Careerbliss Unveils List of Twenty Happiest Jobs in America

CareerBliss, a major online career community helping people find happiness at every step in their careers, recently published a list of the 20 happiest jobs in America. The list is based on an analysis from more than 100,400 employee-generated reviews between February 2011 and January 2012.

According to this list, loan officers, warehouse managers and accountants seem to be among the happiest careers in the country.

The happiest job of all, according to this CareerBliss study, is software quality assurance engineer. Professionals with this job title are typically involved in the entire software development lifecycle, including processes such as requirements gathering and documentation, source code control, code review, change management, configuration management, release management, and the actual testing of the software.

“Since we tend to spend more waking hours working than doing anything else, our work happiness is a huge factor in our overall happiness. Nearly every person has a desire to feel valued and content, and a workplace or a career that provides that for its employees is key to not only happiness for the employees but the long-term success of the business,” said CareerBliss’ chief executive, Heidi Golledge.

Respondents rated their jobs on the basis of 10 factors that affect workplace happiness, including one’s relationship with the boss and coworkers, work environment, job resources, compensation, growth opportunities, company culture, company reputation, daily tasks, and control over the work one does on a daily basis.

The employees valued each factor on a five-point scale, and indicated how important it was to their overall happiness at work. The numbers were combined to find an average rating of overall employee happiness for each respondent, and then sorted by job title to find which occupations had the happiest workers.

A minimum of 50 employee reviews was required to be considered for CareerBliss’ 20 Happiest Jobs in America, and executive-level jobs, like chief executive, were excluded from the study.

With an index score of 4.24, software quality assurance engineers seemed to have the maximum job satisfaction, while with an index score of 4.15, the jobs of executive were ranked second.

“In past studies, we have noted that the long hours and intense demands on software engineers’ time caused them to rank as less than happy. However, we are happy to report that software quality assurance engineers feel rewarded at work, as they are typically the last stop before software goes live and correctly feel that they are an integral part of the job being done at the company,” Golledge explained.

Executive chefs are responsible for everything from menu creation and staff training, to ordering and purchasing inventory.

Property managers plan, direct and/or coordinate the selling, buying, leasing and governance activities of real estate properties, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

Workers in both professions said they are most satisfied with the people they work with and the work that they do.

“Many of the happiest jobs have some component with working with people. Folks who work with others tend to rate their happiness higher on our site,” Golledge pointed out.

With index scores of 4.14 and 4.13, bank teller and warehouse manager jobs make to the top five happiest jobs list.

A few support roles, like customer service reps and administrative assistants, also qualified.

 “We have also noticed that happiness definitely does not align with pay, and once someone’s basic needs are met, the additional money on the job is a nice perk but is not what drives employee happiness,” Golledge added.

Last month, careerBliss shared the top three lessons from the 2012 presidential debate for job seekers and those looking to improve their career. At the first of the three debates, President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Governor Mitt Romney squared off on the topic of creating new jobs. This primary debate offered insight into each candidate's plan for job seekers and tactics for improving the economy.

Regardless of party affiliation, CareerBliss offers key takeaways from the debate that can be helpful to those looking to advance their career.