Find a Job You Really Want In
For better or worse, your job influences how people view you.
Anyone who has worked fast food and dealt with a condescending customer knows sometimes people make a lot of assumptions about you based on the uniform you’re wearing. Similarly, put on a white coat or a tie, and you’ll be surprised what stupidity can be overlooked.
We surveyed 1,000 workers to find out what jobs they perceive as smartest- and what jobs they don’t.
You can see the most (and least) smartest jobs below, and what they have in common.
Main Findings
- Software engineers/programmers are viewed as the smartest workers.
- The rest of the top 5 is filled with prestigious roles that will make mom proud- doctor, lawyer, engineer, and accountant.
- Want to be viewed as smart? Consider a medical career, they dominate the top 25.
- Mechanics and electricians are the only blue collar roles to make the top 25 smartest jobs.
- Fast food workers are viewed as the leas intelligent workers.
- Other jobs people view as unintelligent? Janitors, dishwashers, cashiers, and maids.
- Bill collectors, police officers, politicians, and telemarketers can all be frustrating to be on the wrong end of– coincidence they were voted as some of the dumbest workers?
Keep reading to see the jobs people perceive as unintelligent- and how we figured this one out.
We Determined This
We surveyed 1,000 workers using a list of 250 common jobs to determine which jobs they view as requiring the most (and least) intelligence.
The higher number of respondents who selected a job as “smartest”, the smarter the job. And vice versa.
Because each respondent was allowed to select most intelligent and least intelligent, there is the potential of some list overlap.
Jobs Aren’t IQs
They say 90% of life is just showing up (arguably the hardest part.)
Many of the perceived smartest jobs require a college degree or educational training. While it might take some level of book smarts, it also takes a lot of hard work, persistence, and motivation. Maybe we should be viewing these jobs as roles that require the most hard work to obtain, rather than assuming it takes inherently big brains to obtain one.
Similarly, the worker at McDonalds’ could be very smart. So maybe don’t assume they’re an idiot because they forget your ketchup. You know what they say about assumptions…
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Author
Kathy is the head of content at Zippia with a knack for engaging audiences. Prior to joining Zippia, Kathy worked at Gateway Blend growing audiences across diverse brands. She graduated from Troy University with a degree in Social Science Education.
