This is a ready reference source for librarians and patrons new to the Occupational Outlook Handbook.

1. A READY REFERENCE GUIDE ON CAREER
INFORMATION
BY KATIE STANTON
Occupational Outlook
Handbook

2. What is the Occupational Outlook Handbook?
The Occupational Outlook Handbook (OOH)
contains information on hundreds of job fields. It
provides users with career information such as
projected growth in a field, average annual wages,
amount of education required, and more.
Data is gathered and updated by the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (under the US Dept of Labor).
The OOH contains a searchable glossary and index.

3. How to access
The OOH can be accessed by anyone for free. It only
requires an Internet connection.
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/home.htm

4. What can the OOH do for me?
Provide median wage information.
Inform users of projected job growth over 10 years.
Inform users about work environments specific to
occupation.
Allow users to search general fields or/and specific
searches by job title.
Provide links to career guidance, employment rights,
and resources for more detailed data.
Users can view Handbook in English or Spanish.

5. How is it arranged?
The OOH uses familiar Google-like searches. Drop
down menus filter specific information.
Language used on the site is user friendly.
Occupations can also be searched through the index.

6. How to search
 Occupations can be searched several ways.
 One way to search is via the search bar on the homepage.

7. How to search
 For someone who isn’t sure what career or field they’re looking for, a
search through the Occupation Finder will list all careers in the OOH
alphabetically.

8. How to search
 Users can also search through the general Occupation Group section, the
A-Z Index, or by the Select Occupation drop down menus on the
homepage. On the next slide, we’ll go through an example.

9. Patron question - Search bar example
 A patron asks, “how much money do chiropractors make in a year?”
 We type chiropractor into the search bar:

10. Search bar example (ctd.)
 The page that comes up lists a series of facts. Median pay (as of 2014) is
listed first. We can see that chiropractors make almost $67,000
annually.

11. Search bar example (ctd.)
Scrolling down, we can also see things like work environment,
how to become a chiropractor, data by US state, similar
occupations, and more.

12. Patron Question - General search
What if a patron has a question about a less specific
occupation? For example, “What fields will grow the
most?” This is easy to find. Let’s go back to the homepage
and look closer at the drop down menus.

13. General question search (ctd.)
We can go to the Growth Rate drop down menu and
select “30 percent or faster” and click Go.

14. General question search (ctd.)
The filter gives us 12 results. We can filter these by
education required, pay, training, and more.

15. General question search (ctd.)
Another way we could search for job growth on the
homepage is by the “Fastest Growing” button under
Browse Occupations.

16. General question search (ctd.)
On this page we can see 20 occupations with the
highest projected employment change from
2014-2024.

17. More content
 The OOH is an intuitive reference resource that contains a great deal of
career information.
 OOH site map provides quick links to all the content found in the
Handbook: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/ooh-site-map.htm
 OOH Faq gives information on further questions:
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/about/ooh-faqs.htm
 The OOH provides a more detailed description of the sections within
each occupational profile:
http://www.bls.gov/ooh/about/occupational-information-included-
in-the-ooh.htm

18. Further questions
If patrons have any
questions about the
Occupational
Outlook Handbook,
please don’t hesitate
to ask a librarian at
the reference desk!

19. Citations
 Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook
Handbook, 2016-17 Edition, http://www.bls.gov/ooh/home.htm (visited
March 18, 2016).
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