Most Common Job Openings In Each State

Have you ever wondered what positions employers are hiring the most? Lucky for you, we’ve found the most (and second-most) common job openings in each state.

These openings range from registered nurses to sales associates to even volunteers. So if you’re considering a career in one of the areas listed below, you’re in luck! Lots of employers are searching for people to fill these positions.

Keep reading to find out how many job openings are posted for each state so you know what your chances are.

Summary of the Most Common Jobs

We bet you didn’t know that there are only 5 of the most common jobs across the country. These jobs include:

These are all great positions to go into, even if you’re looking for a new career path. Especially since California has 5,884 sales associate positions available. Even 502 registered nurse positions in New Mexico sounds pretty good. Let’s sort through some of the other notable takeaways from our data.

While California presents the most opportunity for sales associates, Texas and Florida are not far behind with 5,271 and 4,003 job openings, respectively. Between those three states, sales associates have 15,158 job openings to apply to!
It turns out that the worst state to become a sales associate in is Hawaii. While the beach may have your attention, the state only has 146 job openings for the position. So basically you’d have better luck elsewhere.
There’s only one state in the entire U.S. where the most common job is a diesel mechanic. So if you like rolling up your sleeves and getting a little dirty, you might want to turn your sights to Nebraska. The state has 364 job openings in this position, so the odds of you getting a job offer is pretty good.
Just like the diesel mechanic position, software development engineers are only the most common jobs in Washington. With 1,245 job openings, you have a way better chance of scoring a job in this position than you do as a diesel mechanic.

We didn’t want to leave you with just five types of jobs. Plus the fact that the most common job in 40 of the 50 states is Sales Associate just didn’t bode well.

So we went ahead and found the second-most common jobs across the U.S. This list will give you the variety you’re looking for.

How We Determined The Most Common Job Posting In Each State

For this one, we turned to our own website data and searched more than three million job listings. We simply calculated the number of job postings per job title in each state.
The job title with the most job postings in each state was the most common job. 41 states’ most common job posting is “Sales Associate.” Since that is a little dull, we opted to look at the first AND second most common job postings to dive a bit deeper. Hence two maps.

Summary of the Second-Most Common Job Positions

Okay, so this list has a lot of the same job titles, but at least not every state is occupied with sales associates job postings. With the second-most common jobs, you’ll notice a variety of 8 different jobs.

Probably the most impressive stat is that California has a whopping 2,930 shift supervisor positions open. That’s a lot of jobs, especially for the second-most common jobs.
Looking over the list, you’ll notice that volunteer is on there. While it’s only a second-common job posting in one state (hey there, Nevada), that’s still pretty impressive. With 233 job postings, it’s safe to assume that Nevada has some good-hearted people who are interested in helping others through volunteer work.
Alaska has the least amount of second-most-common job openings in the country with only 76 openings for sales associates.
Of the eight second-most-common job openings, certified nursing assistants only come up once. While the position is only common in Minnesota, the state makes sure to offer plenty of opportunities with 955 openings.
While licensed practical nurse is a common job in two states, you’d have more luck applying for a job in Tennessee. With 859 job openings, the state offers more opportunities than Vermont, which only have 117 job openings.

State	Most Common	Second-Most
Alabama	Sales Associate	Assistant Manager
Alaska	Registered Nurse	Sales Associate
Arizona	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Arkansas	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
California	Sales Associate	Shift Supervisor
Colorado	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Connecticut	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Delaware	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Florida	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Georgia	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Hawaii	Sales Associate	Shift Supervisor
Idaho	Sales Associate	Customer Service Representative
Illinois	Sales Associate	Shift Supervisor
Indiana	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Iowa	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Kansas	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Kentucky	Sales Associate	Customer Service Representative
Louisiana	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Maine	Registered Nurse	Sales Associate
Maryland	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Massachusetts	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Michigan	Sales Associate	Shift Supervisor
Minnesota	Sales Associate	Certified Nursing Assistant
Mississippi	Sales Associate	Shift Supervisor
Missouri	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Montana	Registered Nurse	Sales Associate
Nebraska	Diesel Mechanic	Sales Associate
Nevada	Sales Associate	Volunteer
New Hampshire	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
New Jersey	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
New Mexico	Registered Nurse	Sales Associate
New York	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
North Carolina	Sales Associate	Shift Supervisor
North Dakota	Registered Nurse	Sales Associate
Ohio	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Oklahoma	Sales Associate	Assistant Manager
Oregon	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Pennsylvania	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Rhode Island	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
South Carolina	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
South Dakota	Registered Nurse	Sales Associate
Tennessee	Sales Associate	Licensed Practical Nurse
Texas	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Utah	Sales Associate	Customer Service Representative
Vermont	Registered Nurse	Licensed Practical Nurse
Virginia	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Washington	Software Development Engineer	Sales Associate
West Virginia	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Wisconsin	Sales Associate	Registered Nurse
Wyoming	Customer Service Representative	Sales Associate

Never miss an opportunity that’s right for you.

Author

Amanda Postma

Amanda Postma is a writer for the Zippia Career Advice blog with a focus on creating entertaining content to help you through your job search. She received her BA from the University Of Missouri-Columbia.

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