The McCroskey Vocational Quotient System (MVQS) for Matching Persons with Jobs

The MVQS is a unique, unparalleled approach to matching people with their best job choices. It is based upon the objective performance demands that jobs require of workers and upon the objective performance abilities of the worker.

The first challenge is to measure job demands and worker abilities in comparable terms. The MVQS does this by using the concepts and adapted measurement scales of Job Analysis to define the 24 most vocationally significant categories referred to as traits. Then, these same categories, or traits, are applied to worker abilities, in exactly the same measurement terms. In this way they become compare-able. A worker can do any job where his ability meets or exceeds the job's requirement in every vocationally significant trait.

MVQS helps the user to develop the profile of abilities for the worker and compare it to the job demands in every vocationally significant trait of every job in a job market. The result is a list of jobs available in that market that are within the worker's abilities.

Profiling

Essential to this process is knowing (1) the demands of every job in a job market and (2) the abilities of a potential worker.

To meet the first condition, MVQS utilizes a comprehensive and contemporary database of job-demand profiles based upon the Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), revised and updated by the MVQS developers. The entire database is available to make comparisons. They can be grouped in any combination - by states, counties or even cities or major corporations - to represent different job markets. MVQS provides databases for all state and county markets based primarily upon job-orders placed with the U.S. Department of Labor Job Service offices across the nation.

To meet the second condition, MVQS helps the user develop an abilities profile based upon objective information about the worker's demonstrated and potential performance in the vocationally significant traits. It utilizes the worker's work experiences, medical conditions, educational achievement and even their demonstrated activities of daily living, hobbies or avocation. Virtually any test or demonstration of human ability can be used to maximize the worker's profile.

Job-Matching

Once the worker profile is ready and the job market is chosen, MVQS does the comparison. Taking one job at a time from the database, the measurements on each of the 24 vocationally significant traits are compared. If the worker's first measure is greater than or equal to the job demand measure, MVQS goes to the next measure and compares again. This process is repeated until the worker's ability measure in one of the traits falls below the demand. If that happens, the job is excluded from the results. If the worker profile meets or exceeds the job demand in every one of the 24 traits, the job is retained. MVQS then goes to the next job and starts all over again.

Say there are 1000 jobs in the job market's database. In this example the process involves 24 comparisons for each of 1000 jobs. That is 24,000 comparisons! When finished, the final list contains only jobs the worker can do in every category. That is a pretty strict rule, on purpose; there can be little doubt that the jobs on the resulting list are good matches for the worker.

Application

The result of the comparison is a list of jobs for which the worker has the abilities to meet the job demands. But this is just the beginning.

From this basic result flow many interesting and useful applications. One can compute labor market access, assess training and skill development needs, give counsel regarding vocational choice, estimate transferable skills, predict starting wages and future earnings, quantify disability and lost wages and more.

To do this, MVQS uses its most remarkable feature: the vocational quotient or VQ. No other system has a VQ or its equivalent. Consequently, no other system can do what MVQS can in these areas of application. Understanding how MVQS uses the VQ to achieve these applications is too involved for a primer, but understanding the VQ is essential.

The VQ is an index of overall job difficulty. It too starts as a simple idea: the sum of all job demands.

The VQ in the MVQS is the result of some sophisticated statistical manipulations performed on the sum of the measurements on the 24 vocationally significant traits and a few other measures. Every job has a VQ. The larger the VQ, the larger is the total demand made upon a worker doing that job. Doctors have very high VQs and material handlers have low VQs.

Thanks to the wonders of mathematics, it is also possible to compute a VQ for any profile of the 24 vocationally significant traits, including the profile of a person. Thus, workers have VQs too.

The VQ is significant in most everything MVQS does with the results of the job-person matching process. One thing is especially important to remember: for all of its uses, the VQ is NOT involved in the comparison process.

The VQ is used after the results are in. Here's the key: job difficulty (VQ) correlates with job performance, satisfaction and earnings. Job difficulty correlates with job performance; persons with high VQs can do more difficult jobs. Job difficulty also correlates with job satisfaction; the more of one's ability (VQ) used in their work, the more their satisfaction in the job. Job difficulty also correlates with earnings; jobs with higher VQs tend to pay more.

Ordering jobs in the results list by VQ tends to place the most difficult jobs above the less difficult jobs. And since all jobs on the list are within the worker's ability, the jobs high in the list tend to afford the worker opportunity for greater responsibility, satisfaction and earnings.

But VQ is not the only variable used by MVQS to order jobs in the results list. MVQS sorts the results list on several dimensions other than VQ. These include what are referred to as values agreement , specific vocational preparation, vocational interests and personality indicators and transferable skills.

These are important dimensions and add greatly to the power and usefulness of the MVQS results. Understand that these dimensions provide additional ways to look at the results and that each ordering provides a different insight into the results. But remember, regardless of the sequencing variable used to order the results list, the VQ continues to be the pointer to optimum job performance, satisfaction and earnings.

Reporting

MVQS provides three different reports. The same jobs are represented in each, in the chosen order, but the content of the display is different.

In one view, the report presents the vocational traits for each job. This is useful to compare specific job demands between jobs.

In another view, the report presents a series of crosswalks. Crosswalks are just different ways to organize jobs into groups. Each crosswalk will have its own numeric coding scheme for the groups within it. Each is based on some parameter such as industry, occupation, materials and methods, tools and equipment used, etc. This is helpful in linking with other jobs in the same or related groups.

In the third view the report presents earnings capacity computations and vocational values associated with each job. These can be used to optimize earning potential or find jobs compatible with the worker's value system.

Once again, regardless of the view, VQ is still the best pointer toward greatest job performance, satisfaction and earnings.

For more information about the McCroskey Vocational Quotient System, please visit vocationology.com.

Attorney Comment:
I like the fact you use objective analysis when conducting these evaluations. It makes it so much easier to defend.