O*Net (Occupational Information Network) - Explained
What is O Net?
Written by Jason Gordon
Updated at September 28th, 2021
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Table of Contents
What is O*Net (Occupational Information Network)?How is O*Net Used? Academic Research on O*Net (Occupational Information Network)What is O*Net (Occupational Information Network)?
The O*NET or Occupational Information Network is a free online database for the public, especially job seekers, students, workforce training professionals, and businesses, sponsored by the US government, that contains definitions for hundreds of job descriptions available in the United States.
It was created in the 1990s by a Grant to the North Carolina Employment Security Commission by The US Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). The Interests section of O*Net uses John L. Hollands vocational model to profile users.
Back to: PROFESSIONALISM & CAREER DEVELOPMENT
How is O*Net Used?
The official description of O*NET according to the USDOL/ETA is, a database of occupational requirements and worker attributes.
It describes occupations in terms of the skills and knowledge required, how the work is performed, and typical work settings. It can be used by businesses, educators, job seekers, human resources professionals, and the publicly funded Workforce Investment System to help meet the talent needs of our competitive global economy. O*NET information helps support the creation of industry competency models.
O*NET provides information on different aspects of a job, namely:
- Personal Requirements: Specifics of the skills set required for the job.
- Personal Characteristics: The ethics, character traits, interests and abilities required to be hired for the job.
- Experience: The level of training, years of experience, and the license required to ace a job.
- Job Requirements: Education level, physical fitness, mental acuity, field of study, and other skills that are a prerequisite for applying to a job.
- Labour Market: Payscale, pay grades, and the outlook of the job in the long run.
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- List of Business Jobs by Career Field
- O*Net (Occupational Information Network)
- List of Rotational Programs for Business Students
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Academic Research on O*Net (Occupational Information Network)
- Identifying the most important 21st century workforce competencies: An analysis of the Occupational Information Network (O* NET), Burrus, J., Jackson, T., Xi, N., & Steinberg, J. (2013). This paper analyses the most in demand jobs and competencies by looking at data from O*NET. It concludes that there are 15 core competencies that are most in demand and correlates these findings with O*NET data.
- Using Online Occupational Information for Career Development. Practitioner File., Imel, S., Kerka, S., & Wonacott, M. E. (2001). This is a file aimed at helping users of O*NET find their way around the directory and make the most of it.
- Replace with a database: O^* NET replaces the Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Mariani, M. (1999). Occupational outlook quarterly, 43, 2-9. This paper does a deep dive into the usefulness of O*NET, its origins, inception, impact, and more.
- The O* Net jobs classification system: A primer for family researchers, Crouter, A. C., Lanza, S. T., Pirretti, A., Goodman, W. B., Neebe, E., & Family Life Project Key Investigators. (2006). Family Relations, 55(4), 461-472. This paper is a guide to family researchers to the job classification system of O*NET.
- Use of O* NET as a job exposure matrix: a literature review, Cifuentes, M., Boyer, J., Lombardi, D. A., & Punnett, L. (2010). American journal of industrial medicine, 53(9), 898-914. This is a literature review of the usage of O*NET for jobs exposure.
- Using job-title-based physical exposures from O* NET in an epidemiological study of carpal tunnel syndrome, Evanoff, B., Zeringue, A., Franzblau, A., & Dale, A. M. (2014). Human factors, 56(1), 166-177. This book takes a look at the occurrence of occupational Carpal Tunnel Syndrome by examining empirical data from O*NET.
- Using valuesbased approaches in employment counseling and assessment: Professional and related occupations, VanVoorhis, R. W., & Protivnak, J. J. (2012). Journal of Employment Counseling, 49(4), 160-171. This article takes a look at the growth of professional occupations from a historical as well as a predictive forecasting perspective, and presents a case study.
- Carotene: A job title classification system for the online recruitment domain, Javed, F., Luo, Q., McNair, M., Jacob, F., Zhao, M., & Kang, T. S. (2015, March). In Big Data Computing Service and Applications (BigDataService), 2015 IEEE First International Conference on (pp. 286-293). IEEE. This paper examines the various methods of classifications used to sort job title in the online recruitment scenario.
- Assessing interrater agreement in the O* NET, Harvey, R. J., & Hollander, E. (2002). Wilson, MA (Chair), The O* NET: Mend it, or end it. This document assesses the interrater agreement between 1147 units in O*NET.
- Career Planning the Second Time around., Mullins, J. (2009). Occupational Outlook Quarterly, 53(2), 12-15. This journal takes a look at the opportunity to replan a career from scratch after gaining work experience.
