- Onward Search found Chicago to be a good place for creative and digital jobs.
- The job market in the city ranked second or third in the survey in many job categories.
- The organization places clients in jobs from nine US offices, and one in the UK.
Onward Search, a Connecticut-based recruitment and staffing firm that’s focused exclusively on placing creative talent, tallied the top creative jobs in each of the markets that they serve.
Their team recently crunched the numbers to find the top 20 markets for the careers in which they place talent.
For their Chicago placements, there’s good news for creatives and digital marketing types. Throughout the six categories of placements that the company makes, Chicago residents – or those who hope to work there – can find a variety of placements.
And, job-seekers can rejoice: there is a salary guide, too. Each type of job is ranked for high, average and low salaries for each market and role.
The categories of positions include:
- Creative
- Interactive
- Digital
- Development
- Mobile
- User Experience (UX)
As can be expected, New York City dominated the rankings for the top market for many types of jobs. But, Chicagoland did very well, coming in second or third in most of the dozens of roles ranked.
For digital roles, such as community managers, digital marketing managers and social media strategists, Chicago ranked second or third. Web copywriters were also in second place, and that job category could expect salaries that average more than $65,000.
Monkey Business Images / Shutterstock.com
Chicagoland does similarly well in the creative category, which includes occupations involving designer and creative and art director roles. It’s the second-best place in the survey to be for those who are creative directors, and third for all variety of designers, from standard-issue graphic designers to web and presentation designers. And, it’s also third for art directors, who can expect to be paid anywhere from $61,000 to almost $102,000.
The only places where Chicago falls a little short are in some mobile developer and user interface jobs. But that’s only if fourth or fifth place is considered falling short. Or for the lowest ranking the city got – an 11th place for 3-D animator jobs.
For the interactive tool which shows the rankings for all the job types where the company places candidates, visit their website. Look for the 2016 All Star Salary Survey of the 50 top jobs in the categories described here.
