creating my own save file

I'm also making a save file, and unless you want to use story mode in cas, it seems to be the most efficient.
Goodluck on your save! :)

I also made a save file. Mine is to share with the community so I don't use mods for it. It's a huge undertaking if you're building and creating everything from scratch but it's a lot of fun...at least for me.

MCCC and UI cheats would be perfect for it. If you do it the long way, time will pass as they're finding a job, etc. With MCCC, you can set it to pause on zone so no time passes as you're setting up each household.

Not pertaining to your original question but a little advice: If you're building from scratch, build in another save and transport to the new save once you're happy with the build. You can also use that save to set up the households with skills and careers (if you don’t use MCCC and UI Cheats). The relationships don't transfer from the Library/Gallery.

Good luck!

I'm also making a save file rn, hope my answer isn't too late! :#

Anyway, I suggest using cheat codes instead of having Sims call so you won't have too much time passing in-game.

To add a career, open the cheat console and type careers.add_career career name. Obviously you'll replace career name with whatever career you'd like the Sim to have. The actual career names used for cheats don't always match the names in-game though, so you'll have to google them as needed (it's a pretty long list by now, so I don't wanna paste it here).