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SUMMARY
Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT)
The DOT was first developed in the Great Depression as a tool to support federal job placement activities.
There have been 4 editions and 2 supplements to the DOT, with the most recent minor revision completed in 1999. This latest version does NOT reflect today's economy. Numerous high-tech positions are missing, and service positions are grossly underrepresented. Additionally, DOT job descriptions are dated and rarely reflect the current tools used to fulfill job requirements.
O*NET
The U.S. federal government's replacement for the DOT is O*NET (Occupational Information Network). O*NET has the advantage of offering free online access at www.onetonline.org/.
Even so, it does not ask the same questions or analyze the specific measures that the DOT does. So, O*NET may never be able to serve those who require specific job knowledge.
The Occupational Assessor (OA)
The Occupational Assessor's eDOT module is a useful resource for career planning and disability determinations. It is not meant to be used for career entrants, for which O*NET remains useful.
OA also has a module for determining FLSA exemptions.
OA provides:
- updated job descriptions for 28,000+ job titles
- job availability statistics
- 99 worker characteristics, including physical, cognitive, temperaments, and more
- filters that let you find alternate jobs for workers based on their interests, skills, and physical abilities
- Workers' Compensation State forms
- FLSA exempt employee determinations
- a crosswalk of classification codes, including crosswalks to the DOT, OEWS, O*NET, and SOC
Court Challenges
To stand up in court, an occupational classification system must be reliable when it comes to the following questions:
- Who collected the data?
- How was the data collected?
- What measures are used?
- What does the collected data represent?
- What is the sample size?
- What is the standard error?
The DOT is too out of date to be used with confidence by anyone.
O*NET's use of job incumbents to collect data and its complicated questionnaires may compromise its data. In addition, its huge job families and limited survey sample size may bias its results. Also, its measures are untested in courts.
Unlike O*NET, eDOT provides more than 10,000 specific position descriptions for over 28,000 jobs. These descriptions are based on accepted DOT measures and include a rate of error.