Staff and Wage Occupational Structure

For all staff and non-student wage positions, Virginia Tech uses the Commonwealth of Virginia’s occupational families classification structure for positions.

The structure consists of seven occupational families: Administrative Services Family, Educational and Media Services, Engineering and Technology, Health and Human Services, Public Safety, Natural Resources and Applied Sciences, and Trades and Operations.

The occupational families are divided into career groups which are further categorized by roles.

Following is more information on key terms used within this classification structure.

Occupational family

A broad grouping of jobs that share similar vocational characteristics.

Career group

A subgroup of an occupational family. A career group identifies a specific occupational field common to the labor market.

Role

Describes a broad group of occupationally related positions that represent different levels of work or career progression within a career group.

Standard Occupational Classification (SOC)

The Standard Occupational Classification system is used to classify jobs into occupational categories. Jobs are classified into one of more than 820 occupations according to their occupational definition. Each broad occupation group includes detailed occupation(s) requiring similar job duties, skills, education, or experience.

Work title

A specific title used by an agency to describe a specific position. It is very important that the work title be reflective of the responsibilities of the position.