'The Sims' Career Track Guide

Learn the skill and friends needed to advance

Image of a Woman Playing a Video Game
Image (c) Jedrzej Kaminski / EyeEm / Getty Images

The original version of "The Sims" life-simulation video game comes with 10 career tracks. Evaluate your Sim's current skill set and number of friends when choosing a career for the Sim.

Career Tracks Available in 'The Sims'

Early levels in a career have no requirements, but to advance in a career, a Sim must have a varying number of friends, and skills in categories that include mechanical, body, cooking, charisma, logic, and creativity, depending on career choice.

Business Career Track

Beginning your Sim's business career as a mailroom clerk and progressing through executive assistant requires no skills or friends, but making it to business tycoon requires increasing amounts of friends, charisma, mechanical, and logic skills, along with creativity and body skills.

Entertainment Career Track

A career in entertainment starts with a waiter/waitress job until your Sim gets a gig as an extra. Advancement in this career requires friends and mechanical, body, charisma, and creativity skills. The levels beyond extra include bit player, stunt double, B-movie star, supporting player, TV star, feature star, Broadway star, and superstar. 

Law Enforcement Career Track

Your Sim can become a hero in this career but must start as a security guard and serve as a cadet. Soon the friends and skills level requirements kick in. They are needed for your Sim to advance through the career phases of patrolman/patrolwoman, desk sergeant, vice squad, detective, lieutenant, SWAT team leader, and police chief. To become Captain Hero, your Sim must possess many friends, and skills in cooking, mechanical, charisma, body, logic, and creativity.

Life of Crime Career Track

Starting life in crime at the pickpocket or bagman level doesn't require anything, but to advance to criminal mastermind is challenging indeed. Along the way, your Sim will need friends and cooking, mechanical, charisma, body, logic, and creativity skills to advance through the levels of bookie, con artist, getaway driver, bank robber, cat burglar, counterfeiter, and smuggler.

Medicine Career Track

Medicine is a good career for Sims who want to do good and heal people. The entry-level is medical technician, followed by paramedic. Soon, your Sim can advance to nurse, intern, resident, GP, specialist, surgeon, medical researcher, and all the way to chief of hospital staff, assuming the necessary number of friends and skills in charisma, mechanical, body, logic, and creativity.

Military Career Track

A military career may not make your Sim rich, but it is a good choice for a fighter. The recruit and elite forces levels have no requirements, but subsequent levels require friends and skills in charisma, mechanical, body, logic, and cooking to advance through drill instructor, junior officer, counterintelligence, flight officer, senior officer, commander, and astronaut, to finally reach the general rank.

Politics Career Track

Start your Sim as a campaign worker to begin a political career. Levels for advancement include intern, lobbyist, campaign manager, city council member, state assemblyman/assemblywoman, congressman/congresswoman, judge, senator, and mayor. As you might expect, your Sim will need a lot of friends and charisma, along with logic, creativity, and body skills.

Pro Athlete Career Track

To be a pro athlete, your Sim must start out as a team mascot before he can become a Hall of Famer. Advancement requires stints as a minor leaguer, rookie, starter, all-star, MVP, superstar, assistant coach, and coach. Requirements include many friends, a high level of body skill, and skills in cooking, mechanical, charisma, and creativity.

Science Career Track

Starting out as a test subject, and advancing to lab assistant is just the beginning of a science career. Your Sim will have to work as a field researcher, science teacher, project leader, inventor, scholar, top-secret researcher, and theorist before reaching the pinnacle of this career—mad scientist. By then, requirements are a substantial number of friends and skills in cooking, mechanical, charisma, logic, and creativity.

Xtreme Career Track

Taking up an Xtreme career requires a lot of energy. It starts at the daredevil level and advances from there. If your Sim can make the grade, International Spy is the ultimate job in this career track, but not until bungee jump instructor, whitewater guide, bush pilot, mountain climber and treasure hunter levels have been completed. 

Career Tracks in 'The Sims' Expansion Packs

There are three expansion packs to "The Sims" game. The "Living Large" and "Unleashed" expansion packs each add five more career tracks, while "Superstar" adds one. They include:

Living Large Career Tracks

  • Hacker
  • Journalism
  • Musician
  • Paranormal
  • Slacker

Unleashed Career Tracks:

  • Animal Care
  • Circus
  • Culinary Arts
  • Fashion
  • Education

Superstar Career Track

  • Fame
Was this page helpful?