Top ten jobs to have

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Salary.com and Money magazine just released a list of the top fifty jobs.

Here’s how they did the rankings:

Things that are bad are less than $50,000 average salary, dangerous, and small field with little room for advancement.

Things that are good are a growing field, low stress, flexibility in hours and working environment, creativity, and easy advancement.

Here are the top ten:

1. Software engineer

2. College professor

3. Financial advisor

4. Human resource advisor

5. Physician assistant

6. Market research analyst

7. Computer/IT analyst

8. Real estate appraiser

9. Pharmacist

10. Psychologist

I dove for this list as soon as I saw it, but the rankings are not as useful as you might imagine. However it made me happy to see that psychologist is up there at the top — it’s hard enough to go to a therapist, so I at least want to know that while I’m talking she is enjoying herself.

9 replies
  1. Pappy Jo
    Pappy Jo says:

    Why is a therapist necessarily a ‘she’?

    * * * * * *

    A therapist, of course, is not necessarily a she. Because we all know this, I don’t think it matters what gender I use. In a perfect world, English would not demand that each singular pronoun have a gender. But it’s the nature of the language, and at this point in the development of English, substituting a non-gendered, plural pronoun when the sentence does not call for one actually serves to deperaonlize the writing, I think. So, it’s a stylistic choice thoroughout the whole blog.

    –Penelope

  2. KLORPh
    KLORPh says:

    Pharmacist is #9???? Wow Im a pharmacist and I think it sort of sucks: long hours, lots of stress, little room for creativity, inflexible schedule, not much advancement, and working with the general public in a retail situation leaves A LOT to be desired… well I suppose if I could think of a better way to make more money I would (without going back to school)… #9.. unbelievable

  3. john
    john says:

    Software Engineer??? Um… working under tight deadlines, sitting in front of a computer 8+ hours a day writing code, getting stressed over bugs and what not, being micromanaged, having little or no control is low stress?!?

    Quite the opposite

  4. Paul Godines
    Paul Godines says:

    Less than $50,000 a year, dangerous and little room for advancement?

    Sounds like a normal day for a Factory Worker.

    I know 10,000+ people who dream of taking the #10 job. If your working, in todays economy (regardless of education or experience) that makes it a Top 10.

  5. finance review
    finance review says:

    Certainly a really awesome post. Well i really do agree that being a financial adviser is one o the best jobs. It really is great. Great post Penelope. keep it up. Cheers

  6. JMF
    JMF says:

    Interesting criteria…

    A note that some of these jobs might be nice to have (e.g. #2 College Professor – should be clarified as “Tenured College Professor”) but not necessarily a nice job to acquire; the prereqs can be grueling!

  7. Customer Satisfaction Survey Software
    Customer Satisfaction Survey Software says:

    I am in the field of Market Research and it is a varied and interesting job. You get to interact with both customers and companies in a whole range of industries all in the name of trying to improve the customer experience and giving the client the skills to do this.

  8. Peter Moss
    Peter Moss says:

    I’m surprised to see Software Engineer profession in a top spot. I believe in 2009, it dropped to 12 place.
    Outsourcing and pay squeeze cause a lot of stress. Many people leave this field.

    You have to really like programming, problem solving to stay in this field for long. I see many people entering this field that are attracted by money, but usually they are the ones who are most unhappy.

    Peter

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