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Switching Jobs
- dopamean 9y agoI don't have a ton to say about the content of the article other than a super boring, "that was interesting." One thing that was cool is the chart labeled "Switching Rate for Different Jobs." I've never seen that style of chart before and found it really effective for sharing the data. Does anyone know what that is called?
- showerst 9y agoIt's a clustered bubble chart that's been ordered. Clever.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- faceplanted 9y agoIt's a bubble chart I think you can make with D3.js, (mentioned at the bottom, follow the link), something similar was used but sideways for a chart of rapers by their average number of words used per song a few years ago. (Just google rap vocabulary, you'll probably find it), it's a very cool interactive chart type.
- ajr44 9y ago"Beeswarm chart" is the search term that will get you more examples. Another great example http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/25/sunday-review/corporate-taxes.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/05/25/sunday-review/...
- askafriend 9y agoThere was nothing truly surprising about the findings themselves but I will say that they were presented very well and intuitively. That was the real value in this article and something other similar articles can learn from.
- kiteracer 9y agoThere are some interesting quirks in the data if you click through the 'see a random occupation' button enough times. I wonder if they're artifacts of the sample size, or of the way certain professions are classified. Of people in the following professions who left their jobs - Power plant operators, distributors, and dispatchers: * 33% became Food batchmakers * 11% became Bakers Veterinarians: * 46% became Actuaries * 36% became Software developers, applications and systems software Fish and game wardens: * 87% became Detectives and criminal investigators Psychologists: * 25% became Urban and regional planners
- smelendez 9y agoWith the game wardens, I wonder if it's common to transition into the state or county police
- stevenwoo 9y agoNot sure about game wardens, but all state and county park rangers in California where I am at are also law enforcement officers so I assume that makes it a relatively easy transition.
- somberi 9y agoI was curious about the Veterinarians and their dominant switch to Actuaries. From what I understand, both of these are "licensed" trades (at least in the US). Can someone please explain the logic behind this. https://www.evernote.com/l/ASl5vTakJT1BrqerojTCghdg-NYssxXOogAB/image.png https://www.evernote.com/l/ASl5vTakJT1BrqerojTCghdg-NYssxXOo...
- nautilus12 9y agoThe top jobs that computer programmers switched to are all other computer related jobs, some nearly identical depending on how you treat the term programmer, vs developer. Kind of depressing that once you become a computer programmer, you can't really escape computer work. Id like to hear more about people that go on to do something totally different successfully, like baking. Maybe its too uncommon. Also interesting, the top non computer jobs are lawyers and judges, and then accountants.
- xahrepap 9y agoI worked with a guy who left to take over the family farm.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- smallnamespace 9y ago> Kind of depressing that once you become a computer programmer, you can't really escape computer work Can't, or not rational to? The monetary returns to being a dev vs. other lines of work are high and have been growing for the last 2 decades. One can do much worse than golden handcuffs.
- xapata 9y ago> I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in. Who made them serfs of the soil? Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born?
- gumby 9y ago> Kind of depressing that once you become a computer programmer, you can't really escape computer work. Not necessarily, I like programming. I have spent to Working as a medicinal chemist, and in sales and in marketing, but am back programming which I really enjoy.
- gervase 9y agoIs there any way to view the inverse, "Which professions were most likely to switch to X?" I'd be interested to see where most developers are coming from, instead of where they're switching to. I couldn't figure out how to see that information from the page.
- claudiulodro 9y agoAs one data point, I was a furniture upholsterer before I switched to development.
- pkaye 9y agoHow did you make the switch? Did you have practical experience beforehand? Or did you take courses?
- claudiulodro 9y agoI spent some time messing around with QBasic and Microsoft FrontPage when I was a kid, but that was about the extent of it. I was able to get a grant from the government (thanks Obama!) for college and got a CS degree at the local state university. Overall, I'd say it was an excellent investment on the government's part. They spent a few thousand on grant money and will be getting hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue over my lifetime from increased earnings.
- franklin_cobb 9y agoI'd be interested in that too. I switched to development from carpentry. I'd like to know where to go when I get burned out on development. I'm not really interested in the standard management or project management routes.
- DeBraid 9y agoMasterful data visualization. Simple and informative. Thank you!
- carbocation 9y agoIt seems ... unlikely that physicians switch to become pharmacists, optometrists, or physicians assistants. https://imgur.com/a/AKEus https://imgur.com/a/AKEus
- rattray 9y agoInteresting. I wonder if that's a data cleanliness issue? eg; one year a Dentist says they're a Physician (maybe they didn't see the "Dentist" category) and the next year they say they're a Dentist.
- franklin_cobb 9y agoI know a few dentists who switched over to do plastic surgery (mostly boob and nose jobs).
- couchand 9y agoThis is such a rich dataset and I'm sure there are some very interesting insights. But I was very disappointed with most of the data visualization; the primary question of the article is addressed in a set of bar charts for a single occupation. There's no way at all to gain any complex understanding of the systems at play here with such a keyhole view of the world. I'd like to see the career switching dataset in different forms to see what insights we could derive: network diagrams, heatmaps, and so forth -- visualizations that show the complex interconnectedness of this rich data.