CareerJournal.com Identifies Eight Best Careers

High-school special-education teachers, physical therapists and management consultants are among the eight Best Careers, according to a new report released today by CareerJournal.com, The Wall Street Journalís executive career guide.

CareerJournal.com set out to find out how people highly satisfied in their careers described their work. The site partnered with Harris Interactive, which conducted a survey of U.S. adults working in full-time positions. When asked to describe their job, highly satisfied people consistently pointed to four factors: intellectual stimulation; strong job security; a high level of control and autonomy; and extensive, direct contact with customers or clients. More than 60 percent of those polled who were highly satisfied in their careers said that these traits described their job.

The results of this survey, when combined with further CareerJournal.com analysis of government data and interviews with experts and people in the workplace, led CareerJournal.com to identify these ìBest Careersî for job satisfaction:

Curriculum and instructional coordinators
High school special-education teachers
Hospital and clinic managers
Management consultants and analysts
Medical researchers
Physical therapists
Sales, marketing and advertising managers
Social workers, counselors and related managers

ìWhile career fulfillment is subjective, dependent on an individual’s values, interests, needs, skills and abilities, these eight careers have a great mix of qualities,î said David Patton, editorial director, CareerJournal.com.

To identify a comprehensive range of careers most likely to offer autonomy, intellectual stimulation, and customer contact, CareerJournal.com mapped these traits against data from the Department of Laborís Occupational Information Network (O*NET), a comprehensive database of worker attributes and job characteristics. For job security, CareerJournal.com studied employment projections from 2004 to 2014 from the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Best Careers list includes several careers in the health care and education fields, both of which have a high degree of customer contact and are projected to experience robust demand in the future.

Visit www.CareerJournal.com/bestcareers to read profiles of people currently in these careers, snapshots of positions like judges, aerospace engineers and loan officers that meet many of the qualities, and participate in reader polls and a discussion about what is most important in a career.