The Key Points of a Well-Written Job Description

Employee job descriptions tell who does what and who reports to whom, and set a clear demarcation line between tasks. In short, it is a “snapshot” of any job. Hence, job descriptions should be able to accurately communicate and concisely describe the responsibilities and tasks of a particular position.

In Human Resource, a well-written job description should articulate the key qualifications of the job and its attributes (specific skills and credentials) the position requires of a candidate. This helps your company find the right person who can do superior performance that is suitable for the open position. Human Resource managers in major companies around the globe agree on the following to be the key elements that should be entered in a job description:

• Identifier. Every job description written should feature the Job Title, location, department, and to whom the employee will report to.
   
• Key Responsibilities. This sounds like what it says. A well-written job description should describe what type of work the employee will be doing (in management positions, who and what will be managed). Explaining key responsibilities ahead is also helpful for other employees from other teams who will be working with the new employee.
   
• Qualifications. This part explains the skills required of the position, which includes a work experience, skills, and education (Bachelor’s degree, MA, PhD, etc.). Experts advice that in order to widen your candidate pool, be specific on what your company really needs, in this section. If the position can do without a degree, then don’t indicate a bachelor’s degree as one of the qualifications – this can discriminate those candidates who have the skills but did not attain or finish a college education.
   
• Terms. If you want to attract the best candidates from a candidate pool, be sure to include the work schedule, salary range (and whether it is negotiable) or pay grade, and special benefits other than those lawfully-mandated.
   
• Special Requirements. A good example of this would be the necessity to be able to do heavy physical work or the need to travel regularly or to spend a lot of time on the road.
   
• Goals. This describes the level of performance that is expected of the employee to achieve, whether it’s growing an organization to a certain level of revenues. This will give the employee an idea on how his/her performance will be measure in future evaluations.

In order to develop a good job description that can ably articulate the above-mentioned elements, you need to conduct a job analysis that would examine the tasks and order of tasks required to perform the job. When making an analysis, you may consider the areas of skills and knowledge that the job needs in addition to specific roles. Remember that a job can have several roles, and a role itself means the set of responsibilities or those results an employee is expected to deliver. Seeking for a legal review is also wise in these times after writing description for a job. Why? A rejected candidate can always refer to the job description you had written as evidence when filing for a discrimination case. Anything in your job description that suggests your desire to favor race, gender, age, color, religion, nationality or disability can work against your organization. Also, avoid indicating gender-oriented such as “saleswoman” or “repairman”. To sum it all up, well written job descriptions can give you a lot of edge when it comes to finding the best candidate for an open position, and organize people in tasks and responsibilities to avoid usurpation and confusion in the workplace. Read more tips like this in the next categories.