Diana Clarke, Owner of Silverwood Associates, spoke about building your future with O*NET Online. This free tool, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, has detailed descriptions of the world of work for job seekers, workforce development, HR professionals, students, and researchers!
Diana spent much of her career working in career guidance and job placement. However, she said computer technology changed her job. She is considered an expert with O*NET Online.
She took us through the website highlights but recommended that job seekers spend a fair amount of time on it to learn about the wealth of information it can provide to them.
O*NET Online Job Search Tool Menu Details
From the landing page, Diana clicked Find Occupations from the navigational bar. Once there, she typed in Project Manager (as an example) in the Keyword field.
There were several occupations listed, and Diana pointed out the ones with Bright Outlook are the ones where there are more job openings than people to fill them. In this case, there was one job Management Analyst that met that criteria. Clicking on this job was a plethora of information, including:
- Tasks
- Technology Skills (if there is a burning emoji next to it, that skill is in high demand)
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Abilities
- Work Activities
- Work Context
- Job Zone
- Credentials, where you can find online training and certifications
Diana next went through the O*Net Interest Profiler, where you can answer 60 questions about your job preferences and interests. This is a great tool, especially if you are thinking about changing careers.
She also showed us under the Advanced Search tab on the Navigation Bar, where the dropdown has Skills, job seekers can find jobs listed based on their top skills. On the Advanced Search tab, they can also type in a specific job title in the Related DWA section and give you the job titles that relate to that position.
Crosswalks (also on the navigational bar) is an exciting tab. She showed us an example of if you worked for the Military, how you can transition your position there into the jobs available in civilian life, and the titles and responsibilities of those jobs.
Conclusion
O*NET Online has a wealth of information and will most likely take the average job-seeker a decent amount of time to walk through all the info and tabs. It is very text-heavy but has interesting and valuable informational nuggets within the system. Since it is not a mobile-friendly website, you will need to access the information on a desktop or laptop
This information is updated every quarter.
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