Choosing the Best Traits for Each Career

[Metropolis Man]

I decided to post my own list of traits I would choose for a Sim for every Career tract. You’ll notice that only two traits are listed for every career. That’s because for career Sims there are 3 must-have traits: Over-Emotional, Ambitious, and Workaholic. Well, maybe “must-have” is too strong. “Helpful” might be a better word choice if you’re seeking to get those promotions as quickly as possible. But, if you’re patient and are not seeking a promotion nearly every single day, then almost any mix of traits will work for a career Sim.

Over-Emotional: This is the mother of all Sims 3 traits. And Mood is the basic barometer for every single career. Provided you can get your Sim out the door very happy, then the Over-Emotional trait simply amplifies their good feelings by a whopping 25%. It takes about a solid 3 hours of pre-work prepping to really get everything green — a shower, using the toilet, eating a good meal, and finally some Woo Hoo. Woo Hoo is key because it will pump both Social and Fun.

Ambitious: Ambitious Sims’ work performance bar will rise a little faster during the workday.

Workaholic: A Workaholic Sim has the “Work Hard” tone as the default setting. That tone raises the performace bar much faster than the other tones. And the real benefit is that the Work Hard tone doesn’t hit the fun bar as hard as would happen with a non-Workaholic Sim. Choosing “Work Hard” for non-Workaholics really makes the fun meter tank and by mid-workday, they could easily be stressed out.

Business and Political: Charismatic and Schmoozer
Relationships are a biggie in these 2 careers which is why I lumped them together. Neither Business or Political careers have your Sim working on the weekend, so take advantage of that and plan targetted parties with co-workers and your boss.

Criminal (Thief): Athletic and whatever else you want — maybe Friendly to help your relationship with Accomplices.

Criminal (Evil): Athletic and Genius
The Logic barometer doesn’t kick in until level 8 of the Evil tract, but don’t wait until then to start gaining logic.

Culinary: Natural Cook and Green Thumb
Gardening and Cooking just go hand in hand for better results. If your Sim has a utility Sim/Spouse to help out, you can drop Green Thumb and maybe go with Friendly or Charismatic to assist with work relationships.

Journalism: Bookworm and Charismatic

Law Enforcement (Forensic): Genius and Artistic

Law Enforcement (Special Agent): Genius and Athletic
Writing lots of reports is a metric for both tracts of Law Enforcement, so another option is to drop one trait and add Bookworm to aid the writing speed. The Brave trait is also supposed to raise the work performance meter of Law Enforcement and Military career Sims faster. So, there’s more options here than with other careers.

Medical: Genius and Bookworm

Military: Athletic and Handy
Again, the Brave trait is another option.

Music (Rock Star): Artistic and Virtuoso
As soon as your Sim would hit level 10 I would drop Workaholic and just have them play for tips and pick up Loves the Outdoors.

Music (Symphonic): Artistic and Genius

Professional Sports: Athletic and Lucky
Carl mentions on the Guide that this may or may not help with the game record metric. But, even if it doesn’t the Lucky trait can help your Sim in other ways: geting raises, part-time collecting objects, etc. Another option is Friendly or Charismatic to assist with work relationships.

Science: Green Thumb and Handy
Fishing is also a work barometer, but it’s not a high requirement and doesn’t pop up until the end of the career. So, the Angler trait really isn’t necessary.

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Now, once you’ve hit the highest level of a career, if you choose to keep your Sim in that career to continue earning regular hourly raises, the Workaholic and Ambitious traits still hold merit. But, if you’re seeking a different route for your Sim after they’ve hit the top of their career, then I’d recommend giving them the Mid-Life Crisis reward and switching up their traits. If you’d go the self-employment route, then dropping Ambitious and Workaholic makes most sense.

[Pam]

Awesome work, Metro!  Thanks very much! 

[Metropolis Man]

You're welcome, Pam. To be honest, I hope some new careers are introduced in a future expansion. Careers really get the short end of the stick. And it's not hard to see why. With the amount of money a Sim can make from gardening, writing, painting, and especially guitar playing, it's tough to go the career route. Your Career Duos Challenge and my Centurian Couples Challenge saw abysmal participation. I think it's partly because careers just don't seem to hold the attention of players.

