In the modern world, many professions affect the various parts of human life. Today, anyone can find where to apply one’s knowledge, whether it is a narrow profile or specific experience. Certainly, the Internet helps people in this task, and special databases containing a large amount of information have been developed for this purpose. Such databases are important in the context of filtering information, as they have the ability to search what is exactly needed. O*NET (Occupational Information Network) is one of these modern databases, which helps millions of people to find out all the necessary niceties about a certain profession.
O*NET was founded in 1998, replacing its predecessor due to technological progress and the development of professions. Occupational Information Network is a free online database containing information about different occupational determinations (Conte & Landy, 2019). This database helps millions of perspective employees, business people, and companies to find all the necessary information about the world of professions in the United States (Conte & Landy, 2019). O*NET contains all the data about the certain profession, including required knowledge, skills, and education, values, abilities, and interests. Moreover, one may find out needed experience for each job, social, physical, and organizational characteristics. Most importantly, one may look for the pay scale and occupational outlook for each profession.
As already indicated, the need to replace the current database, which was before O*NET, was the necessity to comply with the evolution of the labor market. O*NET was created by a group of private and public sector organizations, followed by the US Department of Labor’s Employment and Training Administration (Jex & Britt, 2014). This new database is more expensive, although it provides a wider range of information and the searching process is more convenient. O*NET was created to substitute the current database in the print form, The Dictionary of Occupational Titles or the DOT (Jex & Britt, 2014). It was formulated by the necessity to have more quantity of the data and allow one to search information quicker. Moreover, it was also constituted by the shift of the economy to services and information.
The O*NET, due to the amount of information, and convenient and quick search, can be used in a number of cases. The most common use is by job seekers, or people who want to find something that would be interesting to do. Businessmen or companies can opt for it in order to describe their vacancies correctly. In addition, O*NET can be used by prospective students to determine who they would like to become in the future and choose the appropriate university.
I found O*NET to be a useful and convenient tool for summarizing information about jobs as it has several advantages. The program contains several searches so that everyone can find exactly what they need. One can concentrate on a career study or find information about special equipment or software used in a chosen job. Moreover, there is a search for veterans: depending on the type of service, interests, and hobbies, one can find the ideal option in civilian life.
Some other uses of the program may include two aspects: deep learning of your own profession or transition to another. Thus, thanks to this base, one can study the profession’s principles and understand what is necessary for career advancement. Moreover, one may enter their current job skills and test the best options with the current skills and knowledge. In other words, the program allows job seekers to find suitable options and be useful for people already working.
To conclude, through the O*NET, I managed to find information about my career choice, which is I/O Psychologist. This data includes a broad spectrum of records, beginning with tasks and ending with wages and employment trends. It allows to find that the necessary knowledge for the chosen career involve psychology, personnel, human resources, English language, administration and management, and education and training. Skills include active listening, reading comprehension, complex problem solving, abilities that involve oral and written comprehension and expression, and deductive reasoning, and I fully agree with this list. As mentioned in the database, the top three work activities are getting information, establishing interpersonal relationships, and making decisions. The evaluative assessment would be the most suitable for evaluating individuals in the career choice, as it involves analyzing all advantages and disadvantages.
References
Conte, J. M. & Landy, F. J. (2019). Work in the 21st century: An introduction to industrial and organizational psychology (6th ed.). Wiley.
Jex, S.M. & Britt, T. W. (2014). Organizational psychology: A scientist-practitioner approach (3rd ed.). John Wiley & Sons.