VP positions are difficult to define because they vary so greatly depending on the industry. Being a vice president means you have many job responsibilities, and that you're very high up on the corporate 'food chain.'
In order to understand VP jobs, you need to think of a company with many different levels. In a company, there might be a sales department, a department of operations, a marketing department, and a purchasing department. All of these departments work together to make the company work, but each has different tasks.
As VP of sales, you will be at a very high level in the sales department. You'll work with the president of sales on projects and initiatives, as well as many other tasks. Most of the time, you'll be the right hand to the president of sales, which means that while the president makes the biggest decisions, you are probably in charge of lots of different smaller decisions. Together with the president of sales, you will work on the sales decisions that you will oversee, and you will determine which aspects of the sales team you will be handling.
If you are VP of operations or purchasing, you will work with the president of this department to decide which aspects of it you are going to be in charge of. Then you will do those duties and make sure that things run smoothly. Chances are that you will have your own set of criteria and be in charge of your own aspects of the company in that manner, and then you can be sure to run it as you would like.
In general, VP jobs require you to work with the people who are below you. You will be working by supervising the managers. You might run meetings with the managers to insure that they know what they're doing. You will also work with the other VPs in other departments. You will need to determine what type of decisions need to be made by all of the VPs and you'll help to make sure that the company runs smoothly.
The highest level VP jobs are the VP of the company jobs. These are jobs in which you are just a heartbeat away from actually being president of the company. However, they work in the same was as other VP jobs do. You will probably need to talk to the president and determine what types of things you are going to be in charge of, and then make plans for getting those things accomplished.
Advancement
You will be higher than supervisors, higher than managers, and almost as high as you can go. Of course, from VP jobs in departments, you can rise to president jobs of those departments – and from there you can get to the VP of the company jobs. From there, there is only one more step, and that is to the top of the ladder.
Skills
For VP jobs, you need to know what you are doing in the company. You have to have been around awhile, and understand how the company works, and you need to be willing to work hard to maintain this idea for the company itself. You also want to be sure that you are a good team leader; because being VP means that you are almost as high up on the team ladder as you can go. You will need to mange people who are managing people who are managing still other people, so you will want to have a calm head on your shoulders, and be able to get the work done that needs to get done.
Often, VP jobs can be highly stressful, so you should be sure that you can work in a stressful environment, and that you are ready for job competition as well.
