Choosing the Best Traits for Each Career

[kat]

They also get nice perks from their jobs, like the awesome chef's refrigerator

Sorry if this is slightly off topic, but this is a truly awesome reward; you receive it when you reach level 10 in the chef career - you cannot purchase it through 'buy now'. It gives my sim a 'top appliance' moodlet not only when he eats food from it, but when he is merely in the same room! He has the over emotional trait so this gives him about a +37 (I think; this is from memory!) mood.
Just thought people might like to know that handy hint. Plus, food never seems to go off in it.

[Metropolis Man]

Sorry if this is slightly off topic, but this is a truly awesome reward; you receive it when you reach level 10 in the chef career - you cannot purchase it through 'buy now'. It gives my sim a 'top appliance' moodlet not only when he eats food from it...

I'm going to have to do a chef career one of these days. Haven't done that yet. I've had a cooking challenge bouncing in my head for a while called Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen, so maybe I'll do one if that ever materializes. Kat, that 'top appliance' moodlet you described after one eats made me laugh because it's almost like a Sim would be eating the appliance to get the moodlet! I mean who the heck would be thinking of an appliance while they're eating unless you were actually consuming it — yummy!

[Tealeaf]

This thread is making me wonder about the over emotional trait.  I've never really played around with it that much, and I still have my doubts about it.   But it might be fun to test out.  Make two sims, one with the OE trait, one with something else, and all other traits the same.  Keep them in single family homes.  Play one to level 10 of some career, the other as well in the same career.  Make no money from anything other than the careers.  At the time of their promotion to 10, see how much money they've made.

I might give this a shot when I'm done with the perfectly happy challenge.  But if someone else wants to do it a well that's fine.  The more data points the better!

[Metropolis Man]

Tealeaf, it's not that OE is going to earn any career Sim any more money than a non-OE Sim. The power of that trait is in keeping a Sim happier for a longer period of time throughout the work day. So, the result is a slightly better work performance, and maybe (slight chance) a couple quicker promotions. So, the money made shouldn't be any different at all. But, the OE Sim might get to lvl 10 a day or two quicker.

[Pam]

It would still be interesting to test.  If the Sim's mood and happiness is overall much better, he should earn better and quicker raises and such.  It would add up in the long run.

[TheLostGirls]

I was making my mom a sim and she asked to be in the teacher career path because she is a teacher in the real world. LOL. After a few minutes of explaing the career choices, she grew frustrated. "You can be a criminal but not a teacher! That's messed up."

Her words not mine.

[jestina]

Brave for military and law enforcement. I think it helps boost career performance...at least it seems that way to me. The meters on my brave sims always appeared to be moving faster. Brave is good for lots of things, like not getting creepy moodlets, you don't freak out when adventuring, and of course you can beat up burglars. Brave also helps in asking for promotions.

And I think klepto may boost criminal career.

I think OE might be overrated some because i've never used it and my career sims can get promoted every day. Ambitious is good enough for that...and get multitasker reward early on. Keep up with career requirements and you'll zoom up the ladder fast. You don't have to worry about the potty in the morning before work because your sim will do that first thing upon arriving at the office. Just have a good meal ready, shower, and watch tv to fill fun if there's time(doubles as skilling time too by watching cooking, gardening, or fishing channel). I always splurge for the 8000 simoleon tv or steal one if I have a klepto

Schmoozer is great for careers that require sucking up like business and cooking.

Of course you could always woohoo your boss too I guess.

[Metropolis Man]

Brave for military and law enforcement. I think it helps boost career performance...at least it seems that way to me.

I mentioned that in the first post...

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.

Brave also helps in asking for promotions....

How successful is that? Does the relationship w/boss have anything to do with getting a promotion? I'm not sure if I've ever successfully received a promotion just by asking for one. And it's not like I hadn't tried that's for sure.

I think OE might be overrated some because i've never used it and my career sims can get promoted every day. Ambitious is good enough for that...and get multitasker reward early on. Keep up with career requirements and you'll zoom up the ladder fast. You don't have to worry about the potty in the morning before work because your sim will do that first thing upon arriving at the office. Just have a good meal ready, shower, and watch tv to fill fun if there's time(doubles as skilling time too by watching cooking, gardening, or fishing channel). I always splurge for the 8000 simoleon tv or steal one if I have a klepto

Over-Emotional may be overrated. I'm coming around to think that. That's a good tip with the potty to save more time. I have noticed Sims use a bathroom at work but continue to have them use one before they go out the door out of habit. I think I'll stop. Especially in the upcoming career challenge.

[jestina]

Well, if you're in a situation near getting promoted that's when you can ask for it. Be in a good relationship with the boss(at least good friends I think) and discuss work. After discussing work the option to ask for a raise and promotion should come up...unless you've gotten one recently.

[jmz95]

Brave for military and law enforcement. I think it helps boost career performance...at least it seems that way to me.

I mentioned that in the first post...

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.

Brave also helps in asking for promotions....

How successful is that? Does the relationship w/boss have anything to do with getting a promotion? I'm not sure if I've ever successfully received a promotion just by asking for one. And it's not like I hadn't tried that's for sure.

I think OE might be overrated some because i've never used it and my career sims can get promoted every day. Ambitious is good enough for that...and get multitasker reward early on. Keep up with career requirements and you'll zoom up the ladder fast. You don't have to worry about the potty in the morning before work because your sim will do that first thing upon arriving at the office. Just have a good meal ready, shower, and watch tv to fill fun if there's time(doubles as skilling time too by watching cooking, gardening, or fishing channel). I always splurge for the 8000 simoleon tv or steal one if I have a klepto

Over-Emotional may be overrated. I'm coming around to think that. That's a good tip with the potty to save more time. I have noticed Sims use a bathroom at work but continue to have them use one before they go out the door out of habit. I think I'll stop. Especially in the upcoming career challenge.

I have to agree with you on that Metro. I think OE is way overrated, no offense to Carl, because once you have the money, you can easily make up for the OE trait. I've never used it, but as much as it's been talked about on the forum, I don't think it makes that much a difference.

[Pam]

I think OE is way overrated, no offense to Carl, because once you have the money, you can easily make up for the OE trait.

I think Carl is having a change of heart after I did my test with Over-Emotional.

[sherlockholmes]

I've never used over-emotional. Here's why:
A 25 percent increase in moodlet to me isn't needed since well rested + good meal + Squeaky clean + Having a blast makes your Sim pretty much as happy as can be. Also, in the early stages, I push my Sims to and past the limit often. I exercise long after I'm filthy, I stay up until I'm exhausted, sometimes eat only when my Sim can't do anything else, work hard till I'm completely stressed etc. My Sims jump from extreme to extreme in order to succeed. So I don't want negative moodlets to overflow as well.

Also, I usually can use that free trait slot for something better or more fun - klepto, natural cook, neat, handy, etc. Something that has a definite physical effect on your Sim.

[Wova4]

I've started to really appreciate the Neurotic trait for career sims.  I seem to never have much time before the carpool arrives.  The freak out action is almost instantaneous so it can be squeezed in before hoping into the car.

It also delivers oodles of little wishes that are quickly completed.

[samoht04]

About the Brave Trait helping you get promotions, I had an 'event/opportunity' thing happen where I could either demand a promo or not.

[Leto85]

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.

And for that reason I have doubts about if the self employing way of money making is indeed better than having a job. The first sim I've made was at the top of the political career and makes over $3000 per day. Although with painting eventually you can paint 4 to 6 large paintings in a row when you finally reach the 200 paintings, which will be worth over 7000 each, but that will take such a long time I really think that self employing and having a career are a bit of equal.