There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a human factors scientist. For example, did you know that they make an average of $36.67 an hour? That's $76,280 a year!
Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 8% and produce 23,800 job opportunities across the U.S.
There are certain skills that many human factors scientists have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed creativity, listening skills and math skills.
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a human factors scientist, we found that a lot of resumes listed 13.3% of human factors scientists included human subjects, while 11.2% of resumes included data analysis, and 10.6% of resumes included project management. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the human factors scientist job title. But what industry to start with? Most human factors scientists actually find jobs in the technology and telecommunication industries.
If you're interested in becoming a human factors scientist, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 20.3% of human factors scientists have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 47.5% of human factors scientists have master's degrees. Even though most human factors scientists have a college degree, it's impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a human factors scientist. When we researched the most common majors for a human factors scientist, we found that they most commonly earn master's degree degrees or doctoral degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on human factors scientist resumes include bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a human factors scientist. In fact, many human factors scientist jobs require experience in a role such as human factors engineer. Meanwhile, many human factors scientists also have previous career experience in roles such as research assistant or teaching assistant.
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In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of human factors engineer you might progress to a role such as user experience manager eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title user experience manager.
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
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The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we've found all of the skills you'll need so even if you don't have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 13.3% of human factors scientists listed human subjects on their resume, but soft skills such as creativity and listening skills are important as well.
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a human factors scientist. The best states for people in this position are California, Alaska, New Mexico, and Massachusetts. Human factors scientists make the most in California with an average salary of $97,819. Whereas in Alaska and New Mexico, they would average $96,695 and $88,042, respectively. While human factors scientists would only make an average of $87,505 in Massachusetts, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. Alaska
$96,695
Avg. Salary
2. New Mexico
$88,042
Avg. Salary
3. Utah
$85,922
Avg. Salary