Career Choices for Simmies

Sometimes my simmies have career related LTWs...other times, it's up to me to decide what career they go into. How do I do this? Several ways:

1. Look at the wants panel. Sometimes they'll roll a want for a specific career. If so, then I chose from one of those and they take the first one available and the one that fits their personality and lifestyle.
2. Look at a combination of personality, aspirations, interests and hobbies-which is what this post will talk about. Of course the usual, feel free to borrow/steal/use these in your game and tweak for your own hood.

Usually by the time my sims are teens, I will start thinking about their career and what they want to persue as their career. Here's the list that I use to think about which careers would work for each sim. It is not necessary for a sim to have EVERYTHING listed, but it's more like a score. The more qualities a sim has for that career, then the better suited that sim is for that career.

Athletic
-Personality = Active, Outgoing
-Aspiration=Fortune, Popularity
-Interests = Sports,
-Hobbies  = Sports, Fitness
-Traits = n/a

Business
-Personality = Serious, Outgoing
-Aspiration=Fortune, Family
-Interests  = Money, Work
-Hobbies = n/a
-Traits = workaholic

Criminal
-Personality= Active, Mean
-Aspiration =Fortune
-Interests = Crime, Money
-Hobbies = Fitness
-Traits = brave, rebellious

Culinary
-Personality = n/a
-Aspiration = Popularity, Grilled Cheese
-Interests = Food
-Hobbies = Culinary
-Traits = food addict,

Law Enforcement
-Personality = Active, Serious
-Aspiration = Family
-Interests = Crime
-Hobbies = Fitness, Sports
-Traits = brave

Medicine
-Personality = Serious, Neat
-Aspiration =Fortune, Knowledge
-Interests = Health
-Hobbies = Fitness
-Traits = n/a

Military
-Personality = Active
-Aspiration = Popularity
-Interests = Work
-Hobbies = Fitness, Sports
-Traits = brave, disciplined

Politics
-Personality = Outgoing, Serious
-Aspiration =Fortune, Popularity
-Interests = Politics
-Hobbies = n/a
-Traitsu = activist

Science
-Personality = Neat, Serious
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests = Animals, Environment, Weather
-Hobbies = Science, Tinkering, Nature
-Traits = eco-friendly

Slacker
-Personality = Outgoing, Playful
-Aspiration =Pleasure
-Interests = Travel, Toys
-Hobbies = Film & Literature, Games
-Traits = rebellious

Artist
-Personality = n/a
-Aspiration = Pleasure, Family
-Interests = Culture, Entertainment, Fashion
-Hobbies = Arts & Crafts
-Traits = n/a

Natural Science
-Personality = Neat, Serious
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests = Animals, Environment,Weather
-Hobbies = Science, Tinkering, Nature
-Traits = eco-friendly

Show Business
-Personality = Outgoing, Active
-Aspiration =Fortune, Popularity,
-Interests = Culture, Entertainment, Fashion
-Hobbies = Film & Literature
-Traits = trendy

Paranormal
-Personality = Neat
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests = Paranormal, Sci-Fi
-Hobbies = Science, Tinkering
-Traits = brave

Adventurer
-Personality = Active
-Aspiration = Popularity
-Interests = Culture, Weather
-Hobbies = Fitness, Sports
-Traits = brave, adventurous

Education
-Personality = Outgoing
-Aspiration =Knowledge, Family
-Interests = School, Toys
-Hobbies = Science
-Traits = patient

Gamer
-Personality = Playful
-Aspiration = Pleasure
-Interests = Toys
-Hobbies = Games
-Traits = rebellious

Journalism
-Personality = Outgoing
-Aspiration = Popularity
-Interests = Travel, Weather, Work
-Hobbies = Film & Literature
-Traits = n/a

Law
-Personality = Outgoing, Serious
-Aspiration =Popularity
-Interests = Crime
-Hobbies = Film & Literature
-Traits = n/a

Music
-Personality = Outgoing
-Aspiration = Popularity
-Interests = Culture, Entertainment, Fashion
-Hobbies = Music & Dance
-Traits = n/a

