Latest News Optometrist Ranks Near Top of CNNMoney’s List of Best Jobs in America By Staff Friday, November 30, 2012 12:30 AM ROCKVILLE, Md.— CNNMoney has ranked optometrist No. 12 on its recently released “100 Best Jobs in America” list. Highlighting what makes the job “great,” the list includes “Good pay without the frequent long hours and middle-of-the-night emergency calls doctors expect” and “Patients typically aren’t in pain or afraid, so visits tend to be low-key, and many stay with the same optometrist for years.” The researchers responsible for the list cite the median pay for an experienced optometrist as $105,000 and top pay as $149,000. They predict 33.1 percent job growth during years 2010-2020. To compile the list, CNNMoney and compensation experts PayScale.com began with more than 9,000 job titles and identified those that require at least a bachelor’s degree. They focused on professions that offer favorable growth opportunities based on Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts. They considered a variety of other information, including data from a PayScale.com survey of more than 120,000 workers who ranked their jobs on quality-of-life factors such as stress, flexibility, satisfaction and how they feel their job affects the world. The full “100 Best Jobs in America” report can be found at http://money.cnn.com/pf/best-jobs/2012/snapshots/12.html. This is not the first time optometry has been lauded as a desirable career choice. For example, it appeared on the CNNMoney list in 2010, was among Kiplinger’s 13 Best Careers in 2010, and was rated “excellent” in a 2007 U.S. News and World Report guide to careers, according to the Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO).