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A Guide to O*NET

22.05.2008

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What is O*NET?

O*NET is:

• Free
• Easy to use

The O*NET Internet site is the USA's primary source of occupational information, containing information on hundreds of standardized and occupation-specific descriptors. The database, which is accessible at no cost, is continually updated by the US Department of Labor. O*NET is an interactive application for exploring and searching occupations available to all. Whilst some data is only relevant to US situations such as qualifications and pay ranges the majority of information is transferable to work situations in many countries.

What O*NET Does

O*NET:

• Describes occupations (over 900)
• Outlines knowledge, skills, abilities

O*NET describes occupations in a plain-speak manner and illustrates for more than 900 occupations, the different mix of knowledge, skills, and abilities, the worker needs and then proceeds to describe in an innovative way the variety of activities and tasks each occupation involves.

The distinguishing characteristic of O*NET is that the descriptions reflect the nature of occupations (via job-oriented descriptors) and people (via worker-oriented descriptors).

O*NET has more than 275 standardized descriptors of skills, knowledge, tasks, occupation requirements, necessary worker abilities, interests and values.

Occupation Descriptions

The depth of detail of each occupation description is impressive. The clear way in which they are written more so. For example, each occupation description is extracted from a database of:

Skills - 35 skills separated into: Basic Skills (Mathematics, Writing, Reading Comprehension, etc.) and Cross-Functional Skills (Equipment Selection, Quality Control Analysis, etc.)

Generalized Work Activities - 41 general types of job behaviours (Organizing, Planning and Prioritizing Work, Interacting with Computers, etc.) occurring on multiple jobs.

Interests - 6 occupational types that can be connected with a worker's personal interests to indicate which occupations would be most fulfilling.

Work Styles - 16 work style characteristics that can connect what is important to a worker with occupations that reflect or develop those values, such as Initiative, Persistence, Cooperation, etc.

Work Context - 57 physical and social factors that influence the nature of work, such as physical and structural work characteristics.

Experience and Training - Five "Job Zones" that distinguish the levels of education and training connected to occupations.

Questionnaires

Employers are encouraged to use the O*NET Questionnaires within the web site to apply O*NET descriptors to their own workplace situation. Their use provides information on key elements of job performance for:

• line managers
• recruitment and selection officers
• human resources personnel
• training facilitators and learning / development practitioners
• job analysts & remuneration specialists

How O*NET Can Help

The suite of O*NET information and tools can help you in many ways; you can identify important elements of a job for developing or choosing training materials, or use O*NET information to identify skill requirements to align job needs with applicants. Further, O*NET information and tools can help you define success factors for performance management and to select criteria for promotions.

In addition, you can use the information to:

• develop effective job descriptions quickly and easily
• write up the competencies required for selection criteria
• source vocabulary for vacancy adverts
• define employee and/or job-specific success factors
• refine recruitment, induction and training goals

You can use O*NET descriptions in career coaching situations where the employee:

• needs help to expand awareness of what skills, etc. they have or are acquiring in a particular job role
• wants to explore alternative job roles as part of their career action step planning
• could benefit from completing the fee free range of career self assessment instruments provided on the site. These instruments help individuals identify their work-related interests and abilities and what they consider important on the job, so that job roles can be explored which match their interests, abilities, and preferences

Hint

The number of occupations within O*NET is less than 1,000 so you need to use the search engines intelligently and experimentally if the job title you first enter is not displayed. The site at www.onetcenter.org allows you to search in addition to Job Title by Key Words, Job Family and other items.

A Basic Guide to Getting Started

Once you are at the site, there are 4 main options:

1. Find Occupations: Find occupations using keywords
2. Crosswalk Search: Find occupations using codes and titles
3. Skills Search: Match skills to occupations
4. Tools & Technology Search: Match tools & technology to occupations

* By choosing the most suitable search category you can speed up the search process considerably

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