Where Heat Treating Equipment Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic Move Next
Occupation move map · Production · Also covers: Layout Workers, Metal and Plastic; Plating Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic; Tool Grinders, Filers, and Sharpeners; Other Metal Workers and Plastic Workers
Most career-change advice for heat treating equipment setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic is somebody's opinion. This page is not. It is built from 58,121 observed occupation changes in the U.S. Current Population Survey — real people, tracked from one job to the next, not survey respondents describing what they would like to do.
The survey records too few direct moves out of heat treating equipment setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic to publish a destination table — no single destination reaches the observation floor. What it does show is the occupation group these movers went to, and from that, together with skill similarity, the occupations below are the closest fit. Treat them as a starting list, not a measured ranking.
Seen at the group level, split estimated
Movers from heat treating equipment setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plastic were observed entering the occupation groups these belong to, but the split to each specific occupation was not directly observed, so no share is shown.
- First-Line Supervisors of Production and Operating Workers — estimated, 0 direct observations
- First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers — estimated, 0 direct observations
- Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers — estimated, 0 direct observations
- Adhesive Bonding Machine Operators and Tenders — estimated, 0 direct observations
- Chemical Equipment Operators and Tenders — estimated, 0 direct observations
- First-Line Supervisors of Construction Trades and Extraction Workers — estimated, 0 direct observations
- First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers — estimated, 0 direct observations
- Automotive Body and Related Repairers — estimated, 0 direct observations
Occupations with a similar skill profile
Ranked by skill similarity from O*NET, not by observed moves. A place to look, not a measured path.
- Cutting, Punching, and Press Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Foundry Mold and Coremakers
- Welders, Cutters, Solderers, and Brazers
- Extruding and Drawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic
- Coil Winders, Tapers, and Finishers
- Gas Compressor and Gas Pumping Station Operators
How to read these numbers honestly
These are shares conditional on moving — the denominator is people in this occupation who changed to a different occupation group, not everyone in it. Most people in any given period do not move at all, so this page tells you the direction of movement, not how likely you are to move.
The underlying occupation codes are re-derived from job descriptions at each interview, which manufactures some transitions that never happened. We control for that four ways: we work at coarse occupation groupings rather than fine codes, we down-weight occupation changes not corroborated by an employer or industry change, we prefer the dependent-coded monthly survey over the retrospective annual one, and we shrink thin cells toward a skill-similarity prior. The residual uncertainty is why every row carries its observation count.
A row is marked Observed when at least 30 direct transitions were recorded; Thin evidence when fewer were; and Estimated when none were — the move to that occupation's group was observed, and the split to this particular occupation is allocated by skill similarity, so no share is shown.
Snapshot cps-movegraph-759b8583ddf6, frozen June 30, 2026. Held-out validation: precision@5 of 0.238, against 0.163 for a popularity baseline and 0.154 for a skill-similarity baseline.
What this page cannot tell you
It cannot tell you which of these moves fits your own record. A destination that many movers take is still the wrong move for most individuals — the ranking is population-level, and your last three roles, your credentials and what you actually want change it substantially.
See which of these moves your own experience already supports.
Career Companion reads your résumé and scores these destinations against what you have actually done, not against the population average. Start free →