Sims 2 career guide

Recent posts Game news Community news. Deletion discussions Development discussions Admin discussions Admin's noticeboard. Explore Wikis Community Central. Register Don't have an account? Career tracks. Edit source History Talk 8. Do you like this video? Play Sound. See also: Career A list of career tracks in The Sims series. Cleaning also comes into play here, if you want to step up the departmental ladder.

Cases have a higher profile, and your experience has advanced you to a better pay rate. As a Lieutenant, you are a Detective Squad Leader, and you need to keep those skills sharpened. The stress of dealing with that thick unsolved folder of SimCity crimes can do damage to your home life. Try to emphasize "family time" and recreation when at home to achieve a proper balance. An elite job with a good bonus in the form of "danger pay. Make sure you're making friends in high places.

You're finally "Top Cop". You can afford a substantial house on the hill and are one of the most influential people in SimCity. What more can you possibly do to protect the citizens of SimCity? Crime peoples beware! A new day has dawned on our most wonderful community. A day of righteous justice for all, for Captain Hero is here at last! With massive superpowers at hand Captain Hero fights crime on a daily basis, to the fullest extent of the law.

You have to start somewhere, and in the restaurant industry, it's right at the bottom. Out of the frying pan and into the fire!

You don't have to clean anymore, but dealing with hungry commuters and teen pranks will either make you or break you. Don't forget to smile! Joy of joys. Be creative about your problem solving or you'll be stuck picking taco toppings out of your hair for a long, long time. If you never see another burger again, it'll be too soon. Now you're out of the kitchen, seating people and managing tables in a restaurant where people expect REAL food for the prices they're paying.

Keep your eyes open and your smile painted on as you start learning about the industry—it's a dog-eat-food world out there, and you'll want to be well-prepared. If you thought hosting was bad, just try waiting tables. THIS is a promotion? You'd better believe it! Be prepared to think on your feet to outwit and impress your often-crafty customers in pursuit of the Almighty Tip—all while wearing a snazzy uniform and those ubiquitous Pieces of Flair.

You've memorized everything on the menu and managed to work your way into a position as a Prep Cook. It's not glamorous, but it's real kitchen work—and you look stylin' in that big white hat! Get comfortable with the slicing, dicing, and julienne fries—you're not going to get any farther in this industry if you don't know your basic cooking inside and out. It's ironic that the more accomplished you become, the less you actually touch the food.

As Sous Chef you're spending most of your time as a manager and cheerleader for your kitchen staff. If you want to keep moving up, you'll have to prove you've got the eccentric creativity needed to create novel dishes. Bon appetit! Finally recognized for your creative gifts, you've been given control of your restaurant's menu in order to create completely new and exciting dishes.

It's a dream come true—but you're already dreaming of more. Keep challenging yourself as you work towards a new prize: a franchise of your own! Everyone's clamoring for a piece of the pie—YOUR pie, that is.

Now that you've developed a distinctive culinary style, it's time to milk it for everything it's worth as a national brand. Keep everyone on their toes with your creative genius and you just might become a household name!

You've finally arrived, and your face is selling more cookbooks than your food does! It's been a long road, but you've now got a TV show seen by millions, a successful restaurant chain, and a name that commands respect. Bask in your victory as you flaunt your celebrity in televised competitions and enjoy your new life as a media mogul! While earning a science degree, you're picking up a mediocre salary as a "human guinea pig" at a local kinetics lab.

It's a way to introduce yourself to the scientific community, but it's tough to be charming after several hours in a wind tunnel. Cleaning rat cages, fixing delicate lab equipment for minimum wage—how's your mood today? A lot of logic-skill-building time is needed at home to advance. And guess what?

You're on the graveyard shift. Work all night, sleep all day. This job takes you into the field, working on far-flung projects. However, your pay increases. Develop your logic skill and maybe you can actually teach about this stuff in the classroom, instead of doing it in remote, inhospitable places. No amount of field research could have prepared you for the naked savagery of teaching a high-school science class.

