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Line of Work strategy guide

How to read a pay range and use pay, job counts, growth, education and field to name the occupation in fewer guesses.

Line of Work rewards the habits of someone who has read a lot of job ads and pay surveys: how wide is the range, how many people do the job, what does it take to start, and is it growing? You don’t need to memorize the wages of 509 jobs. You need to read the range the game hands you before you guess, open from the middle of the list, and read each row of clues in the order that narrows things fastest. This guide walks through that plan, and the figures in it are computed from the same data the game uses. Wherever it says “median”, it means the middle value: half of a job’s employees earn more and half earn less.

1. Read the range before you guess

Start with how wide the range is. For the middle job in Line of Work, the 90th percentile is about 2.3 times the 10th. A range much narrower than that often points to a set wage scale, the kind many government and union jobs follow, or to an entry-level job where most employees are paid close to the same wage. Of Line of Work’s 509 jobs, Postmaster has the narrowest range: $85,090 at the 10th percentile and $111,740 at the 90th, only 31 percent more. Farmworker ($32,900 to $45,690), Bank teller ($34,360 to $49,680) and Nuclear reactor operator ($98,640 to $149,310) come next. A cashier’s range runs from $24,530 to $40,410, and a registered nurse’s from $68,940 to $137,470.

A long top whisker points the other way, to pay that depends on commissions, tips or a share of the business. Professional athlete is the extreme: its 10th percentile is $26,500 and its 90th $742,310, 28 times as much. Financial advisor runs from $50,190 to $357,020 around a median of $105,070, Lawyer from $78,360 to $351,600 around $159,670, and CEO from $75,700 to $507,730. Real estate agent runs from $32,970 to $123,590 around a median of $52,830, and Bartender from $20,110 to $73,770 around $34,340. When the 90th percentile is more than twice the median, and that describes 33 of the 509 jobs, think sales, tips, fees or partnership pay before you think salary.

Then read where the median sits on the scale, because the scale is the same for every job. The median for all jobs is $50,980, and 343 of the 509 jobs are above it. A median under $40,000 describes 66 of the 509 jobs, and the biggest fields among them are Personal care with 14, Food service with 11 and Transportation with 8, followed by Office and admin with 6 and Sales with 5. That is service, retail and food work: Fast food cook has the lowest median of the 509 at $30,890, Cashier is at $32,880 and Retail salesperson at $35,410. At the top, 19 jobs have a median of $200,000 or more, and 17 of them are in Healthcare; the other two are Airline pilot and CEO. Cardiologist has the highest median of the 509 at $496,010.

2. Open from the middle of the list

Your first guess should split the possibilities rather than aim for the answer, and the middle of the list is where a guess is least wasted. Take the median of each figure across the 509 jobs and you get a typical job with a median wage of about $63,000, about 95,800 jobs and 3.5 percent growth. A job near all three can come back blue or orange on more clues than an extreme one. Paramedic is close to the middle on all three, with a median of $60,600, 102,200 jobs and growth of 5.7 percent, and so is Interior designer, with $67,190, 97,100 jobs and 2.7 percent. We checked by running each of the 509 jobs as an opener against the answers and counting how many different rows of feedback it produced: Paramedic and Surgical technologist each produced 160, the most of any job, against 98 for Accountant and 78 for Registered nurse.

A familiar big job is still a natural place to start, and it tests the two biggest groups at once: Healthcare is the largest field in the game, with 58 of the 509 jobs, and Bachelor’s is the most common level above high school, at 134. But a very large job spends the Jobs clue. Registered nurse has about 3.5 million jobs, the fifth most of the 509, so its Jobs clue reads grey with a down arrow for 284 of the other 295 answers and tells you only that the hidden job is smaller. Treat it as a way to test pay and field, then move to a mid-sized job when you need the Jobs clue to work.

Read the range first, open from the middle, and let the arrows do the triangulating.

