Brain Handles

Though I'm not unemployed, I am underemployed. So a little while ago, I began job hunting in the Seattle area. Considering that I have seen many of my jokes float around the net, my job application joke turning into an urban legend, I thought it would be a good idea to look for jobs where a sense of humor is desired and appreciated. The results of that search were... unexpected.

I set up an RSS feed for job ads at Craig's List, using "humor" as the search keyword. Over the next couple of weeks, I found that many of the jobs being returned were not only way outside the fields where I was looking, but were in fields that took me by surprise.

I decided to do the same search on Craig's List for 9 major metropolitan areas and break down the jobs by category. The areas were San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver, Chicago, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C.

Taking all job listings with the word "humor" in the job descriptions over the last 30 days (March 16 - April 15), I came up with some interesting statistics. If you'd like to see the complete breakdown, I set up a few pages with the breakdowns here.

And the #1 job category requiring humor is: Administrative/Office jobs.

Nationally the top two categories where employers desired humor in their employee were also the categories where you also wouldn't expect to get paid very much (the #2 category was Nonprofit Sector jobs). Perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise, as it would take a good sense of humor to be in some of those positions and not go nuts.

While that might have been surprising, it was no surprise that the least humorous category, with only one job nationwide having "humor" in the description, was Security. What was surprising was the location of the job... Washington D.C.

While Administrative/Office jobs topped the combined stats, they only topped 6 of the 9 cities. In Boston, it came in 3rd, with Nonprofit Sector jobs taking the top slot. In Philadelphia, it came in 6th, with Education jobs taking the top slot. And in Washington D.C. it came in 2nd, with Marketing/PR/Advertising jobs taking the top slot.

Other interesting conclusions came out of the data...

City With The Most Humorous Programmers: Ranking 13th among all cities combined, the Software/QA/DBA category topped out at 5th in New York, while San Francisco and Los Angeles tied for the least humorous programmers, with the category coming in 18th on both their lists.

If Laughter Is The Best Medicine: You're likely to find medical staff with humor most often in Philly, where Medical/Health came in 3rd, but you'll find medical employers who value humor least in Los Angeles and Denver where it came in 20th.

Most Pleasant Dining Experience: Which cities value humor in their Food/Beverage/Hospitality employees? Seattle, Denver, and Philadelphia all tied for tops with this category coming in at #2. The city which values humor least in these employees... Chicago, where the category comes in 21st out of 25 categories.

The Job Where A Sense Of Humor Is Most Needed: If anyone needs a sense of humor to survive from day to day, it's people in Education. While the category came in 4th in all cities combined, it was highest in Philadelphia where it was the #1 category, and came in lowest in Seattle where it ranked 13th. Perhaps that's one of the reasons Seattle complains it can't keep good teachers. Many people would say that their best teachers had a good sense of humor, and perhaps those teachers are leaving Seattle to go to cities where a sense of humor is more valued.

Conclusions

Some people will look at this study and say "that's absolutely right!". Others will look at it and say "there are three types of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics."

This study does not try to claim which city is the most humorous, but based on employers valuing humor enough to put it in their job descriptions, one can conclude which job categories value humor most from city to city.

So if you're job hunting, or perhaps you're just in a job where your managers and co-workers don't "get" you, maybe this study will help you focus your efforts to find something better suited to your temperament.