Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH)

This government resource is an excellent starting point for general occupations and can be visited by all the parties concerned at any time. The attorney’s purpose in using this resource is to gain a general feel for the applicant’s occupation, especially if that field is not familiar.

Once you have found the job on OOH you will see that it covers the following points of interest: –

1. Nature of the Work
2. Working Conditions
3. Employment
4. Training, Other Qualification, and Advancement
5. Job Outlook
6. Earnings
7. Related Occupations
8. Sources of Additional Information
9. O*Net Code (discussed later)

The OOH will cover these headings no matter what the job is.

The only downside with this as a reliable guide, is that it may not cover sufficient information about the various levels within the applicant’s profession and this can be critical where an applicant may be on the border of being classified an SVP 6 or 7. Nevertheless, the OOH is a useful introductory guide. Your attorney will definitely have a copy of this in your file for consideration. Also, you can assist your attorney by looking to see if you can find a better or closer match to your job.

Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT)

This resource is the official bible of occupational jobs. This resource assigns an SVP code for every conceivable job, and is probably where your attorney will spend the bulk of time searching for a job match to the employer’s job description. This directory is very voluminous as you can imagine, and you can certainly work with your attorney in this search.

As mentioned above the excellent part of this resource is the fact that it does give each job an SVP code, so we are able to search the directory for the closet match to the job on offer using the DOT classification with the highest SVP rating.

Your attorney will gather some data from these pages in the preliminary preparations of your case.

Standard Occupational Classification (SOC) Search

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics provides this information. The purpose of this resource is to provide another method of categorizing particular occupations.

Your attorney will peruse this resource to see if he can corroborate or match the job classifications found so far.

These SOC results are very basic but it may provide a useful code for further analysis in other parts of the U.S. Department of Labor’s overall website.

One commentary point here is that where the job on offer is a supervisory position, the SOC states that first-line managers and supervisors must spend at least 80 percent of their time supervising other workers in the same field.

Occupational Employment Statistics

The OES is an excellent resource to find out the prevailing wage for a given occupation in a particular county. Having your SOC code will also be useful.

When the prevailing wage is determined, the job on offer by the employer must be at least equal to or greater than the established prevailing wage.