What I changed

A self-reflection tool for exploring careers. It is not a validated psychological test, not career counseling and not a promise of any job. Results are not a promise of any job, wage or hiring outcome.

Database version and download date

O*NET® 31.0 Database. Downloaded October 22, 2026 from the database download page.

This snapshot was built from that download. I do not use Web Services.

Files used

Occupation Data, Career Interest Types, Essential Skills, Job Zones, and Job Zone Reference from the O*NET 31.0 database download.

Bright_Outlook_2025.csv, the Bright Outlook occupations file from the O*NET Resource Center, downloaded October 22, 2026.

I did not load Work Activities, alternate titles, or a live service. Skill names and their element ids are copied from Essential Skills. Public descriptor pages on onetonline.org are linked from a practice step. Those pages are not a service feed.

How scores are combined

The interest statements are original. There are two for each of six work styles. A person's score is the average of those two, scaled from 0 to 1. Occupation interest values from Career Interest Types use the OI scale and are scaled from 0 to 1. Interest fit is the cosine similarity of those two profiles, times 100.

For each essential skill whose importance is at least half of the IM scale, I compare what the person can cover with what the role needs. Coverage is the person's own answer divided by 4, or 0.75 when a matched past role lists that skill at 3.5 or higher, whichever is higher. Skills transfer is the average of those ratios, times 100.

A past role in the same SOC major group adds 8. The same occupation adds 4 more. That related-work boost is capped at 12. A chosen topic adds 5 when the group matches. Asking for a path without a bachelor's degree moves roles whose typical education contains bachelor, master, or doctoral down by 8, and other roles up by 4. Asking to work with people, or mostly alone, changes the rank by 4 when Social is that role's strongest interest.

Rank is 0.55 times interest fit, plus 0.45 times skills transfer, plus those adjustments. I keep six roles, at most two from the same SOC major group, sorted by rank and then by the 2025 median wage.

Years of experience are collected and shown. They are not used in the rank. The loved-doing note is shown and not scored. Daytime hours and working from home are recorded and do not change the rank, because this snapshot has no measure for them. Room for pay to grow only breaks a wage tie. It is not a promise of a wage.

A role is eligible when projected growth is above 3.5 percent (the all-occupations figure in this table), the openings cell is numeric, and the title does not end with ", All Other". Bands are Close match at 70 or above, Solid match at 50 or above, and Possible match below that.

Titles and labels

Occupation titles are copied as they appear in Occupation Data. None were shortened or rewritten. Descriptions from that file are not shown.

Job zone names are copied from Job Zone Reference. Groups use my plain words for the SOC major group, such as Healthcare support or Business and finance.

Practice steps under a skill gap are my words. The skill name itself is copied. Brush-up chips are the role's essential skills with importance of at least 3, where the person's own 1 to 4 answer sits at least 0.75 below that importance scaled onto 1 to 4. I show up to three, largest gap first. A past role can raise the transfer score. It does not remove a chip.

BLS table and Bright Outlook

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment Projections, Table 1.2 Occupational projections, 2025 to 2035, and worker characteristics, 2025. Downloaded October 22, 2026 from bls.gov/emp. Employment and openings in that table are published in thousands. A shown openings count is that figure times 1,000. Wages are 2025 median annual wages.

Bright Outlook is the downloaded code list. I did not recompute the flag. A role can carry the flag and still be left off the list when projected growth is 3.5 percent or below.

Contact

Questions about these notes: hello@theoriginalalicia.com.