Entry of Employment History, Education/Training, and Experience

If there is a work history, it is easy to enter it into our products. Use the SkillTRAN Case Preparation Guide to prepare and record all of the details prior to processing the case. Print out the form and make lots of notes. The form enables you to consolidate all the relevant vocational data you need from the multiple sources you have at hand.

Use the 1991 Dictionary of Occupational Titles, Revised 4th Edition to look up jobs performed in the past.

[ NOTE: SkillTRAN also highly recommends our affordable PC and web-based products called Job Browser Pro and OccuBrowse to do this easy lookup. You can also look up work history while online in TSS, PREPOST, or while using OASYS ]

Record the DOT code and title for each job successfully held for a significant period.

TIPS:

• Correct coding of work history by DOT is essential to a proper analysis.
• Each occupation contributes valuable information used in the transferability process.
• Read the standard occupational description in the DOT before choosing to use that code. Occupational titles alone can be quite misleading.
• Job Browser Pro and all SkillTRAN web-based services find the closest civilian occupation for military experience.
• Online lookup of work history is by DOT code, job title, or partial job title. When you search by title or partial title, the system finds all titles that contain the word or phrase you entered. It is not necessary to enter the period or dash in a DOT title or code.
• It is also possible to search the DOT descriptions for a matching word or key words. Use something unique or the stem of the word: ASSEMBL instead of ASSEMBLY or ASSEMBLER
• Include military experience as work history using the closest civilian equivalent. 
• Use the special Military lookups in OccuBrowse, OccuBrowse+ and OASYS by MOS and military branch.
• Include occupations for which a person is trained by education (formal or informal) or experience (including on-the-job or significant volunteer or hobby/leisure activity).
• It may take several DOT codes to fully reflect one position actually held by an individual.

NOTE: IF YOU HAVE TROUBLE FINDING A DOT OCCUPATION, here are some suggestions:

• Use fewer words in the title, especially if they are unique words.
• Enter one or two unique keyword(s), for example: Pizza, hardware, truck, account, drill.
• Too common to use alone: Assembler, manager, supervisor, clerk, sales, helper
• Try a synonym for the unique keyword, for example:
  Instead of "coordinator," use "manager" or "supervisor."
• Use only the root of the word, for example: Instead of "clerical," use "cler"
• Avoid gender-oriented titles (e.g. salesman, fireman, etc.)

Next Step > Adjust the Worker Profile

Search for Occupations

All products search for occupations. TSS enables multiple kinds of searches by skills, interests, industry, SOC, and other codes. TSS, PREPOST, and OASYS search the DOT and do not select occupations whose requirements exceed the worker characteristics implied by work history and adjusted by the counselor. TSS, PREPOST, and OASYS allow repeated searches of the DOT after change of worker characteristics. This is useful for running various hypothetical case scenarios. PREPOST search logic is predefined and cannot be changed by customers. The outcome of a PREPOST search can be changed only by modifying the various worker characteristics. 

TSS/OASYSWeb Searches

1. Transferable Skills Search finds occupations within residual worker characteristics related to an individual’s past employment, education, and experience. Five levels of search precision are possible: Directly and/or generally transferable, directly and/or generally related, and unskilled. Click here for a complete definition of the transferability process.
2. Interest Based Searches find occupations within residual worker characteristics in GOE code clusters.
3. Other searches are available to search for occupations within residual worker characteristics based on user selected codes of interest. OASYS, OccuBrowse, and Job Browser Pro can all search by RIASEC codes (Realistic-Investigative-Artistic-Social-Enterprising-Conventional). TSS/OASYSWeb allows searching within the DOT industries, SOC Codes, GOE Codes, OGA Codes demonstrated in work history. A special aggregated search searches all ways except Fair and Potential at once, showing the resulting list with the reason it was selected (Search level).
4. When occupation(s) are added to MyList, they can be compared to each other (maximum 3 at a time) and/or to the RFC. For example, you might expect to find a DOT occupation on a search result list, but discover that it is not there. Use Browse to find the occupation, then add it to MyList. Then it can be compared to the RFC so that you can see the mismatch that excluded this occupation. The discrepancies provide material for counseling discussion, additionalprecise testing/assessment, medical consultation, job accommodation, or assistive technology. OASYS and OccuBrowse+ can also compare a residual ability profile to the demands of an occupation of interest.

