What Is a Vocational Evaluation?

A vocational evaluation measures two things. Employability is whether the person can obtain and keep work in occupations that exist in the labor market, within the restrictions the medical records document and with the skills the work history supplies. Earning capacity is the wage range those occupations command in the person's own labor market, whether or not the person earns it today, priced from published wage data such as the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics estimates (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.); it is a different measure from wages already lost, which Earning Capacity vs. Lost Earnings separates. Where an injury, an illness or a termination is at issue, both are measured before and after it, and any difference is stated as a range, with each conclusion tied to a named method and an identifiable data source so either side can check it.

Outside litigation, vocational evaluation is part of rehabilitation counseling, where the counselors' ethics code makes assessment an integral part of providing individualized services to a client (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 2023). This guide covers the evaluation prepared for a legal claim; Vocational Rehabilitation Services Explained covers the public programs.

A vocational evaluation and a vocational assessment can mean the same thing: the ethics code for certified rehabilitation counselors says the terms assessment and evaluation may be used interchangeably within the profession (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 2023). Where the code tells them apart, assessment is the broader term: its glossary defines assessment as an ongoing, dynamic and comprehensive process and evaluation as a specific process of assessing an individual (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 2023). This guide separates the words the other way, by scope, as its own convention, so what matters in any report is that it names the steps it took. As this guide uses them, a vocational assessment is the interview-and-testing phase: the meeting with the person, the detailed work history and any testing administered. A vocational evaluation is the complete product that surrounds it: the records review, the assessment where one is performed, the transferable skills and labor market analyses, and the written earning capacity opinion. A vocational expert is the credentialed person who conducts that evaluation and testifies on it. A rehabilitation counselor may hold the same credential and serve clients; retained for a forensic opinion, the counselor has no client, and the code calls the person being evaluated an evaluee (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 2023). How the two roles differ beyond that is set out in the vocational expert and rehabilitation counselor comparison.

Requests come from plaintiff counsel, defense counsel, insurance carriers and, at times, self-represented claimants, and the same evaluation is retained to support a claim or to test one. The question shifts with the case type. In personal injury it is whether the person can go back to the pre-injury work and, if not, what the restrictions leave and at what wage. In workers' compensation the focus is employability within the restrictions and the pay of the work that survives. In wrongful termination it is what the employee could have earned and is likely to earn now. In long-term disability disputes the issue is whether the person can perform their own or any occupation, as the policy defines them, within the restrictions. In matrimonial matters it estimates what a spouse who is not working, or working below capacity, could earn, a different figure from current earnings.

A vocational evaluation consists of six steps: the records review, an interview and standardized testing (each when appropriate), a transferable skills analysis, labor market research, and the report with its earning capacity opinion.

1. Records

The file comes first: medical records with any functional capacity or return-to-work assessment, school and training records, the employment history with its earnings documentation, deposition transcripts and any earlier vocational report. The evaluator reads for the restrictions the providers actually documented and notes what is missing, since a forensic evaluator must define the limits of an opinion, above all one formed without direct contact with the person (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 2023); the guide What Records Does a Vocational Expert Need? explains each item.

2. Interview

When appropriate, the evaluator meets the person in person or by video and takes the work history job by job: the tasks performed, their physical and cognitive demands, the skills acquired and the training behind them. Daily activities, symptoms and the person's own account of what work is now possible are recorded and compared with the records.

3. Testing

Standardized testing is administered when appropriate, not in every case. Aptitude, achievement and interest measures document learning capacity, academic levels and occupational interests, which bear on whether retraining is realistic and which occupations the person could learn. Results are read against the education and work history, never alone.

4. Transferable skills analysis

Every job in the work history is coded to O*NET and the Dictionary of Occupational Titles with its strength rating, physical demands and specific vocational preparation (U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, 1991; National Center for O*NET Development, n.d.). The transferable skills analysis then applies the documented restrictions to find occupations that use skills the person already has within the demands they can still meet, and records which prior occupations are lost.

5. Labor market survey

A skills match on paper is not a job. Where employability in the person's own market is contested, a labor market survey tests whether the surviving occupations are hiring within a reasonable commute, what employers require and what they pay, with employer contacts and inquiry dates documented. Where that is not in dispute, published area employment and wage data (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.) may suffice.

6. The report and the earning capacity opinion

Pre-injury capacity rests on what the person actually earned and the occupations that produced it; post-injury capacity on the wage range of the occupations that survive the restrictions, from published wage data. The difference, if any, is a range, not a single figure. The report sets out each step with its method and sources and closes with the disclosable opinion.

