UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF LABOR. Employment and Training Administration. O*NET - Beyond Information - Intelligence
The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) is a database of occupational requirements and worker attributes. It describes occupations in terms of the skills and knowledge required, how the work is performed, and typical work settings. It can be used by businesses, educators, job seekers, human resources professionals, and the publicly funded Workforce Investment System to help meet the talent needs of our competitive global economy. O*NET information helps support the creation of industry competency models.
The O*NET System:
Promotes business efficiency and talent development
Supports education of the workforce through skills training and curriculum design for regional economic development
Facilitates career guidance and career advancement accounts
The O*NET system, using a common language and terminology to describe occupational requirements, supersedes the seventy-year-old Dictionary of Occupational Titles with current information that can be accessed online or through a variety of public and private sector career and labor market information systems. The O*NET system, which has been significantly upgraded and improved since its introduction and continues to undergo periodic enhancements, includes the O*NET database, O*NET OnLine, and the O*NET Career Exploration Tools.
The O*NET database is a comprehensive source of descriptors, with ratings of importance, level, relevance or extent, for more than 900 occupations that are key to our economy. O*NET descriptors include: skills, abilities, knowledge, tasks, work activities, work context, experience levels required, job interests, work values/needs, and work styles. New tools and technology (T2) data provides information on machines, equipment, tools, and software that workers may use for optimal functioning in a high performance workplace.
O*NET OnLine is a web-based viewer that provides easy public access to O*NET information. Powered by the latest O*NET database, users have access to new and updated data unavailable before. Using O*NET OnLine, students, job seekers and workforce, business, and human resource professionals can: find occupations to explore, search for occupations that use designated skills, browse occupations by high growth industry, identify key In-Demand occupations, view occupation summaries and details, use crosswalks from other classification systems such as military or apprenticeship to find corresponding O*NET occupations, view related occupations, create and print customized reports outlining their O*NET search results, and link to other online information resources.