3. Learn how the Field clue works

Field is the only clue about what a job is rather than how much or how many, and it follows the government’s Standard Occupational Classification. There are 22 major groups, which Line of Work shows by short names, and Line of Work’s 509 jobs are spread across them like this:

  • Healthcare — 58 jobs.
  • Construction and Production — 37 jobs each.
  • Office and admin — 36 jobs.
  • Installation and repair — 34 jobs.
  • Arts, media and sports — 31 jobs.
  • Management and Transportation — 28 jobs each.
  • Science — 27 jobs.
  • Business and finance — 25 jobs.
  • Education and Personal care — 20 jobs each.
  • Engineering and Sales — 19 jobs each.
  • Computers and math — 18 jobs.
  • Protective service — 17 jobs.
  • Food service — 14 jobs.
  • Community and social work and Healthcare support — 12 jobs each.
  • Legal and Farming, fishing, forestry — 6 jobs each.
  • Cleaning and grounds — 5 jobs.

Inside each major group are minor groups, 88 of them across the game. A blue Field clue means the same minor group and an orange one means the same major group but a different minor group. Registered nurse and Pharmacist are both in “Healthcare diagnosing or treating practitioners”, a minor group of 38 jobs that also holds the doctors, dentists and therapists, so one is blue against the other. LPN sits in “Health technologists and technicians”, another minor group of Healthcare, so it reads orange against Registered nurse. Medical assistant is in Healthcare support, a different major group, so it reads grey. Healthcare and Healthcare support are separate fields, and that is one of the easiest ways to be misled.

The same split works in other fields. Software developer and Web developer are both “Computer occupations”, a group of 14 jobs, so they match. Data scientist, Statistician, Actuary and Mathematician are the four “Mathematical science occupations”, which share the Computers and math field with software developers but not their minor group, so a Data scientist guess against a Software developer answer reads orange. The first hint gives the minor group’s title, and that is a strong clue when the group is small: “Mathematical science occupations” leaves four jobs.

4. Treat education as a ladder

Education has eight rungs: None, High school, Certificate, Some college, Associate’s, Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral. The clue matches on the same rung and reads close one rung away, and the arrow tells you which way to climb: up for a job that asks for more schooling, down for less. It is the typical education needed to start the job, not what every worker holds. Healthcare covers six of the eight rungs, everything from High school to Doctoral except Some college: LPN is Certificate, Dental hygienist is Associate’s, Registered nurse is Bachelor’s, Nurse practitioner is Master’s and Pharmacist is Doctoral.

The rungs are not equally crowded. Of the 509 jobs, 68 ask for no credential, 172 for a high school diploma, 41 for a certificate, 5 for some college, 21 for an associate’s degree, 134 for a bachelor’s degree, 34 for a master’s and 34 for a doctoral or professional degree. A blue Education clue on High school leaves a long list, while a blue one on Some college leaves five: Bookkeeper, Computer repair technician, IT support specialist, Teaching assistant and Tutor. Education also tells you about pay, though not evenly. Taking the median of the job medians at each rung, the middle job pays about $39,000 with no credential, $51,000 with a high school diploma, $61,000 with a certificate, $72,000 with an associate’s degree, $88,000 with a bachelor’s, $88,000 with a master’s and $172,000 with a doctoral or professional degree. The step from a bachelor’s to a master’s says almost nothing about pay in this game; the step to a doctoral degree says a lot.

5. Use Jobs and Growth as filters

Jobs spans the widest range of any clue, from Watchmaker with 1,400 jobs to Home health aide with about 4.7 million, and it is compared by ratio: a guess of 100,000 jobs is blue for any job between about 90,900 and 110,000, and orange for any job between 50,000 and 200,000. Of the 509 jobs, 260 have fewer than 100,000 and 38 have a million or more, so a guess near 100,000 splits the list roughly in half. Remember that Jobs counts the self-employed, which pay does not: more than half of Real estate agent jobs, 54.3 percent, and 62.8 percent of Painter or sculptor jobs are self-employed.