At least it's a job with regular hours. Keep those lab messes clean, and build logic skill to aid you in getting a different job. It is up to you to manage a team of researchers in the quest for an important scientific breakthrough. Devise innovative experiments using your newly developed cooking and cleaning skills. If you really shine here, you may be on your way to becoming an inventor. Income has climbed, but to succeed as an inventor you'll need to put in long hard hours at the lab.

Maintaining your home relationships may be harder now—there will be little time for socializing as you create the auto-recycling newspaper.

The regents are depending on your leadership and logical thinking to invigorate the school's science curriculum. This is a high-paying, well-respected position with good hours and more time at home, but it takes a well-rounded skill set to guarantee success and promotion.

Your expertise with auto-recycling has led to a position on a highly classified, very demanding government project. The money is excellent, but you may be called to the lab at any time. Special care should be taken to stay happy and rested—a tired, cranky scientist might pose a security risk. If exceptional logic is demonstrated, a promotion to theorist may be in the cards.

The accolades from your research have earned you the highly paid position of theorist. You enjoy a higher salary-to-work-hours ratio than the one you had as an inventor. You must work hard to keep a high state of happiness and health. And only a successful theory can lead to the status and rewards you seek. With lecture fees and book advances, you're able to purchase the big house on the hill.

The big question is, what experiments will you be conducting in its big cellar? Ring ring! Someone's calling with a question about love, life or the mysteries of our universe. Good thing you're here to be their Psychic Phone Pal! Although you're not getting paid very much, and your chair smells a little like old french fries, at least you can dispense your mystic wisdom in your underwear. Is there a connection between rising sea levels and the distribution of government cheese?

Does the UN have a secret plan to spy on us using trained fruit flies? What nefarious cabal controls the uneven ratio of hot dogs to buns? As a budding Conspiracy Theorist, your job is to raise these vital questions and many more. The Llama. Just remember that you hold their destiny in your hands, and try not to be too specific.

Whether it's reviving long-buried memories of past lives or just getting another Sim to act like a chicken, the Hypnotist's work is never done. So get out that gold watch and start swinging. The spirits of the departed call out to us all, and you, the Medium, are the conduit for their haunting voices. Just keep in mind that not everyone likes lo hear what their dead relatives have to say.

Whoever thought that you could make so much money getting a stick to point towards water? Just walk slowly, wait for that rod to wiggle, and then start digging.

You might want to consult a city map, though, just to make sure what you're chasing isn't a sewer main. Some cases defy all cracking, and that's when the cops come running to you for help. Close your eyes and reach out with your senses, and what is cloudy will become clear.

You have always known that unseen beings from distant stars watch us with strange eyes that hold an unknown purpose. And now you get to turn that suspicion into some cold, hard cash! Just be warned, those who are pursued may suddenly become the pursuer. Even today, dark forces from below reach out to take hold of unwitting Sims. That's where you come in, using your power over the spirit world to drive those unclean interlopers from the souls of those unfortunates who depend on you.

Your legendary powers are now known far and wide, from this world to the next, and Sims from 'round the globe flock to hear your wisdom and live by your word. Just try not to believe all your own PR, or soon your devoted flock will stop gazing at your golden aura and start pecking at your feet of clay. Although a crash-test dummy could do your job, you've at least got a foot into the glamorous door of Show Business. Do your best to stand still as irritable technicians wave light meters in your face and try to offset the terrible wages by eating all you can from the set buffet.

Nothing builds confidence like being told your butt is good enough to stand in for a major star's during those tiring shower shots. Keep building those skills, and someday you might get your face on the screen instead.

Your hard work has paid off, and now they're actually letting you say a few lines. Just remember: don't look at the camera, don't wave to your Mom, and keep the spinach out of your front teeth. Hawking dish soap, cell phones and fast food might not be Hamlet, but it sure is starting to bring home the bacon.

Best of all, your face is starting to become familiar to a wide audience. Try if you can, though, to pick the right products to represent: no one wants to be remembered as the Toilet Paper Guy. Finally, a chance to play a real character. Except that your character isn't real, and your audience is more likely to be lying on the living room carpet than sitting in the plush seats.

