Behavioral Assessment of Job‐Related Skills

An important aspect of finding and retaining employment is a person's level of occupational skills. Little information, however, is currently available on the comparative levels of job‐related skills among both unemployed and successfully‐employed adults. This study, using direct‐observation techniques, analyzes the occupational skills of these two groups. The results show that employed adults performed significantly better than unemployed adults on each of 13 job‐related skills assessed. These differences were found for both job‐finding and job‐retention skills. These assessment methods may be useful to employment counselors interested in helping their clients find and retain satisfactory employment.