Brown S.D., Lent R. (Editors). Career development and counseling: putting theory and research to work
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the negative attitudes that racial-ethnic minority clients have toward seeking and
persisting in counseling services. They hypothesized that these negative attitudes
a
re possibly due to clients’ experiences with counselors who lack interest in the
cultural context variables that influence these clients’ career choice and develop-
ment and to counselors’ implementation of biased interventions.
In conducting career counseling assessment with culturally different clients,
then, counselors need to acknowledge the value that each client places on each of
the variables that are traditionally assessed and those that are relevant to his or
her cultural background. Moreover, assessing clients’ cultural variables should
facilitate building a therapeutic alliance and, ideally, allowing clients to have more
positive attitudes toward career counseling.
SUMMARY
The primary focus of career assessment on the Big Three constructs of interests,
needs/values, and abilities reflects the origins of career counseling, particularly
the trait-and-factor approach that dominated the delivery of career services
through the majority of the twentieth century. However, subsequent theories of
career development—such as developmental, social cognitive, and social learning
theories—emphasized additional constructs that are relevant to a comprehensive
approach to career choice. Moreover, attention to cultural considerations in ca-
reer development and interventions has introduced important constructs to ad-
dress with clients.
In this chapter, we focused on process-oriented constructs dealing with how
clients make career decisions and the circumstances surrounding those deci-
sions, and outcome constructs dealing with the results of career interventions,
whether target outcomes of particular interest to clients or intermediate out-
comes that facilitate attainment of target outcomes. These constructs, in conjunc-
tion with the Big Three, offer a rich, contextualized approach to counseling that
ultimately will improve quality of the career services that clients receive and the
career choices they make.
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CHAPTER 16
Occupational Classification and
Sources of Occupational Information
Paul A. Gore Jr. and Jorie L. Hitch
I
NDIVIDUALS TODAY ARE
faced with an overwhelming number of educational
and occupational choices. Emerging industries, rapidly changing technologies,
and the globalization of economies are just a few of the changes that make ca-
reer choices more complicated than ever. Individuals faced with a daunting array
of educational and career choices can benefit from accurate and up-to-date infor-
mation. The importance of providing career counseling clients with accurate ca-
reer information has been recognized since Parsons proposed the first organized
theory of career guidance in 1909 (Parsons, 1909). In Parsons’ system, self- and
occupational information formed the foundation for making a rational career
de
cision. In spite of the changes that have occurred since Parsons’ time, having
accurate information about self and the world of work continues to be a funda-
mental component of most current career theories. Recent research on the effec-
tiveness of career counseling strongly supports the importance of providing
clients with accurate academic and career information (Brown et al., 2003).
The nature of career information has undergone dramatic changes since the be-
ginning of the twentieth century. Whereas Parsons and his colleagues struggled
to find any educational or occupational information, the overwhelming volume
and availability of this information today present a new set of challenges. Boyce
and Rainie (2002) estimated that one of every five Americans has searched online
for information about work or careers and that more than four million users do so
every day. Today, anyone with a computer and Internet connection can access large
volumes of unedited educational and occupational information. Modern career
counselors need to be skilled not only in the use of well-established career infor-
mation resources but also in the critical evaluation of new sources of occupational
information—especially electronic sources.
This chapter (1) provides an overview of current systems used to classify occu-
pations and (2) reviews several of the many resources that can be used to assist
career clients in gathering occupational information. Less than 50 years ago, a
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Occupational Classification and Sources of Occupational Information 383
chapter such as this one could have offered a comprehensive overview of the sys-
tems of occupational classification and the sources of occupational information.
Today, career guidance self-help books are housed in their own section of our local
bookstores, and Internet sites that number in the thousands offer services ranging
from online career assessment to person-job matching. Given the proliferation of
occupational information and the pace with which information changes, our cov-
erage of these resources is limited. Specifically, we limit our cov
erage of occupa-
tional classification systems to those systems currently in widespread use by
career counselors or vocational specialists, such as the Standard Occupational
Classification System and Holland’s classification system. Further, because of
the sheer number of resources that are currently available, we do not cover occu-
pational field-specific books, book series, or career self-help books.
Finally, we have intentionally limited our review of career-related Internet
sites. Although we have included web page addresses for well-established sites,
the sheer number of sites and their transient nature make any thorough review of
these resources futile. Instead of simply listing career-related Internet sites, we
have chosen to review two widely used Internet-based career guidance programs.
Users seeking a critical review of career-related web sites are referred elsewhere
(Harris-Bowlsbey, Dikel, & Sampson, 2002). We believe that one of the biggest
challenges faced by career counselors today is effectively evaluating career-
related Internet sites before recommending them to clients. As such, we briefly
review some of the major ethical issues involved in using electronic career guid-
ance and information resources.
OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATION
There are many reasons for developing an occupational classification system. The
order imposed by a classification system allows us to work more efficiently with
a large set of events or items. Specifically, classification allows us to explore or
describe the similarities and differences among items. It is important to remem-
ber that the rules that are applied to generate a classification system dictate the
nature of the characteristics shared by members of a category. As such, different
classification systems emphasize certain relations and ignore others. For exam-
ple, as discussed in this chapter, the Standard Occupational Classification System
organizes occupations according to the work performed, the skills used, and the
education or training required for the job. In contrast, an occupational classifica-
tion system derived from the Minnesota Theory of Work Adjustment (Dawis,
Chapter 1, this volume) classifies occupations according to the reinforcement sys-
tem that is present in the environment and the skills that are required on the job
(Dawis, Dohm, Lofquist, Chartrand, & Due, 1987). In short, classification allows
us to communicate with our clients more efficiently about occupations that share
common characteristics. More importantly, classification systems can be taught
to, and used by, clients in an effort to assist them in their career exploration.
