When I first saw this I thought, oi, oi, you mean there’s a Motown group I’ve not heard of yet? Then I realized it’s another of those English English to American things, they’re what I would call draughtsmen. Nowadays of course they’re all using CAD (and CADD) programs on computers to do the work, which is essentially drawing out the plans for the way that things are made. Some 40 % work in variations of construction (so drawing out plans for buildings etc) and another 30 % or so in “mechanical drafting” which is more about the design and manufacturing of products. The balance are in electrical and electronics and government.

One thing that has rather changed the job is the increasing power of computers and the sophistication of the software: while demand for the output is rising, the actual number of jobs is likely to rise slowly because of this. The BLS tells us that there are some 250,000 drafters and it looks pretty well paid, $40,000 a year or so on average.

The usual training is via a program at a technical or vocational school, perhaps a two year college degree at a community college. There are four year college degree programs but they usually only provide two years training in drafting: the other two years might be the basic introductory subjects, or perhaps some specialization in engineering or architecture. It also an are where the military train people and where that training is directly applicable to civilian life. Further, it seems to be a subject that lends itself very well to online education. A powerful PC at home and the right program (in both senses, software and educational) should take a student a long way.

As to our EQSQ personality tests? This is a pure male brain type of job. Most definitely systemizers only.

I think we’ve found another of those jobs where a balanced brain type is necessary. That is, one where the talents of both sides of our EQSQ personality tests will be necessary, both the systemizing traits and the empathic. Dieticians and nutritionists would need to be able to do this because of the way in which the profession actually works: there’s some institutional work but also direct patient care and advice.

The actual work is advising on, amazingly enough, diet and nutrition. Some of this is in the form of designing menus and feeding plans for entire institutions (and there’s an associated and little known sub-set of that passed on to me by my brother who currently cooks for 1,200 soldiers every day in Kabul, Afghanistan. You don’t just scale up spices and flavours like salt, pepper and so on. You use less, proportionately, the larger the cooking sizes get.). The other side is in advising indivduals about their own specific dietary needs. Both are based on sound science (thus the systemizing traits necessary) but of course any one to one intereaction with sick people will (just as with nursing) require empathic skills.

According to the BLS there’s some 50,000 who do the job and job prospects are better than average for the future (all those baby boomers getting old). Pay looks pretty good as well, an average of $43,000 a year.

While there is a system of national certification and another series of state by state licenses the basic requirement is a college degree in the subject. There are some 250 or so accredited schools that offer a Bachelor’s college degree in nutrition, dietetics and so on. Without such a college degree you’re not going to be able to take any of the further certificates or acquire a licence in those states where it is needed.

I think we’d all be happy with the idea that diesel service technicians will be systemizers, male brain types, on the basis of the results of our EQSQ personality tests, yes? The actual job itself, up to the armpits in an engine ,covered in oil and grease as likely as not, trying to work out just what is wrong with it and thus how to fix it? Sounds pretty much like a male style job to me.

More than that, there’s the diagnostic part of the process. This is much the most important. Fixing something is one thing, looking at a system and understanding where it is going wrong: who could ask for a better definition of systemizing behavior than that?

There’s a lot more people in this job than I would have thought: 270,000 or so according to the BLS. Good money too, the average per hour being a little over $20: that’s a good $7 an hour above the average for all wages in the country.

While there are those who enter the job purely by picking it up on the job the usual route is the equivalent of a college degree (a two year or Associate’s college degree, that is) in a vocational or technical school, perhaps at a community college. The most important part of getting such a college degree is that it speeds advancement to the level of “journey technician”. This is what is considered fully qualified: without the degree it can take four or five years to get there. As employers need to train people less if they have that sort of formal training, they are more likely to hire them in the first place.

I had thought that this would be a market in decline, that for people who knew how to use desktop publishing software. I mean, I know that more and more people use it every year, but that made me think that specialists would be needed less. Shows how much I know, eh? The BLS tells me that jobs are expected to grow faster than many other professions. I think this may be one of those differences between English and American: the US usage includes what I would call typographers and compositors (old fashioned words for those who design newspaper and magazine pages) for 4 out of 10 of the jobs are in the mainstream press.

Training for this can be on the job but there are two college degree programs as well as a number of vocational schools that offer certificates and training. The first college degree is a two year program in either graphics or applied science which leads to work doing the designing directly. The longer four year college degrees are designed for those who will be in management but still need to know the details of the basic job.

As far as our EQSQ personality tests are concerned, I think this is one of those interesting times when there is no clear answer. Yes, attention to detail and interest in the inner workings of computers are essential (and thus systemizing traits), but then so are design skills themselves, which draw much more strongly on the empathic side of the character. The split in the profession also interests me. Those 40% working in the press are rather different from the rest in the small design shops and printing houses: they would be dealing with customers directly a considerable amount of the time, making EQ skills much more necessary.

So perhaps there is no one position on the EQ/SQ spectrum that is “right” for desktop publishers. Perhaps, instead, the difference is in which type of job you do after training.

We talked about dental assistants last week and dental hygienists are a further step up the ladder in this area of health care. The actual work is in both cleaning the teeth of patients (of plaque and so on, the things that mere brushing won’t get rid of) and checking for other signs of disease, and teaching those patients the practices and values of good oral hygiene.
In every state a hygienist needs to hold a license to praticise and this is usually only granted after an exam. In order to take the test it is usual to have a two year college degree. It is certainly necessary to have taken a program at one of the roughly 260 accredited schools in the country that offer the dental hygienist’s qualification. The final outcome of that program can vary, from a certificate, a two or four year college degree to even a Master’s.

It certainly seems worth it on the money front, getting such a two year college degree: there aren’t all that many jobs you can do with an Associate’s degree that pay, on average (as the BLS tells us), just under $30 an hour. Perhaps it’s compensation for a working life of looking inside people’s mouths?

Where do we think dental hygienist’s would be on our EQSQ tests? Which personality traits do we think would suit the job? While there is obviously a certain amount of empathy required, after all, they are dealing with patients on a one to one basis, I don’t think this is quite like nursing. Much more to the systemizing side I think, as the processof teaching people to brush and floss correctly is very much systematic.

The Economist runs an interesting article on the differences between male and female brains. The hero of this blog, Simon Baron-Cohen (as you know he designed our EQSQ personality tests) is mentioned along with the basic ideas behind those personality tests. The piece describes all the things you expect it would, the actual physical differences between the two brain types, the absurd idea that gender is solely culturally constructed, the corpus callosum and yes, even Larry Summers and the way in which ability in men is more widely dispersed, leading to both more idiots and more geniuses.

There’s one part that I think is really rather important for us here. When we use our personality tests what should we actually do with them? It’s fine for us to say ah, OK, so you’ve got a systemizing (or male) brain type, but what should the actual advice from there be? Should we simply be guiding people to careers and opportunities that make use of those innate capabilities? Should we recommend that people only train up what they are already good at?

Or, should we look at the results and say, my, what a systemizer you are, perhaps you’d like to try working on your empathic characteristics a little? The answer, I think, depends on what the actual question is. Are we suggesting to people that education is solely there to get you a better job, increase your standard of living? Or are we saying that it is really to improve the rounded person? Or a combination of both?

I think my personal view is that it should be the last. When choosing a career then taking note of the innate capabilities as shown by the EQSQ personality tests seems logical. When looking at life in general perhaps deciding to bolster those areas where you are currently weak makes better sense.

This is also discussed at Lubol Motl’s and at Criticality.