Job description is concise information about a particular job. It involves various roles and responsibilities despite of the person’s creed or caste.
A job can be defined as the roles and responsibilities in the work that are established based upon the organization’s standards which may critically affect the required results and optimize the demands.
What is Job Description?
Job description can be defined as the written statement which includes roles and responsibilities or functions of a particular position. It also includes the job title, job location, position description, job summary, working conditions such as qualification that a person’s relationship with other level members in the organization.
An example of job description: Human resource generalist is responsible for the progressive authority of the employees.
Aims of Job Description:
An employee will be supported to verify their work done to achieve the goals and the corresponding outcomes which not only involves prescribed tasks but also his/her maximum effort.
The job description is a specified explanation of all the duties that a Career Support Worker might be expected to work with the given samples for the related duties.
The actual duties should be carried out by each employee or staff with the best care. These assigned tasks will be agreed by the senior member of staff before the worker begins the task wherein the senior staff will provide support.
Stages of Job Description:
- Job identification
- Job Specification
- Job summary
- Job accountabilities.
- Job responsibility.
1. Job identification:
Job identification and jobs id mainly deal with the job title and job code in which the employee can check whether that job will suit him/her. It also comprises of the skills that an eligible candidate should possess. Actually, this is considered as an outset of the job by all the recruiters.
2. Job Specification:
Job Specification deals with the primary responsibilities that should be performed by the candidate. It denotes the minimum and maximum qualifications of the candidates. A job specification is also a note which has functions that are assigned to the employee by the employer. A perfect job specification acts as advantages of person specification i.e, in finding out the best candidate suitable for the role.
3. Job Summary:
Job summary usually indicates one’s career objective and the relevant experience he/she have. Sometimes it deals with overall achievement in one’s career.
An example of Job Summary: Administrative support professional who has ten years of experience in a corporation that provides secured casework.
4. Job Accountabilities:
Job accountability is something that is decided by the higher officials about how and which task should be assigned to the employee based on their work experience and qualification.
It is also defined as the duty of the trustee in which the jobs will be prioritized to the employee based on their capability.
5. Job Responsibility:
Job responsibility is something that deals with the importance and the duties listed in the organization’s policy and that are to be followed in the same order. The higher job responsibility is complex which is more difficult to explain in words.
The Importance of Job Description:
If one possesses the job descriptions, it means that he/she has been accepted to have more practice upon a certain task.
For a few of them, it is a greater hindrance towards their work. It pays a way for the employee and the employer to become aware of the task that has to be completed. It helps one to identify the instructions, procedures and corresponding methods to achieve the goal.
What is the Purpose of a Job Description?
The importance of job description is very high in the hiring/recruiting sector. Job description can be defined as a way of collecting and recording job-related information which will help one to proceed further with the opted job title.
The job description format includes job location, job duties and reporting information. It also deals with the tools and equipment and sometimes the corresponding machinery that are used, which depicts the hazards that are involved in it.
The purpose is to find a prospective employee. It specifies the task that is to be performed and checks whether the employee meets the deadline.
Different Types of Job Description:
A job description can be broadly classified into two types. They are:
- General-purpose job description
- Specific purpose job description
1. General-purpose job description:
The general-purpose job description will be based upon the organization about a particular job opening, which includes the duty of the workers and their performance standards. Here, it is not mentioned about the duty of the subtask.
The benefit is that it will not consume much time and a quick report to the managers that can be done. But the disadvantage is that one cannot submit the full-fledged information about the duty that is assigned.
2. Specific purpose job description:
This Specific purpose job description comprises of a particular description about a job wherein it involves a huge task, the employee should do. It helps the Human resource member to recruit the candidates based upon the information provided.
But the biased nature of the analyst causes a severe problem.
Types of Work in Job Description:
Job description is of three types that help the work to be handled. They are:
- Work under immediate action
- Work under general direction
- Work under guideline policies
1. Work under immediate action:
As the name says work under immediate action is the duty performed by the employee as soon as receiving the detailed instructions which involve a standard method and procedure. This is usually assigned by the employer.
2. Work under general direction:
Work under general direction depicts that the assignment can be performed by the employee in his own technique after receiving the general instructions, for which an employee should be an expert in that field respectively.
3. Work under guideline policies:
Work under guideline policies means that employees can complete the given task by the limited policies that are set by the organization and legislative authority.
Goals and Limitations of Job Description:
Goals:
It helps to manage employees. Communication plays a vital role in recruitment methods and parameters. This helps one to increase individual accountability. The legal risk in the employment law which are bounded by the job description mainly focuses on the document position goals and the implied performance standards.
