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Career Details
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Career Details

29-2081.00 - Opticians, Dispensing


Design, measure, fit, and adapt lenses and frames for client according to written optical prescription or specification. Assist client with inserting, removing, and caring for contact lenses. Assist client with selecting frames. Measure customer for size of eyeglasses and coordinate frames with facial and eye measurements and optical prescription. Prepare work order for optical laboratory containing instructions for grinding and mounting lenses in frames. Verify exactness of finished lens spectacles. Adjust frame and lens position to fit client. May shape or reshape frames. Includes contact lens opticians.


Key Facts
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Bright Outlook
1
Career Details
Green Job
Career Details
Current Employment
75,200
Estimate
Forecasted Employment
93,000
Estimate
Change in Employment
+17,800
Estimate
Change in Employment %
+23.7%
Estimate
Tasks
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Tasks
The tasks listed below can be performed to prepare you for a career in this field.
Core
  • Measure clients' bridge and eye size, temple length, vertex distance, pupillary distance, and optical centers of eyes, using measuring devices.
  • Verify that finished lenses are ground to specifications.
  • Prepare work orders and instructions for grinding lenses and fabricating eyeglasses.
  • Assist clients in selecting frames according to style and color, and ensure that frames are coordinated with facial and eye measurements and optical prescriptions.
  • Maintain records of customer prescriptions, work orders, and payments.
  • Perform administrative duties, such as tracking inventory and sales, submitting patient insurance information, and performing simple bookkeeping.
  • Recommend specific lenses, lens coatings, and frames to suit client needs.
  • Sell goods such as contact lenses, spectacles, sunglasses, and goods related to eyes, in general.
  • Heat, shape, or bend plastic or metal frames to adjust eyeglasses to fit clients, using pliers and hands.
  • Evaluate prescriptions in conjunction with clients' vocational and avocational visual requirements.
  • Instruct clients in how to wear and care for eyeglasses.
  • Determine clients' current lens prescriptions, when necessary, using lensometers or lens analyzers and clients' eyeglasses.
  • Show customers how to insert, remove, and care for their contact lenses.
  • Repair damaged frames.
  • Obtain a customer's previous record, or verify a prescription with the examining optometrist or ophthalmologist.
  • Arrange and maintain displays of optical merchandise.
  • Fabricate lenses to meet prescription specifications.
  • Assemble eyeglasses by cutting and edging lenses, and fitting the lenses into frames.
  • Supervise the training of student opticians.
  • Order and purchase frames and lenses.
Supplemental
  • Grind lens edges, or apply coatings to lenses.
All data sourced from US Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration O*Net Database.
Knowledge
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Knowledge

The items listed below are organized into sections that contain knowledge useful for pursuing a career in this field. Each section also contains a "Percentage of Importance" statistic that shows how relevant an item is to the occupation.
 Customer and Personal Service
  • 95%
    Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
 Sales and Marketing
  • 77%
    Knowledge of principles and methods for showing, promoting, and selling products or services. This includes marketing strategy and tactics, product demonstration, sales techniques, and sales control systems.
 Mathematics
  • 76%
    Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
 English Language
  • 71%
    Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
 Clerical
  • 65%
    Knowledge of administrative and clerical procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and other office procedures and terminology.
 Administration and Management
  • 65%
    Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
 Production and Processing
  • 61%
    Knowledge of raw materials, production processes, quality control, costs, and other techniques for maximizing the effective manufacture and distribution of goods.
 Economics and Accounting
  • 58%
    Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking and the analysis and reporting of financial data.
 Personnel and Human Resources
  • 56%
    Knowledge of principles and procedures for personnel recruitment, selection, training, compensation and benefits, labor relations and negotiation, and personnel information systems.
 Education and Training
  • 56%
    Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
 Mechanical
  • 55%
    Knowledge of machines and tools, including their designs, uses, repair, and maintenance.
 Computers and Electronics
  • 53%
    Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
 Medicine and Dentistry
  • 50%
    Knowledge of the information and techniques needed to diagnose and treat human injuries, diseases, and deformities. This includes symptoms, treatment alternatives, drug properties and interactions, and preventive health-care measures.
All data sourced from US Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration O*Net Database.
Tools
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Tools
The tools listed below include machines, equipment, tools, and software that is useful for individuals who are interested in this career.
 Ophthalmic diagnostic exam products
  • Angling pliers
  • Autorefractors
  • Bracing pliers
  • Bushing pullers
  • Chain nose pliers
  • Cold-bend pliers
  • Contact lens tweezers
  • Digital pupilometers
  • End piece pliers
  • Flat nose pliers
  • Focimeters
  • Frame warmers
  • Hollow snipe pliers
  • Lens aligning pliers
  • Lens files
  • Millimeter rules
  • Nose pad adjusting pliers
  • Optical cutting pliers
  • Optical screwdrivers
  • Optometric lensometers
  • Pickup screwdrivers
  • Pupillometers
  • Snellen eye charts
  • Snipe nose pliers
 Optical industry machinery and equipment and supplies
  • Contact lens thickness gauges
  • Lens analyzers
  • Lens clocks
 Computer data input devices
  • Credit card processing machines
 Computers
  • Desktop computers
  • Laptop computers
  • Personal computers
 Wrenches and drivers
  • Hex wrenches
  • Phillips head screwdrivers
  • Straight screwdrivers
 Holding and clamping tools
  • Screw-holding tweezers
All data sourced from US Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration O*Net Database.
Technology
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Technology
The technologies listed below include machines, equipment, tools, and software that is useful for individuals who are interested in this career.
 Industry specific software
  • Compulink Eyecare Advantage
  • Cygnet Infotech Optifocus
  • Diversified Ophthalmics Practice Maximus
  • EMRlogic Systems ENTERPRISE Visions
  • First Insight MaximEyes
  • HealthLine Systems Eyecom
  • Insight Software My Vision Express
  • OfficeMate Software Solutions OfficeMate
  • Point of sale POS software
  • Specialist Data Solutions OctoPlus
 Data management and query software
  • Database software
  • EZ-Zone Optizone Enterprise
 Content authoring and editing software
  • Microsoft ExcelHOT
  • Microsoft WordHOT
  • Word processing software
All data sourced from US Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration O*Net Database.
Certifications
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Certifications
The certifications listed below are useful to pursue if you are interested in a career in this field.
 Advanced
 Core
All data sourced from US Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration O*Net Database.
Licensing
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Licensing
The licensing information below is organized into sections and is useful for pursuing if you are interested in a career in this field.
No specific licensing information is listed for this occupation in the area you have selected.
All data sourced from US Department of Labor, Employment & Training Administration O*Net Database.
Related Programs
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Online Programs related to this career, offered by participating institution(s), are listed below.

Clicking on the Degree programs in the list below will take you away from the Careers page.
INSTITUTION
PROGRAMS
J Sargeant Reynolds Community College