Architecture
-Personality = Serious
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests = Environment
-Hobbies = Arts & Crafts, Tinkering
-Traits = n/a

Dance
-Personality = Active
-Aspiration = Popularity
-Interests = Culture, Entertainment
-Hobbies = Fitness, Sports, Music & Dance
-Traits = n/a

Entertainment
-Personality = Active, Outgoing
-Aspiration =Fortune, Popularity
-Interests  = Culture, Entertainment
-Hobbies  = Music & Dance, Film & Literature
-Traits = n/a

Intelligence
-Personality = Neat
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests = Work, Travel
-Hobbies = Film & Literature, Tinkering, Science
-Traits = brave

Oceanography
-Personality = Active, Serious
-Aspiration =Knowledge
-Interests =Animals, Environment, Weather
-Hobbies = Fitness, Nature, Science
-Traits = eco-friendly

Let's use Si'Enya Warwick for this example. Her OTH is nature, aspiration is popularity and her traits are insecure, trendy and perpetual bachelorette. Personality: Neat 5; Outgoing 3; Active 7; Playful 3; Nice 7. Topic three interests: Environment=10; Weather=10; Animals=9

So we're looking for a career that needs a sim with an Active, Nice, Shy and Serious personality, that loves the environment, weather and animals; persues popularity and their OTH is nature. Which is actually strange that Si'Enya is popularity, she is better suited for Knowledge. I may have assigned her aspiration back when I was looking at the surrounding family members to pick aspirations. Ok, let's fix that.

So NOW we're looking for a career that needs a sim with an Active, Nice, Shy and Serious personality, that loves the environment, weather and animals; persues knowledge and their OTH is nature. Whew, makes more sense. Now it's time to start narrowing down the careers. We're going to narrow it down by Personality, Aspiration, Interests, OTH and traits (if applicable). You will see that you get a different list depending on how you narrow it down.

By narrowing the careers down according to aspirations we get:
Medicine

Science

Natural Science

Paranormal

Education

Architecture

Intelligence

Oceanography

By narrowing the careers based on OTH we get:
Science

Natural Science

Oceanography


By narrowing the careers down according to interests we get:
Oceanography

Architecture

Natural Science

Science


[one match only]

Journalism

Adventurer


By narrowing the careers based on personality we get:
Law Enforcement

Oceanography


[one match only]

Military

Athletic

Business

Criminal

Medicine

Science

Natural Science

Show Business

Adventurer

Architecture

Dance

By looking at all the lists we get a few career choices that stand out for Si'Enya

• Oceanography
• Natural Science
• Science

This is where it get's interesting and you have to get your creative juices stirring, let's look at Si'Enya's life so far. She's been hard at work trying to complete her bug collection and she has worked two summers as a camp counselor leading nature trails. We also have to look at the career caps (currently 2 playable sims per career with few exceptions)-thankfully all three careers are open.  We can eliminate oceanography as Si'Enya hasn't shown an interest in marine life during her teen years.

"I know what I want to do!"

"Excuse me, Si'Enya, you're interupting the process."

"Isn't this process about me?"

"Well...yea..."

"So shouldn't I have an opinion?"

"Um...ok...?"

"I would like to be a project leader."

"What?"

""I would like to lead researchers and students in entomology studies concerning the effects of the changing environment on our insect population and how the changes in insect population effect our environment. It's a very serious issue you know, why do you think I've been trying to catalog the insect species in Apple Valley?"

"Ugh...I thought you were collecting them."

"No and can you believe that I can't find the Paratrooper Spider, they used to be abudant in this environment, but I can't find it. Don't you think it has something to do with the changing environment?"

"Umm, yea...sure."

Well, it looks like Si'Enya has chosen the science career. Looks like a good choice.
If you perfer to have someone else do the work for you, then try Simmerville's Career Planner. You answer a series of questions for your sim and they provide a list of recommendations based on skill level, personality and family situation. I don't think they have the free-time career tracks added to the database.