-39