PREPOST Search (Upgrade search available in TSS)

The PREPOST service conducts as many as six predefined searches simultaneously to determine Pre-Injury vs. Post-Injury ability to perform directly, closely, and generally transferable occupations. Analysis of unskilled occupational access is optional. The PREPOST search is totally automatic and rooted in the same TSA logic as TDS. The PREPOST report includes a section defining occupational loss and automatically shows the same loss information in a graphic format. OASYS PC also has a powerful PREPOST feature.

OASYS PC Searches

OASYS can search like TSS and PREPOST, using Work Fields and MPSMS codes. OASYS PC, Web, and TSS have an extra feature for controlling the exact codes of a combination work field from work history to really fine-tune the analysis. OASYS PC searches in a very similar manner to TSS and PREPOST, but uses different labels for essentially the same search strategies.  Click here to compare the labels used in each product.

Next Step > Explore the Search Results

Exploration and Labor Market Information

All products can include labor market information (LMI), at your discretion. LMI includes estimated local, state and/or national wages, statewide and/or national labor force statistics and growth projections, and employer listings for job search and labor market survey. Depending on the product, some, none, or all of this information is available.

To easily add LMI to an online report, the labor market area must be defined. In TSS and PREPOST, we use the labor market area associated with the client's address. You can override this choice at report time. This is done by state (use standard postal code abbreviations), then by city name, county, MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area), State, Region (multiple States) or zip code. A zip code (such as the client's home address zip code) can be the geographic center and/or radius around a zip code. Employer listings can also be chosen by industry and minimum number of employees. You must select industries from SkillTRAN’s suggestions and/or pick industries of your own choice by industry name or NAICS code. NAICS (North American Industry Classification) is the replacement for the venerable SIC (Standard Industrial Classification). NOTE: Contact SkillTRAN to use the Employer Listings feature. It is located in a separate product at this time.

TSS - The Transferable Skills Service

Inclusion of LMI in a TSS report is entirely optional. LMI can be added for a single occupation or a group of occupations. The group of occupations can be user-entered and included in the MyList group or determined from a search of the DOT for transferable skills, or interests, or relationship to a user-selected group. Be sure to choose to save the list of selected occupations into the report. You can include as much or as little detail as you need. 

PREPOST - Pre-Injury/Post-Injury Analysis

LMI is an optional component in a PREPOST report. LMI is available for groups of selected occupations pre-injury and/or post-injury. Wages are recorded for both pre-injury and post-injury occupations.

OASYS PC / OASYSWeb

LMI is available for a group of occupations following a search. Click on or off the occupations to include in your final report. Then click the Printer icon. Choose your report requirements, whether to include a list of occupations, and other specialized reports.  Click the Print button to print the report to your local or network printer. In OASYSWeb, you can have the report saved in PDF or DOCx format.

About Employer Listings (Contact SkillTRAN to set up access)

Employer listings are leads for job development and labor market survey. SkillTRAN does not guarantee that a job opening exists or that an occupation even exists within a particular company. SkillTRAN contracts with a third party for information about businesses (employers) anywhere in the United States. SkillTRAN updates the online employer listings on a periodic basis.

Extra space is provided with each employer listing so that you can record your own notes during your labor market survey contacts. When initially requesting a report, you can have up to 3 questions added to each listing to help you remember to ask these questions during the survey calls.

OASYS PC / OASYS Job Match PC

If you have the OASYS or OASYS Job Match program, you can select employers from a database that you build yourself or buy from SkillTRAN.  Contact SkillTRAN Sales Dept. for more information.

PRACTITIONER’S NOTE:

For job search directly by your client, consider giving your client only one or two pages of listings per week. This can provide some direction and incentive for sustained, active involvement in a job club.

The use of these employer listings is restricted. You may use these listings for the rehabilitation and employment related services provided by you. Other use (such as mailing lists for non-related product information) is prohibited.