The ALJ will ask you questions before you testify to establish your independence and impartiality, and your qualifications and competence to testify. The ALJ will question you and the claimant and his or her representative may also question you. The ALJ has the authority to determine the propriety of any questions asked. The hearing will be recorded. After the hearing, the ALJ will consider all the evidence and issue a written decision. The ALJ may also ask you to answer written questions called interrogatories if supplemental information is needed.

ALJs use VEs in many cases in which they must determine whether a claimant can do his or her previous work or other work. A VE provides both factual and expert opinion evidence based on knowledge of:

• The skill level and physical and mental demands of occupations
• The characteristics of work settings
• The existence and incidence of jobs within occupations
• Transferrable skills analysis and SSA regulatory requirements for transferability of work skills

• Up-to-date knowledge of, and current experience with, industrial and occupational trends and local labor market conditions
• An understanding of how we determine whether a claimant is disabled especially at steps 4 and 5 of the sequential evaluation process
• Involvement in or knowledge of vocational counseling and the job placement of adult, handicapped workers into jobs.
• Knowledge of, and experience using, vocational reference sources of which the agency has taken administrative notice under 20 CFR 404.1566(d) and 416.966(d), including:
  • The Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT) and the Selected Characteristics of Occupations Defined in the Revised Dictionary of Occupational Titles (SCO);
  • County Business Patterns and Census reports published by the Bureau of Census;
  • The Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics; and
  • Any occupational analyses prepared for SSA by various state employment agencies.

You will provide evidence by answering questions posed by the ALJ and the claimant or the claimant’s representative. Questions will typically be framed based on hypothetical findings of age, education, work experience, and functional limitations. You may answer questions about issues that could be decision in a case, such as whether a claimant could still do his or her previous work given hypothetical findings about functional limitations an ALJ will provide you. You should never comment on medical matters, such as what you believe the medical evidence indicates about the claimant’s diagnosis or the functional limitations caused by the claimant’s impairment(s) (SSA’s term for medical conditions), or whether you believe the claimant is disabled.

You will rarely have the opportunity to question the claimant directly during the hearing. If you have any questions—e.g., about an aspect of a claimant’s testimony—or if you need more information, you should inform the ALJ. The ALJ will decide whether the information is pertinent and how it should be elicited; the ALJ may ask the question himself or herself or allow you to ask the question.