No matter how stupid you're being paid to sound, at least you're saving a fortune on wardrobe! You're finally starting to break into the big time, and your name now appears somewhere at the beginning of the picture instead of at the end near "Animal Wrangler" and "Key Grip". Keep a cool head, don't upstage your star and you'll be on your way to stardom in a flash. Nothing gives a rising star's career a boost like headlining on Broadway! Just make sure you really strut your stuff in those musical numbers.

You never know how many shows you've got left before today's boffo box office blowout hit turns into yesterday's news. You're making three films a year, you're deluged with scripts and you just got voted "Sexiest Man Alive" by three different tabloids.

Try to keep your eye on your job amidst all this acclaim, since one bad picture is all it takes to bump you onto late night infomercials. Now you've got your chance behind the camera, and it's all in your hands. Try to keep in mind what it was like when you were in front of that camera as you coax the best out of your actors, and try not to think about how many millions you'll cost your bosses if you screw it up.

No pressure. There's not a Sim in the world who's ever been to a movie or watched a TV that doesn't know who you are. All that's left is to frolic in your piles of cash and do the projects that you've always wanted to do while you wait for those Lifetime Achievement Awards to roll in.

At the bottom rung of the art world, you make sure every piece of canvas sold at Dave's Art Emporium is stretched tight over its frame. But it's no dead end: you're allowed to watercolor on leftover canvases, and you're able to build up some charisma and make artsy friends while ringing up purchases for the clientele. Welcome to the streets of SimCity! With some charcoal pencils you bought at Dave's Art Emporium, you're all set to do caricatures of Sims passing by on the main drag.

It's a great opportunity to meet some new people and develop contacts you'll need later on. Big, who runs the "Lucille, Largest Llama in the World" roadside attraction, hires you to whittle souvenir llamas for visitors who make the trek out to see Lucille. Even though you're a tool of the tourist trade, you have fun designing a caricature of each tourist or their favorite political figure on each wooden llama.

One of your dream jobs is to work on a comic book, and this isn't just any comic, it's SpiderSim! You're making more contacts in the art biz, and throwing some dinner parties will show off your culinary expertise and win you even more friends.

Your network of great relationships is paying off as you become the most requested wedding photographer in SimCity. Keep developing your creativity with a camera, and you'll have a great portfolio if you choose to move into fashion photography later on. Tired of making small potatoes as an honest artist, you've gone down the slippery slope into a life of crime forging famous artworks. Even so, you need to develop even more contacts in order to quickly find buyers for your fakes.

Rod Ralloway, a world-famous model for SimStyle Magazine, hears of your expertise and calls you one day when his favorite photog is sick. You get a chance to build a career snapping shots of some of the most beautiful Sims in the city, but remember to keep in touch with your friends. You abhor the sight of a blank wall or ceiling in any public space. Your passion is to create eye-catching murals on all spare surfaces to brighten up SimCity, and luckily, an annoymous but wealthy patron is footing the bill.

As your art becomes even more conceptual and abstract, you need more interpretations and advice from your friends to strengthen your ideas. Invite them to parties and show off your work at the same time. Yes, you tend rats for a living. It's not the greatest job, but at least it gets you started with a career in the biological sciences.

The bites don't go too deep and no redness or irritation has started, so chances are you might live to see a promotion if you work on your skills.

Who knows what wondrous treasures lurk in our rivers and streams? The Algae Hunter, that's who! Your job is sample collection, your focus is algae. You don't perform any of the official tests yourself, but at least you have a job that lets you enjoy the great slimy outdoors. Let's face it: Clams are slippery little bivalves. Sometimes keeping their natural habitats in check requires a little wrangling, and that's where you come in.

Each level is more demanding than the last, but provides more money. There isn't really one track that's better than the others, but starting pay may be a huge factor. Now, let's review Kelly's aspiration, both the in-game one and the one that we, as the player, decided for her.

She does not want be locked into a job forever; she just needs one to get started. With that in mind, her goal is to simply get a good starting pay. So she looks through the paper, and looks at all three jobs before accepting any. See the screenshots below. The second is a Dishwasher in the Culinary track, and that'll bring in per day. Finally, the third one available is the Llama's Team Mascot in the Athletic track, and that brings in per day. Kelly just wants the cash now, so she wants to be an EMT.

