Opticians
Health Science > Therapeutic ServicesProjected Growth: Faster than average
Projected Job Openings
Medium Preparation Needed
Job Description
Your job is to 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.
Common job titles of Opticians include:
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Experience and Education
Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
42.31% said they needed a Associate's Degree.
26.92% said they needed a Post-Secondary Certificate.
Tasks
Repair damaged frames.
Recommend specific lenses, lens coatings, and frames to suit client needs.
Instruct clients in how to wear and care for eyeglasses.
Heat, shape, or bend plastic or metal frames to adjust eyeglasses to fit clients, using pliers and hands.
Measure clients' bridge and eye size, temple length, vertex distance, pupillary distance, and optical centers of eyes, using measuring devices.
Maintain records of customer prescriptions, work orders, and payments.
Determine clients' current lens prescriptions, when necessary, using lensometers or lens analyzers and clients' eyeglasses.
Sell goods such as contact lenses, spectacles, sunglasses, and other goods related to eyes in general.
Evaluate prescriptions in conjunction with clients' vocational and avocational visual requirements.
Assist clients in selecting frames according to style and color, and ensure that frames are coordinated with facial and eye measurements and optical prescriptions.
Obtain a customer's previous record, or verify a prescription with the examining optometrist or ophthalmologist.
Order and purchase frames and lenses.
Prepare work orders and instructions for grinding lenses and fabricating eyeglasses.
Verify that finished lenses are ground to specifications.
Show customers how to insert, remove, and care for their contact lenses.
Perform administrative duties such as tracking inventory and sales, submitting patient insurance information, and performing simple bookkeeping.
Fabricate lenses to meet prescription specifications.
Assemble eyeglasses by cutting and edging lenses, and fitting the lenses into frames.
Grind lens edges, or apply coatings to lenses.
Arrange and maintain displays of optical merchandise.
Supervise the training of student opticians.
Tools
Straight screwdrivers
Snipe nose pliers
Snellen eye charts
Screw-holding tweezers
Pupillometers
Pickup screwdrivers
Phillips head screwdrivers
All ToolsPersonal computers
Optometric lensometers
Optical screwdrivers
Optical cutting pliers
Nose pad adjusting pliers
Millimeter rules
Lens files
Lens clocks
Lens analyzers
Lens aligning pliers
Laptop computers
Hollow snipe pliers
Hex wrenches
Half-round files
Frame warmers
Focimeters
Flat nose pliers
End piece pliers
Digital pupilometers
Digital calipers
Dial calipers
Desktop computers
Credit card processing machines
Contact lens tweezers
Contact lens thickness gauges
Cold-bend pliers
Chain nose pliers
Cash registers
Bushing pullers
Bracing pliers
Autorefractors
Angling pliers
Technologies
Intuit QuickBooks
Compulink Eyecare Advantage
Cygnet Infotech Optifocus
Diversified Ophthalmics Practice Maximus
EMRlogic Systems ENTERPRISE Visions
EZ-Zone Optizone Enterprise
First Insight MaximEyes
All TechnologiesHealthLine Systems Eyecom
Insight Software My Vision Express
OfficeMate Software Solutions OfficeMate
Point of sale POS software
Specialist Data Solutions OctoPlus
Abilities
Listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Cognitive Abilities › Verbal Abilities › Oral Comprehension
Communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Cognitive Abilities › Verbal Abilities › Oral Expression
Occupation Sections
Knowledge
Sales and Marketing
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
Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.
English Language
Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
Administration and Management
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.
Clerical
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.
Production and Processing
Knowledge of raw materials, production processes, quality control, costs, and other techniques for maximizing the effective manufacture and distribution of goods.