Each career path is scored 1–10 on five dimensions: income potential, work-life balance, career growth, job security, and daily satisfaction. You set the importance weight of each dimension using sliders (from 0 to 100). The tool multiplies each path's score on each dimension by your weight for that dimension, sums the results, and divides by total weight. Paths are then ranked by that weighted score. If you give all dimensions equal weight, paths rank by their average score across all five.
Each profession matcher cites its specific sources at the bottom of the results panel. In general: salary data comes from BLS Occupational Employment Statistics, professional association salary surveys (APA, ADA, APTA, AOTA, ASHA, AOA, ASHP, NCCPA, NASW, DoD pay tables), Glassdoor, and published compensation databases like Levels.fyi. Lifestyle scores reflect workforce survey data on hours, call burden, burnout rates, and work environment conditions from the same professional associations.
Yes, completely. All calculations run in your browser — nothing you enter is ever sent to any server, stored in any database, or shared with anyone. PathFit has no account system, no login, and collects no personal data. When you close the tab, your inputs are gone. We include Google Analytics for aggregate traffic statistics only, and Google AdSense for advertising — neither has access to your calculator inputs.
Scores reflect profession-wide averages based on published data — they won't match every individual's experience. A dermatology PA in a high-performing practice in Miami will have a different experience than a dermatology PA in a rural Midwest clinic. Geography, employer, team culture, and individual circumstance all create variance around any average. PathFit's scores are the starting point for a more informed conversation, not the final word on your specific situation.
Adjust your priority sliders. The ranking is entirely determined by your weights — if income is at 80 and work-life balance is at 20, the highest-income paths will dominate. Try moving the sliders to reflect what you actually spend your mental energy on day-to-day, not what you think you should value. If the results still feel off, the most useful next step is to find practitioners in your top two or three results and have a direct conversation about what their work actually looks like.
We update scores when significant data changes occur — new professional association salary surveys, major regulatory changes affecting career paths, or structural market shifts. The year of each data source is noted in the disclaimer at the bottom of each profession's results. BLS data is released annually. Professional association surveys are typically released every 1–3 years.
PathFit prioritizes professions where (a) the career path decision is highly consequential and hard to reverse, (b) no data-driven interactive tool existed before, and (c) sufficient published workforce data exists to score paths meaningfully. We're adding professions regularly. If your profession isn't covered yet, it likely means we haven't found adequate published data to score it honestly — we'd rather not cover a profession than score it with low-quality data.
Yes — PathFit is designed to be a starting point for exactly that kind of conversation. Print or screenshot your results and bring them as a discussion framework. The five-dimension breakdown and ranked paths give a counselor something concrete to work with and may surface priorities or blind spots worth exploring further.