Transfer to a Related Occupation

The Alaska Career Lattice is a useful tool for finding potential occupations that provide an immediate transfer from a current position.

For example, let’s say Hannah is a Budget Analyst, but her company is going out of business. She’s having a hard time finding another Budget Analyst position in her area and needs to consider other occupations she can qualify for with her current education and skills.

From the Alaska Career Lattice home page, Hannah would choose Budget Analyst from the list of occupations to bring up its career lattice page.

Hannah should click “Jump to Focus Occupation.” Budget Analysts now appears in the box at the center of the lattice and is referred to as the “focus occupation.” Occupations that may provide the best immediate opportunities for Hannah appear to the right – in this case, Accountants and Auditors. This occupation and all of those above and below the focus occupation are “associated occupations.”

Hannah may also want to consider the associated occupations above and below the focus occupation. If she has many years of experience and/or education beyond what is typical for a Budget Analyst, she may have a shot at a higher occupation on the lattice. If she’s unsuccessful, she may also consider occupations at a lower level.

When there is more than one occupation on a rung, it means they are at a similar level for wages, knowledge/education requirements, and skills and abilities.

All of the occupations on the page are linked to the focus occupation, but they are not necessarily directly linked to each other. In other words, the lattice layout does not imply that Hannah must traverse each occupation or rung to attain an advancement occupation. For example, a Budget Analyst would not necessarily have to become a Financial Examiner (first rung up) to become a Financial Manager (top rung). Hannah could click on any occupation’s title to bring up that occupation’s career lattice and see which occupations are directly linked.

Information about each associated occupation is provided above and below the occupation title. At the top left of the box is employment and projected growth for 2008 through 2018. The top right gives a similarity score that reflects how related the two occupations are based on our analysis. The maximum score is 100.

Comparing Occupations
Let’s say Hannah decides to consider the occupation Accountants and Auditors. Hannah can click the link under its occupation title for a comparison of the associated occupation and the focus occupation. This will bring her to a page that compares Budget Analysts to Accountants and Auditors in several important areas.

The first three tables compare knowledge, skills, and abilities. For example, the first table lists knowledge elements for Budget Analysts in the first column, and the next three columns provide their ratings1. The first is the average for all occupations, the second is the associated occupation’s rating (in this case, Accountants and Auditors), and the third column is the focus occupation’s rating (in this case, Budget Analysts). The maximum rating is 25.

The key knowledge elements for Accountants and Auditors are economics and accounting, mathematics, computers and electronics, and administration and management. The two occupations’ ratings for economics and accounting and computers and electronics are equal, and Budget Analysts rate a little higher in the other two elements.

The column at the far right gives an evaluation of the comparative scores. Not all positions are the same, but it appears likely that Hannah as a Budget Analyst has the required knowledge to land a job as an accountant or auditor.

There is a similarity rating at the top of each knowledge, skills, and abilities table. In this case, the similarity scores for knowledge, skills, and abilities are 98, 95, and 98, respectively (out of a possible 100). There is no doubt these two occupations are strongly related.

There are also tables that identify detailed work activities the two occupations have in common, and which tools and technologies both use. These tables also provide similarity ratings. The “exclusivity” rating in the far right column shows how unique the activity or tool/technology is, from 1 to 100. The higher the score, the less common it is among other occupations.

Exploring the associated occupation further
If Hannah is still interested in exploring Accountants and Auditors, she can click on occupation title to pull up its career lattice page and explore associated occupations for other possibilities.

To find additional detailed information about an occupation, Hannah can visit its O*NET (Occupation Information Network) page by clicking on the link in the Career Lattice Information menu to the right of the career lattice. The O*NET page provides other potentially related occupations (at the bottom of the page), occupation descriptions, number of years of experience required and more.

1Selection of key elements and ratings are based on analysis of the Occupation Information Network) O*NET database. This database is a collection of results from surveys by expert analysts. Visit the O*NET site