I can see that EA would not radically change the base salary of the various careers. But, what would bring some equality between self-employment and careers is higher hourly raises down the road. I think raises are what...somewhere around $40 to $60 an hour? And that never changes it seems. Every raise is the same. So, that's maybe an extra $300 simoleans for a day's work. It's just not a big incentive when a painter can knock out a painting for 10X that value or just plant a money tree seed.

And it's not just a money thing with me. With painting and writing and gardening, you're continually improving your end product and it may take quite a while before you have a bookshelf full of Masterpieces or 30 -50 Perfect money trees and Perfect life fruit plants. Careers are different. Most careers are so short-lived and take 2-3 weeks tops to hit lvl 10.

[e^(pi*i)]

Even though I realize that careers make way less money, I tend to favor careers over self-employment in general. I know that sounds kind of dumb, but it will seem pretty intelligent compared with this next fact; I find self-employment to be mind-numbing after a while. At least with jobs, when you're home from work, you're home from work, you know?

[Metropolis Man]

That's a good point. Going the self-employment route almost inevitably turns your Sim into a money-making robot simply because they're not punching a clock.

[e^(pi*i)]

Interesting way to put it. The Sims is actually a brainwashing technique to assimilate us all into the system!

EDIT:

I just realized I had a much more relevant thing to say regarding the actual content of this topic:

Is the over-emotional trait REALLY the best? How much does mood really affect progress? Because, using my non-over-emotional sims, I never have trouble getting them to get the best mood on their progress card. And, yes, I have tried the over-emotional trait many times, and I do like it, but I'm not addicted to it.

I just feel like, especially with the business career which has so many ways to improvise better job performance, that trait slot (as well as, perhaps, the other slots but I don't use workaholic enough to be able to share my experiences) could be much better used. (Party animal, for example, if used very well)

[Metropolis Man]

Is the over-emotional trait REALLY the best? How much does mood really affect progress?

"Best" is of course a subjective opinion. But, since I wrote the sentence it really isn't subjective. It's pure fact. 

Okay, seriously, I think Over-Emotional's main selling point is keeping the Mood work tone Outstanding all day long. It's not that it's tough to go to work with an Outstanding mood if you're not Over-Emotional. But, it's pretty tough to actually to go home and still have the mood be Outstanding just due to the natural drain. So, with Over-Emotional you still have the drain over a day of course, but since your mood is boosted 25%, then you've got more of a chance of the metric staying Outstanding because the drain will have less of a chance of changing the metric to the next lower notch.

[Pam]

I can see that EA would not radically change the base salary of the various careers. But, what would bring some equality between self-employment and careers is higher hourly raises down the road. I think raises are what...somewhere around $40 to $60 an hour? And that never changes it seems. Every raise is the same. So, that's maybe an extra $300 simoleans for a day's work. It's just not a big incentive when a painter can knock out a painting for 10X that value or just plant a money tree seed.

Actually, if you stay with a career after reaching level 10, your raises increase substantially.  The challenge always remains to keep your Sim on target with moods and such.  With each raise, the requirements for the next raise start over and are more difficult to achieve.  I've had careers go well over $1,000 per hour and that's a good bit of money for a week.

[sfsfsfgiants]

Thing is, though, is that as you get higher and higher in the career, you don't work as many days, which means less hours. So while working for $1,000 per hour is nice, if you work only three days a week, it doesn't add up as much as it could, if that makes sense.

I may be off there, but in my experience, the raises aren't as much as they could be because you work less often.

[Pam]

But with all those days off, you can pursue lots of other things like painting or guitar.  And still get very nice paychecks.  It's true that eventually, if your family gets extremely wealthy, the income will be insignificant.  But that takes several generations and Sims can live more than comfortably in the meantime with a steady career.  They also get nice perks from their jobs, like the awesome chef's refrigerator and the partrol car in Law Enforcement. 

[e^(pi*i)]

To this day, I have yet to max out in every career. In fact, I'd say I've only maxed out in half the careers, maybe even fewer.

[Carl]

Very nice compendium there, this was a good idea. And yep, you know i love over-emotional. I use it on almost every Sim I make as you can tell if you look at the lifetime wish walkthroughs I wrote.

[Pam]

Just to get on the record, too...  I don't use over-emotional for my Sims.  I don't question Metro's data or anything.  I just like other things better when I play. 

[samoht04]

Thinking about it, I've only got to the top on medical, but have always got within 1 promotion of the next level in all but three careers. Why? Because I get bored easily!

[Simbacat]

Thank you!this is very useful:)