Using Task Inventories to Forecast Skills and Abilities

Several types of job-analysis inventories or instruments are examined in terms of their utility for skill forecasting. It is argued that task and skill-ability job-analytic information may be useful when task information is used to make in- ferences concerning which skills-abilities will be necessary in future jobs. An illustration is presented in which a task and ability oriented job-analysis in- ventory was completed by 371 incumbents in nine skilled-trades occupations to form a matrix of intercorrelations between specific task and skill-ability characteristics. Multiple regression methods were subsequently applied given assumptions of different numbers of tasks being hypothetically available to decision makers to predict which skills-abilities would be necessary in some future job. The decision outcomes formed from using these regression equa- tions were cross validated with an additional 248 incumbents. Results indi- cated that such forecasting predictions can represent useful information to decision makers. Discussion centers on the implications and limitations of this forecasting procedure.