Individuals vary greatly in their reasons for seeking career counseling. Not
surprisingly, a career counselor may employ different classification systems
with different clients or even with the same client at different times during the
counseling process. For example, a counselor may help a client understand the
relations between her interests and the interest patterns of people employed in
various occupations using a system that classifies occupations based on the
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pat
terns of likes and dislikes of job incumbents. Later, when this client has iden-
tified a short list of possible careers, she might be introduced to the U.S. govern-
ment’s system of occupational classification in an attempt to help her narrow her
list to include only those occupations that allow her to use her unique skills.
Counselors skilled in the use of multiple classification systems and knowledge-
able about when to use them will be better prepared to provide for the varied
needs of their clients.
In addition to facilitating the work of career counselors, occupational classifi-
cation systems may also be used by employers for personnel, marketing, or orga-
nizational planning purposes or by economists, sociologists, or public policy
workers. For example, there currently exist several government agencies that col-
lect and use occupational data for different purposes. The Bureau of Labor Sta-
tistics gathers annual wage and salary information in order to describe the
conditions of the workforce and workplace to the American public, the Congress,
and other federal agencies. The Bureau of the Census collects both decennial
and monthly data on the U.S. population and publishes data about workers in
approximately 500 different occupations. A standard classification system al-
lows these two agencies to share and compare their data more efficiently. The
users of occupational classification and information systems might be grouped
as micro-users and macro-users. Micro-users require information to structure
jobs, to assist in the development of career plans, or to recruit workers. Macro-
users, on the other hand, require occupational information to develop models in
an effort to understand and predict the performance of the economy or to pro-
mote economic development.
H
ISTORY OF
O
CCUPATIONAL
C
LASSIFICATION
Employment classification in the United States began almost 200 years ago with
the administration of several censuses (e.g., Census of Manufactures, Census of
Mining, Census of Fisheries). These early attempts at describing the U.S. work-
force were industry driven and included brief descriptions of each company and a
summary of the number of employees. Industry-based classification systems con-
tinue to play a key role in our modern economy. The Standard Industrial Classifi-
cation (SIC) system, for example, was developed after the great depression in an
attempt to homogenize industry-based data collection in the United States. This
system was recently superceded when the passage of the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA) mandated an industry classification system that
could accommodate the economies of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The
North American Industry Classification System (NAICS; U.S. Office of Manage-
ment & Budget, 1999) allows direct comparison of industrial production statistics
collected and published in the three NAFTA countries.
Efforts to classify occupations paralleled those designed to classify industries.
Occupational classification in this country began in 1850 with the publication of
the U.S. Census. Consistent with the industry-based focus of the time, the 300 oc-
cupations listed in this census were tied to specific industries. For example,
glass manufacturers, clock makers, and looking glass makers were treated as
distinct occupations even though the tasks they performed were similar. The
classification of occupations was further advanced in 1933 with the passage of
the Wagner-Peyser Act. This act established federal and state employment secu-
rity programs and led to the development of a national occupational-information
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Occupational Classification and Sources of Occupational Information 385
research pro
gram. Regional employment offices throughout the United States,
together with organizations such as the Minnesota Employment Stabilization Re-
search Institute, gathered detailed information on thousands of different occupa-
tions (Crites, 1969).
Their efforts resulted in the publication of the first edition of
the Dictionary of Oc
cupational Titles (DOT; U.S. Department of Labor [USDOL],
1939). Although revisions to the DOT reflected changes in the occupational matrix
of our society, the classification system offered by this reference was not widely
adopted by federal and state agencies. The growing disparities among federal clas-
sification systems led to the formation of the Interagency Occupational Classifica-
tion Committee. This committee was responsible for developing and revising the
occupational classification system that is currently used by all U.S. government
agencies (Standard Occupational Classification System; USDOL, 1999).
O
CCUPATIONAL
C
LASSIFICATION
S
YSTEMS
Occupational classification systems are themselves subject to classification. For
example, we might compare systems developed by public (government) agencies
to those developed in the private sector. Alternatively, we might compare classi-
fication systems that are developed atheoretically to those developed from ca-
reer theory. We discuss four occupational classification systems in this chapter
(Standard Occupational Classification System, Holland’s hexagon, the World of
Work Map, and the Minnesota Occupational Classification System). These sys-
tems were chosen either because career counselors frequently use them or be-
cause they are used as organizing schemes in popular occupational information
products. The Standard Occupational Classification System is an example of an
atheoretical system, whereas the others are examples of classification systems
developed from career theory. Some readers may notice the absence of the Dic-
tionary of Occupational Titles in the section that follows. This historically impor-
tant resource is still available in many libraries but is being replaced by the
Standard Occupational Classification System and the O*NET—both of which
are covered in the following discussion.
We have chosen the occupation of childcare worker to use in all subsequent ex-
amples. By using a single occupation, we hope that the reader will be better able
to make comparisons between occupational classification systems and sources of
occupational information.
The Standard Occupational Classification System The Standard Occupational Clas-
sification (SOC) System was developed to unify the language used by federal and
state employment agencies to communicate about occupations and jobs. This sys-
tem classifies occupations based on the nature of the work and on the occupa-
tional skill, education, and training requirements for the job. The SOC system
was intended to replace older classification systems such as the Dictionary of
Oc
cupational Titles, the Occupational Employment Statistics system, and the Cen-
sus occupational classification system. Unfortunately, early versions of the SOC
system suffered from budgetary setbacks and neglect. The most recent revision of
the SOC system has received a more favorable reception. Counselors should be-
come familiar with the SOC system because it has been adopted by all federal
agencies that collect and publish occupational data and will likely be adopted by
state and local agencies in the near future.
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