By selecting Find a Job from the pie menu of the newspaper again, the same three choices will be offered, and this time she'll select Take Job when EMT comes up. She is informed via pop-up window that the carpool will arrive at 7 AM daily. With Kelly now holding a job, she can take a look at her job panel again.

This time, we'll actually have something relevant to talk about. Remember how to access it? It's the third icon of the vertical five. Check out the screenshot above on the right while we go through what all the bars and everything mean. First, at the top left of the pane, you can see the career track symbol and the specific job your Sim currently has. Below that are the per-day salary, and then the work hours. Remember that the carpool arrives for the Sim one hour prior to the shift.

When it does so, it will stay up to one hour, then drive away if she doesn't get in it. Below that are the days of the week; the light blue ones are work days, and the dark blue ones are off days. The arrow underneath a day says what day it is. Finally, the bottom-left of the pane shows how many vacation days the Sim has. Sims start with none, but will earn them through frequent promotions.

These vacations are PAID, so if you have one and just need to give your Sim a day off, have him or her stay at home. The money is automatically given when the shift starts, even though the Sim isn't there.

On the right side of the pane past the divider line is a list of seven job skills. New to the Sims series is the last one, Cleaning. We'll touch on all of them in a moment. Job skills are used not just for jobs, but they are the primary requirement of getting promoted. Unlike personality, Sims are not locked into job skills and have no limit. Provided they live long enough, they can earn all 70 points and be Uber-Sims. Here's a rundown of all the skills, how to earn them, and what they mean inside and outside of the job.

A Sim with high Cooking will be able to cook better, more fulfilling meals. This helps all Sims who eat their cooking to have their Hunger need filled faster. This one is a must in the Culinary track, and useful for all other tracks as well. In addition, a Sim may start a fire when attempting to cook a meal too advanced like if a Sim tried cooking salmon when it only knew how to nuke a TV dinner.

Study this one at a bookshelf, or by watching the Yummy Channel on TV. Skill gain rates are dependent on the object used for it. For example, working out with the TV or the radio is fine. Always try to gain your skills using the fastest method to save time.

Here's a screenshot from earlier as a reminder. All the bubbles next to the skill names are empty, but the first point of Cleaning is circled in blue. That means she'll need to achieve one point in Cleaning to even be considered for promotion.

Dividing the job summary and job skills is a vertical bar with two numbers at the bottom. The bar is your Sim's job performance; obviously, the higher, the better. The bar raises with every day that your Sim goes to work on time and in a good mood.

Some needs can usually be met at the job site , so don't fret if you've stuck between getting to work in only got two minutes or peeing yourself. Just head for work, and Bladder should be taken care of there. Not getting to work, or showing up in a bad mood, will hurt the job performance.

If the bar dips low enough, your Sim could be demoted, or even possibly fired. Family is stressed because Sims in the household can befriend other Sims and still have it contribute to the overall total, which plays into the Alpha Strategy section of the guide. That means she has no Family Friends, but she doesn't need any to be promoted.

So, Kelly's got the day off today. Even if she didn't, she didn't have the job when the carpool was supposed to be there, so it's not counted against her. She needs a single point of Cleaning to be up for a promotion, but she should learn how to prepare food for herself first. Living on one's own is a drag, huh? She sits in her discount chair and starts studying away. See that tube above her head? That's a progress bar that shows how far along she is to learning the skill.

The smaller the number skill, the quicker it is. Now she's ready to cook a meal before going to bed. And cooking gets its own separate sub-section! Cooking is an art, and in The Sims 2, you have to know what you're doing to make sure no one gets sick. If a meal is cooked wrong - whether that means overcooked or undercooked - the Sim that eats it will have a chance of suffering from food poisoning. It's not a pretty sight, especially since it can be contagious. Cooking can be done in two ways.

The new way is to click a cooking appliance and select the option from there. The latter is preferred, because by choosing your appliance, you can affect the speed of the meal. Food from ovens is more filling than from a microwave, but a microwave is extremely fast and definitely preferred if you've got a time crunch such as eating breakfast before work. Your refrigerator has a limited amount of food in it, and you'll have to get more groceries if you run out.