LO
Interpreter — skills, knowledge and links
Where this job sits in the official classifications, what those classifications say it demands, and what it connects to. Every block names its source: our own judgements, the U.S. Department of Labor's O*NET, or the U.S. Department of Education.
How it connects#
O*NET also lists (no page here yet): Speech-Language Pathologists · Foreign Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary · Speech-Language Pathology Assistants · Adult Basic Education, Adult Secondary Education, and English as a Second Language Instructors · English Language and Literature Teachers, Postsecondary · Tutors · Social Science Research Assistants
In the official classification#
Interpreters and Translators
Fit with this page: broader than this page
Job Zone 4: considerable preparation
See it on O*NET OnLine ↗In Europe, internationally and in Singapore
Translators, interpreters and other linguists
Fit with this page: broader than this page
Interpreter
Fit with this page: same job
What O*NET rates highest#
From O*NET 27-3091.00 (Interpreters and Translators). Ordered by O*NET's importance rating; the words are O*NET's own scale anchors.
Transferable skills
- Social PerceptivenessImportant
- Service OrientationImportant
- Judgment and Decision MakingImportant
- CoordinationImportant
- InstructingImportant
- Complex Problem SolvingImportant
- Time ManagementImportant
- PersuasionImportant
Knowledge
- English LanguageExtremely important
- Foreign LanguageVery important
- Customer and Personal ServiceVery important
- Education and TrainingImportant
- AdministrativeImportant
- Public Safety and SecurityImportant
Work activities
- Interpreting the Meaning of Information for OthersExtremely important
- Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal RelationshipsVery important
- Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or SubordinatesVery important
- Updating and Using Relevant KnowledgeVery important
- Identifying Objects, Actions, and EventsVery important
- Getting InformationVery important
Abilities
- Oral ExpressionVery important
- Oral ComprehensionVery important
- Written ComprehensionVery important
- Written ExpressionVery important
- Speech RecognitionVery important
- Speech ClarityVery important
Essential skills
- SpeakingVery important
- Active ListeningVery important
- Reading ComprehensionVery important
- WritingVery important
- Critical ThinkingVery important
Each task in O*NET's terms#
O*NET describes work as detailed activities. Each of this page's 5 tasks is matched only against the activities O*NET lists for this occupation, with a stated fit; 5 match at least one. The alignment and its fit are this site's judgement, made task by task by its AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26; O*NET does not align tasks like ours. The activity names are O*NET's, the translations ours.
- Court and legal interpretingTranslate information for others.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Interpreting the Meaning of Information for Others · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Translator
- Medical interpretingTranslate information for others.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Interpreting the Meaning of Information for Others · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Translator
- Conference and simultaneous interpretingTranslate information for others.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Interpreting the Meaning of Information for Others · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Translator
- Sign language interpretingTranslate information for others.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Interpreting the Meaning of Information for Others · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Translator
- Preparation and terminologyCompile technical information or documentation.the closest O*NET has, not the same · Processing Information · O*NET 31.0The same activity in: Technical writerConduct research to inform art, designs, or other work.covers part of this task · Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge · O*NET 31.0
Rules that bind this work#
Laws, regulations, court rules, regulators' guidance and collective agreements that this page's verified records read — each with the verb that matters and whom it binds. Read from each record by this site's AI agent (Claude) on 2026-09-26. Official names stay in their own language.
28 U.S.C. § 1827
subsection (d): the presiding judicial officer shall use the most available certified interpreter · must · binds public bodies · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Court and legal interpreting
1996-10-19 · the record →ADA Title II regulations
28 CFR 35.104 definition of qualified interpreter (via video remote interpreting or on site) and 35.160(d) video standards · defines · binds a person (licensed or not) · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Sign language interpreting
2010-09-15 · the record →Directive 2010/64/EU
Article 2(8): interpretation of a quality sufficient to safeguard the fairness of the proceedings · must · binds public bodies → Court and legal interpreting
2010-10-26 · the record →Nondiscrimination in Health Programs and Activities
45 CFR 92.201(c): a qualified interpreter must be offered; machine translation of critical text must be reviewed by a qualified human translator · must · binds an organisation (employer, deployer, operator) · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Medical interpreting
2024-05-06 · the record →Machine Translation: Considerations and Cautions for Courts
courts should never use machine translation for court events or to convey legal or procedural information · should — best efforts or an expectation, not a hard duty · binds public bodies · requires a person to do, decide or answer for it → Court and legal interpreting
2025-01-01 · the record →Our task judgements#
O*NET says what this job demands. It does not say what automation is doing to it — that is what this site's 5 task judgements are for: 2 backed by a verified event, 3 platform inference. VOLO judgement
Sources and rules#
- Each block says where it comes from: this site's own judgements, O*NET, the U.S. Department of Education's CIP–SOC crosswalk, the European ESCO classification and its official crosswalk to O*NET, the ILO's ISCO-08, Singapore's SSOC 2024, or something computed mechanically from those. Nothing on this page is a rating we made up.
- O*NET's importance ratings are used only to order and shorten the lists. They are never combined with this site's impact index or evidence counts.
- The fit between our page and an O*NET occupation is our judgement and is stated per code: same job, broader, part of it, or only the closest there is.
- The ESCO and ISCO-08 fits are derived mechanically from the official ESCO–O*NET crosswalk; where we override it, we say why in our data (for example, the crosswalk pairs radiologists with radiographers, which is a different job). The SSOC 2024 fit is our reading of the Singapore Department of Statistics' own titles and definitions. Official names are shown as their publishers write them; we do not translate them.
- Each task is matched only against the detailed work activities O*NET lists for the codes this page maps to. Where nothing fits, the page says why instead of forcing a match: work O*NET does not describe yet (used only for tasks we judge to be emerging), or nothing in O*NET's list for this occupation. An alignment never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- Rules are read only from this site's verified records. A rule's official name must appear word for word in a record that reads it, so no name is made up; a policy mandate is read only as 'must', 'must not' or 'funds', because 'should' and 'in principle' are not a mandate. Reading a rule never changes a task's direction, its basis or the impact index.
- How these pieces fit together — objects, links and the actions that change them — is drawn as one diagram: The VOLO ontology
- ESCO (European Commission), occupation records from the ESCO API; CC BY 4.0. ESCO–O*NET crosswalk, ESCO Secretariat with the U.S. Department of Labor/ETA, version 1 (Sep 2022), O*NET-SOC 2019 ↔ ESCO v1.1.0; CC BY 4.0. Singapore Department of Statistics, Singapore Standard Occupational Classification 2024 and its correspondence with ISCO-08.
- O*NET 31.0 Database, August 2026 release, U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration, CC BY 4.0. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. The translations of O*NET descriptors on this page are ours, not O*NET's.