I work at a university, and frequently the occupation “Production Worker” shows up on the list of top 10 occupational matches for students I meet with. I am a little confused about why this occupation is on the college version in the first place. Secondly, if this particular occupation does not appeal to my client when they hear it is on their top 10 list (which is generally the case), what are some of the attributes of this position that may be causing it to show up in their results? Perhaps being able to share this may at least provide some context.
This particular occupation has been particularly difficult for me to explain to students, and I am eager to be able to provide a more informative explanation to them.
Just to clarify, the Profile is the same for all Strong reports. The college “version” just means that four additional pages are attached to the standard profile.
Production Worker shows up on profiles for the same reason that any occupation shows up — the student answered the questions on the Strong the same way that production workers answered them when they took the Strong. The code for this occupation is CES for females and RCE for males. It will come up for many people with those codes. Think of it as using hands-on skills and concrete data in a manufacturing setting. Just because someone is attending a university doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t want to do these things, especially at a more technical university such as yours.
The occupational scales really aren’t meant to be taken as isolated scales. In the certification program we teach how to compute composite Occupational Scale codes that fill in the blank, “I would be most productive in work environments that are _____.” It is more understandable for students when occupational titles are presented with accompanying task descriptions. You find those in the Interpretive Report, or if you aren’t using that, show them the descriptions in the Manual Appendix or have them download the descriptions from O*Net. I’m looking at the Production Worker description in the Manual, focusing on the verbs, and I see ” . . .operate machinery, assembling products for distribution, inspecting for quality.” Almost all manufacturing engineering students will identify with the task statements listed above.