Four assignments are common. An employability evaluation answers whether, and in which occupations, the person can work within the restrictions. An earning capacity evaluation prices the surviving occupations against the pre-injury earnings. A matrimonial assessment estimates what a spouse could earn if fully using their qualifications. A review of an opposing opinion tests another expert's report line by line, from the records it relied on to the wage sources it used. Testing, when appropriate, is drawn from three families: aptitude measures for the capacity to learn new work, achievement tests for academic levels such as reading and arithmetic, and interest inventories for occupational preferences; no score is a pass or a fail, and each is read against the education and work history. Two classification systems organize the occupational analysis: the Dictionary of Occupational Titles rates occupations by strength, physical demands and specific vocational preparation, the time a typical worker needs to learn the job, but dates from its 1991 revision (U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, 1991), and O*NET, its regularly updated successor, describes them by tasks, skills and work context (National Center for O*NET Development, n.d.), so both are used. Wages come from the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, which publishes employment and wage estimates each year for approximately 830 occupations, for the nation, each state and metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d.).

A vocational evaluation report is typically 30 to 60 days from receipt of complete records; the phase table that shows how that window is spent is on the vocational expert timeline page and in the guide How Long Does a Vocational Evaluation Take?. Cost follows the scope retained, with a written fee schedule and an estimate before any work begins, and what moves it is set out on the cost page and in Vocational Expert Cost and Engagement.

The report answers six questions in a fixed order, each checkable against the file. First, the records basis: what was reviewed and what was requested but never arrived. Second, the restrictions: the physical, cognitive and environmental limits the providers documented, put in work terms. Third, the vocational profile: occupations held with their codes, education and skills. Fourth, occupational access: the occupations still open inside the restrictions and those the injury closed. Fifth, placeability: whether those occupations can actually be obtained in the person's own labor market. Sixth, the earning capacity opinion, stated as a range, with the method and every data source named so an opposing expert can reproduce it. Occupational access, placeability and earning capacity are also three of the five headings of the RAPEL method, which adds the rehabilitation plan and the person's expected labor force participation. When a dollar value is needed, a forensic economist calculates it from these findings; the vocational report supplies inputs, not present value. Supplemental opinions follow as new records or a rebuttal report arrive.

An evaluation is forensic when it is prepared for litigation: written to the admissibility and disclosure standards of the forum, independent of the side that retained the expert, and reproducible by another evaluator from the data it cites. It can be built two ways, in person or from the records. In an in-person evaluation the expert meets the person, observes and, where useful, tests; it costs more and takes longer and is preferred in catastrophic cases, where cognitive or behavioral factors matter, or where consistency is questioned. A file review works from the records alone; the ethics code for certified rehabilitation counselors names reviews of records alongside evaluations among forensic services (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 2023), and a review fits a damages analysis when the file is complete and observation would add little. The in-person evaluation and file review comparison weighs depth, cost and typical use; either can be forensic. A state vocational rehabilitation agency, by contrast, evaluates to plan services for an eligible client, not to opine on damages; its determination is one data point in the forensic analysis. A Social Security vocational expert answers hypothetical questions at an administrative hearing under that agency's rules, a different forum and framework.

Vocational evaluations are performed by credentialed rehabilitation counselors and vocational evaluators. The Certified Rehabilitation Counselor credential requires a graduate degree, supervised experience and a national examination (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, n.d.). The same commission's Certified Vocational Evaluation Specialist (CVE) credential requires an active CRC and is held by counselors who provide comprehensive vocational assessment services (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, n.d.). The American Board of Vocational Experts' Diplomate and Fellow designations mark forensic practice (American Board of Vocational Experts, n.d.). Credentials are the floor: ask about prior expert engagements, testimony history in the relevant forum and experience with the claim type; How to Hire a Vocational Expert sets out the questions and the engagement terms. Kincaid Wolstein Vocational and Rehabilitation Services (KWVRS) prepares vocational evaluations for plaintiff and defense counsel nationwide, by the same method for either side; its vocational discipline is led by Matthew R. Putts, Ph.D., the Chief of Rehabilitation Services, a licensed professional counselor and certified rehabilitation counselor, and the KWVRS team page lists the other evaluators.

The methodology does not change with the retaining side. Plaintiff counsel retains an evaluation to establish what work and wages an injury removed; defense counsel retains one to test whether the claimed loss follows from the documented restrictions. When two reports disagree, the disagreement can be traced to the questions each one answers: how limiting the restrictions are, which occupations remain open and what they pay. Either way the evaluation may find that little or nothing was lost, and the report says so. The ethics code for certified rehabilitation counselors sets the goal of forensic work as impartial findings for the trier of fact regardless of the retaining parties' interest in the outcome, and it directs an evaluator to decline a case that asks for a predetermined position or a change of methodology without foundation (Commission on Rehabilitation Counselor Certification, 2023). Plaintiff Expert vs. Defense Expert asks whether the method differs by side. Deposition and trial testimony rest on the report: the expert explains the method, the data and the opinion and answers for each. When the other side discloses a vocational opinion, a separately scoped review tests its foundation the same way.