Growth is the projected change in employment from 2025 to 2035, and the all-jobs figure is +3.5 percent. Because 310 of the 509 jobs sit within 4 points of that, a middling Growth clue says little. The extremes say a lot: 125 jobs are projected to shrink and 52 to grow by 10 percent or more. By field, 27 of the 36 Office and admin jobs are projected to shrink, and none of the 58 Healthcare jobs is. Nurse practitioner is the fastest-growing of the 509 jobs at +41.0 percent, followed by Solar installer at +36.5 and Data scientist at +34.6. The steepest declines are Typist at −34.4, Switchboard operator at −26.0 and Data entry clerk at −25.5.

6. When to take a hint

The field hint is most valuable early, when you have not yet placed the job at all, because it names a minor group. The states hint ranks states by how concentrated the job is there, not by headcount, so the big states rarely lead it: Texas is in the top three for only 8 of the 296 answers and California for 22, while New York is in the top three for 43, the District of Columbia for 40, Hawaii for 38, Alaska for 31 and Nevada for 30. The hint for Casino dealer reads Nevada, Mississippi and North Dakota; for Wind turbine technician, North Dakota, Iowa and New Mexico; and for Lawyer, the District of Columbia, New York and Massachusetts. The first-letter hint is strongest late in a round, when you have two or three candidates left and can simply check which name fits.

7. Two worked rounds

Suppose the hidden job is Civil engineer and you open with Registered nurse. The row reads: Pay $97,550, a match; Jobs 3.5M, a miss with a down arrow; Growth +5.6%, a match; Education Bachelor’s, a match; Field Healthcare, a miss. Three blues and a grey Field say the hidden job pays about what a nurse does, needs a bachelor’s degree, grows at a similar rate, is much smaller and is not in Healthcare. Only two of the 296 answers would produce that exact row against Registered nurse, Civil engineer and Geologist, and you can reason your way toward them: well paid, a bachelor’s, not Healthcare, smaller. Engineering or science fits, so you try Mechanical engineer. The row reads: Pay $104,110, a match; Jobs 299k, close with an up arrow; Growth +11.2%, a miss with a down arrow; Education Bachelor’s, a match; Field Engineering, a match. The same minor group, Engineers, with more jobs and slower growth, and only one of the 296 answers fits both rows. That is Civil engineer.

Now suppose the hidden job is Financial advisor. Before you type anything the range is already talking: the whisker runs from $50,190 to $357,020, the box from $72,440 to $176,790, and the median is $105,070. A top whisker more than three times the median says commissions, fees or a share of the business. You open with Accountant. The row reads: Pay $83,680, a miss with an up arrow; Jobs 1.6M, a miss with a down arrow; Growth +5.0%, close with a down arrow; Education Bachelor’s, a match; Field Business and finance, a match. The Field match is the useful part: the hidden job is in Accountant’s minor group, “Financial specialists”, and it pays more and employs far fewer people. Financial analyst fits that shape, so you guess it. The row reads: Pay $102,740, a match; Jobs 377k, close with a down arrow; Growth +7.2%, a miss with a down arrow; Education Bachelor’s, a match; Field Business and finance, a match. The pay is right, the job is a little smaller and slower-growing, and only one of the 296 answers fits both rows. That is Financial advisor.

8. Common mistakes

  • Reading the median as the pay of every employee in the job, when the whisker shows how far employees’ pay spreads either side of it.
  • Treating a close Pay as a match, when 20 percent is a wide band: at $60,000, blue covers $57,143 to $63,000 but close reaches from $50,000 to $72,000.
  • Forgetting that Healthcare and Healthcare support are separate fields.
  • Opening with a very large job and learning only that the answer is smaller.
  • Reading a close Growth as a meaningful match, when 310 of the 509 jobs are within 4 points of the all-jobs rate.
  • Expecting the states hint to name the biggest states, when it names the ones where the job is most concentrated.
  • Stopping at a row of blue and orange, when the arrows are still telling you which way the answer lies.

Practice these reads in unlimited mode until they feel automatic, then bring them back to the daily puzzle. The how to play page has the rules, and the data and method page explains where the numbers come from. The figures are national pay for employees, and none of this is career advice.