Work, Jobs, and Occupations A Critical Review of the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (1980) / Chapter Skim
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8 THE CLASSIFICATION OF OCCUPATIONS: A REVIEW OF SELECTED SYSTEMS
8 THE CLASSIFICATION OF OCCUPATIONS: A REVIEW OF SELECTED SYSTEMS
Pages 196-213
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From page 196... ...
If a foundry superintendent wants the public employment office to send him a cupola tender, the office must know enough about the work and worker to be able to refer a registrant who has been previously classified as qualified and capable of doing the work required. The DOT was developed to provide Employment Service interviewers and cQunselers with the information necessary to classify workers and jobs appropriately in order to match them.
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From page 197... ...
: The Dictionary of Occupational Titles is an outgrowth of the needs of the public employment service system for a comprehensive body of standardized occupational information for purposes of job placement, employment counseling and occupational and career guidance, and for labor market information services. In order to implement effectively its primary assignment of matching jobs and workers, the public employment service system requires a uniform occupational language for use in all its offices.
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From page 198... ...
Since the DOT classification is used to organize files of job openings and applicants in local Employment Service office job banks, the location of occupations in the classification structure will effectively determine to which job openings a job seeker is exposed. This is particularly the case if the lists of job openings are extensive, as they are in large labor markets.
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From page 199... ...
of digits could be viewed as a reasonable index of the similarity of occupations, although it is important to note that neither has ever been validated against an external standard. In the fourth edition the occupational titles and their definitions appear in order according to the numerical DOT codes.
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From page 200... ...
The DOT Code: The Second Three Digits The third edition DOT and various trial matching programs used the worker function scales (the second three digits of the DOT code) to identify occupational groups,2 but the fourth edition makes no attempt to do so.
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From page 201... ...
The main conclusion that should be drawn from this review is that although automation of the matching process is highly desirable, the keyword system as it is currently implemented suffers severe difficulties and needs to be thoroughly reviewed by a committee of experts, a task that goes beyond the charge to our committee. EXISTING ALTERNATIVE CLASSIFICATIONS FOR JOB WORKER MATCHING Several alternative methodologies for constructing occupational classifications have been developed in recent years.
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From page 202... ...
Classifications based on job dimensions derived from structured job analysis or task inventories, when combined with taxonomies of human performance (Fleishman, 1975) , appear to provide another way to address directly the issue of the suitability of workers' skills, abilities, or other characteristics for specific categories of jobs.
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From page 203... ...
have also used occupational aptitude pattern clusters and occupational reinforcer pattern clusters to form a classification of occupations and have shown how this classification is related to the DOT and Holland classifications. In general, the evidence about the usefulness of the Minnesota theory implies moderate support for the theory and its associated tools (Betz et al., 1966; Elizur and Teiner, 1977; Weiss et al., 1965, 1966~.
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From page 204... ...
Use has been made of Strong Vocational Interest Blank data, Ruder Preference Inventory data, PAQ data, and observations of regularities between the Holland occupational classification and the DOT classification (Holland, 1973a; Holland et al., 1972)
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From page 205... ...
Gottfredson, 1978; Rounds et al., 1978~. The Holland occupational classification has also been shown to be efficient in organizing occupational mobility data in that the category of a worker's later job is substantially predictable from knowledge of the category of a worker's earlier job for those who change jobs (G.
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From page 206... ...
The mobility that occurs in the labor market, specifically the changes between occupations that workers sometimes make when they change jobs, provides one indicator of the transferability of skills between occupations. If workers move frequently back and forth between a pair of occupations, we can infer that the occupations require similar aptitudes and skills, or at least that those who perform one occupation are generally capable of performing the other; otherwise, transfers would not occur.8 Classifications that have been developed for the purpose of job-worker matching should group together those occupations among which workers commonly transfer.
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From page 207... ...
Mobility data can be useful for constructing an occupational classification that is useful for placement, but the basic occupational titles for which mobility data are collected must be defined by other procedures. Occupational mobility data can contribute little to the definition of 9See Roe et al.
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From page 208... ...
For each local labor market and for the specific clientele they deal with, the Employment Service collects all the data needed to find out what occupational linkages commonly occur. Second, the mobility approach allows for great flexibility and continuous improvement.
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From page 209... ...
Third, this method avoids the ad hoc judgments of program designers, occupational analysts, or vocational counselors in deciding what are similar and dissimilar occupations for the purpose of job referral; it relies instead on the actual experiences of workers as they test various alternatives in the labor market. Fourth, the approach would overcome problems inherent in the overly narrow occupational classifications of the DOT, since all occupations between which workers routinely transfer would be grouped together.
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From page 210... ...
Direct skill and ability assessment will continue to be useful in developing placement possibilities, not only for those with limited labor market experience but also for those workers who want to change careers. OTHER METHODOLOGIES Among the other alternative methodologies that may provide independent assessments of occupational similarity, a prime candidate is task analysis (including task inventories and position analysis questionnaires)
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From page 211... ...
As we note above, classification systems developed by Holland in his theory of careers or in the Minnesota theory of work adjustment tap important dimensions of occupational similarity. Moreover, the techniques developed by vocational counselors to assess the quality of matches from the point of view of both workers and employers provide useful tools to assess the success of various classification schemes in generating appropriate placements.
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From page 212... ...
CONCLUSION In this chapter we have reviewed the classification structure of the DOT as well as alternative bases for systems of occupational classification and have raised some of the conceptual issues involved in developing classifications for job-worker matching, in particular the notion of occupational similarity and the transferability of skills. We have suggested the use of data on naturally occurring patterns of labor mobility to evaluate, refine, and develop new occupational classifications.
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From page 213... ...
Traditional occupational analysis procedures might play this role, although job analysis as currently practiced in the occupational analysis program has not been especially successful in defining the similarities of disparate occupations. In an approach that emphasizes required worker characteristics, the most ambitious attack on this problem has been the ratings measuring the complexity of a job in relation to data, people, and things of the occupational analysis program's functional job analysis approach.
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