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Transferable Skills Analysis Guidelines

Our TSA follows the Social Security Administration guidelines for Transferability of jobs.

Code of Federal Regulations, Title 20 Full Text

The Occupations in the Dictionary of Occupational Titles have each been assigned values or codes called Work Fields and MPSMS Codes.  These codes provide the basis for searching occupations for transferability. 

Work Fields, a component of Work Performed, are categories of technologies that reflect how work gets done and what gets done as a result of the work activities of a job: the purpose of the job. (see item  (ii) below) There are 96 Work Fields for use by the USES for classification of all jobs in the economy in terms of what gets done on the job.

MPSMS Codes  (see item (iii) below)
Materials, Products, Subject Matter, and Services
MPSMS is the final link in a chain describing (1) what the worker does (Worker Function); (2) what gets done (Work Fields); (3) to what (MPSMS).

The determination and assignment of an appropriate MPSMS code and title for a specific job is essential (1) to place the job in its occupational group of the DOT and (2) to contribute to an understanding of the basic knowledge required of the worker. The assigned Work Field(s) and MPSMS together answer the question, "What does the worker need to know?"

* For more information on Work Fields and MPSMS Codes see The Revised Handbook for Analyzing Jobs, US Department of Labor 1991

Our TSA program searches these fields comparing them to your client's Vocational History for matches.  It also uses the Specific Vocational Preparation value assigned all occupations in the DOT to determine whether the occupation has the same or lesser degree of skill. (see item (i) below) Specific Vocational Preparation is defined as the amount of lapsed time required by a typical worker to learn the techniques, acquire the information, and develop the facility needed for average performance in a specific job-worker situation. 

(Excerpt from  Title 20 [CITE: 20CFR404.1568]) 

(c) Skilled work. Skilled work requires qualifications in which a person uses judgment to determine the machine and manual operations to be performed in order to obtain the proper form, quality, or quantity of material to be produced. Skilled work may require laying out work, estimating quality, determining the suitability and needed quantities of materials, making precise measurements, reading blueprints or other specifications, or making necessary computations or mechanical adjustments to control or regulate the work. Other skilled jobs may require dealing with people, facts, or figures or abstract ideas at a high level of complexity.

(d) Skills that can be used in other work (transferability)--(1) What we mean by transferable skills. We consider you to have skills that can be used in other jobs, when the skilled or semi-skilled work activities you did in past work can be used to meet the requirements of skilled or semi-skilled work activities of other jobs or kinds of work.  This depends largely on the similarity of occupationally significant work activities among different jobs.

(2) How we determine skills that can be transferred to other jobs. Transferability is most probable and meaningful among jobs in which--

(i) The same or a lesser degree of skill is required;
(ii) The same or similar tools and machines are used; and
(iii) The same or similar raw materials, products, processes, or services are involved.