It aims at validating the need of pre-employment testing/screening towards legal risk management. More than everything it protects the team members and helps to assist them based on the performance appraisal system
Limitations:
A job description is the one that attracts qualified candidates. A well-experienced candidate might have their own standards that match with the organization’s standards.
But in a few cases of the job description, it will be mentioned that people with disabilities are not allowed. This sentence will make the candidate feel discriminatory towards the organization.
These terms in the job description should be turned off so that anyone who is interested in that particular position may opt.
As per the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), a candidate should not be neglected because of his/her disabilities. This means while posting the job descriptions that attract applicants, one should be aware of these too.
Rules to be followed for Writing Job Description:
There are a few rules that need to be followed while writing a job description:
- An employer should think before they hire a candidate.
- The job requirement should be reasonable and made with good faith.
- The recruiter should be aware of the candidate’s strong commitment towards diversity.
- The recruiter should post job descriptions that will be abided by the organization’s standards, but at the same time he/she should not discriminate the candidates by posting “People with disabilities are not allowed”.
- While the auditing is done, the managers should be more specific about the job description of the new employee.
- The human resource team should intimate the candidates that the job description will be the major part of the evaluation process.
- There is lot of difference between job description and job specification.
- They should also request the candidates to mention if they are currently employed or not.
A format of a Job Description:
The job description should be present in a proper format that will attract the applicants.
- Title/Designation about the job and the corresponding location.
- Nature of duties along with the operations to be performed.
- Nature of authority regarding the relationships.
- Eligibility criteria should be matched with a respective job.
- Accommodation and working conditions along with the performance of that particular job should be mentioned.
Typical Sections of Job Description:
This involves a huge summary of the key responsibilities. After gathering the detailed list of responsibilities that involves experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities the applicant should check whether he/she can opt for that particular position.
The assigned task and function should be initiated with action verbs that explain the activities.
Few of the action words are listed below:
- Controls
- Develops
- Evaluates
- Supervises
- Trains
Advantages and Disadvantages of Job Description:
There are huge benefits of having a job description. Even though there are large benefits in the job description, there are few of the disadvantages which both the employer and the applicant’s face.
Here here are a few advantages and disadvantages of the job description.
Advantages of Job Description:
- A project lead or a team lead must have a higher range of profiles which will help him/her to face the challenges in the other organization. Also, this helps him/her deal with the staff and the other business officials of the same community.
- To design and to deliver a project to an enterprise that helps one for the chances of employability.
- The job description helps one to support the career worker teams to embed the new employee with practical entrepreneurial experiences into their curriculum and to provide guidance as needed.
- The concept of entrepreneurship, employees the staff through innovative and cost-effective methods
- To establish and improve the usage of mobile applications as a communication tool and social media for employability by the enterprise.
- It provides an opportunity to build a smooth and good relationship within the enterprise
- It helps in the better recruitment process for the employer.
- It is transparent, in which the job credentials and experience of the applicant will be known to the employer.
- Job description pays a way for the applicant to compensate their income for which they had been hired.
- Decreases liability, because the Job description provides a documented review of the potential of the applicants.
- Job description is explained to manage the performance of the job requirements.
- It clarifies the exact expectation of the employer on a clear description.
- It helps one to become aware of the position he/she has been hired for.
- It renders the structure and discipline of the enterprise which the applicants should abide.
- Once the Job description is submitted to the employer, then he/she can create things by using his/her own equipment and the related systems.
- It helps one to identify whether the applicant is qualified for the hired position or not.
- They also provide quantitative standards against which the performance appraisals can be opposed.
Disadvantages of Job Description:
- Job description in few cases tends to typecast the applicant that means being an initiative or improving the methods and procedures are prohibited.
- It should be updated periodically; otherwise, it may lead to outdated data or information.
- Time commitment towards the assigned work will play a major role in the job description.
- It becomes outdated quickly.
- Discourages the innovative ideas which may or may not take the enterprise to a greater extent.
- Sometimes, it does not meet employee expectations.
- Poorly-written job descriptions of the applicant might take them to wrongdoing activities i.e. illegal activities.
- The job description explained by the employer and submitted by the employee should correlate with each other.
- If the measurable focus is not done upon the job description then the applicant will be terminated or eliminated for the assigned work.
Conclusion:
The job description helps the employees to clearly identify the responsibilities of a particular job. It can also be handled on a legal basis which will help the candidate to be on the safer side.
Hence the candidate should be more specific while writing a job description and even the Human resource members while posting it.
