Technical Affairs

Mike Aamodt, Associate Editor

Writing a Good Job Description

A job description is a relatively short summary of a job and should be about two to five pages in length. This suggested length is not really typical of most job descriptions used by organizations; they tend to be only one page. But for a job description to be of any real value, it must describe a job in enough detail that decisions about activities such as selection and training can be made. Such decisions probably cannot be made if the description is just one page long.

Though I/O psychologists believe that job descriptions should be detailed and lengthy, many professionals in organizations resist such efforts. These professionals worry that listing each activity will limit their ability to direct employees to perform tasks not listed on the job description. The concern is that an employee, referring to the job description as support, might respond "It's not my job". This fear, however, can be countered with two arguments. The first is that duties can always be added to a job description and job descriptions can, and should, be updated on a regular basis. The second is to include the statement "and performs other job related duties as assigned" to the job description. In fact, Virginia Tech has a policy stating that the university can require employees to perform any duties not on the employees' job descriptions for a period not to exceed three months. After three months, the duty must be eliminated or permanently added to the employee's job description, at which time a review will also be made to determine if the addition is significant enough to merit a salary increase.

Job descriptions can be written in many ways, but the following format has been used successfully for many jobs and is a combination of methods used by many organizations and suggested by several researchers. A job description should contain the following seven sections: job title, brief summary, work activities, tools and equipment used, work context, performance standards, and competencies.

Job Title

A job title is important for several reasons. An accurate title describes the nature of the job. When industrial psychologist David Faloona started a new job at Washington National Insurance in Chicago, his official title was "psychometric technician." Unfortunately, none of the other workers knew what he did. To correct that problem, his title was changed to "personnel assistant," and supervisors then began consulting with him on human resource-related problems. A job analysis that I conducted provides another example. After analyzing the position of "secretary" for one credit union, I found that her duties were actually those of a position that other credit unions entitle "loan officer." This change in title resulted in the employee receiving a higher salary as well as vindication that she was indeed "more than a secretary."

An accurate title also aids in employee selection and recruitment. If the job title indicates the true nature of the job, potential applicants for a position will be better able to determine if their skills and experience match those required for the job. The "secretary story" is a good example because secretarial applicants might not possess the lending and decision-making skills needed by a "loan officer."

Though a good job title provides an accurate indication of the nature of the job, a recent trend has been to substitute "interesting titles" for traditional ones. The interesting titles are thought to help in recruitment and to establish a unique organizational culture. For example:

Rather than going by the traditional title of CEO, the founder of Yahoo goes by the title "Chief Yahoo"
The computer company All Bases Covered has a position entitled "Manager of Fun, Happiness and Travel"
The title of an HR professional at Muller Tire & Brake is "Director of People and Fun"
The person in charge of recruiting at Xcelerate in Fort Lauderdale is called the "Chief Talent Scout." They decided against using their initial idea of "Body Snatcher."

When conducting a job analysis, it is not unusual for an analyst to discover that some workers do not have job titles. Job titles provide workers with some form of identity. Instead of just saying that she is a "worker at the foundry," a woman can say that she is a "welder" or a "machinist." At Radford University, hundreds of students receiving financial aid are called "work study students" rather than such titles as "clerk," "computer operator," or "mail sorter." This inaccurate title causes many students to think they are supposed to study as they work rather than sorting mail or operating a computer. Job titles can be so important to an employee's sense of self-worth that when On-Line Systems offered employees a choice between the title of "sales manager" and no raise, or the title of "salesperson" and a $2,000 raise, some employees chose the better job title over the increase in pay

Job titles can also affect the salary and perceived worth of a job. For example, job descriptions containing gender-neutral titles such as "administrative assistant" are evaluated as being worth more money than ones containing titles with a female sex linkage such as "executive secretary." As another example, Smith, Hornsby, Benson, and Wesolowski (1989) had subjects read identical job descriptions that differed only in the status of the title. Jobs with higher status titles were evaluated as being worth more money than jobs with lower status titles.

Brief Summary

The summary need only be a paragraph in length but should briefly describe the nature and purpose of the job. This summary can be used in help-wanted advertisements, internal job postings, and recruitment brochures.

Work Activities

The work-activities section lists the tasks and activities in which the worker is involved. These tasks and activities should be organized into meaningful categories to make the job description easier to read and understand. The category labels are also convenient to use in the brief summary. Some simple rules for writing task statements are:

The statements should be written at a level that can be read and understood by a person with the same reading ability as the typical job incumbent. Jargon, slang, and unnecessarily complex words should be avoided.
Statements should be written in the present tense (e.g., sweeps, files, supervises) rather than the past tense (e.g., swept, filed, supervised) and the tense should always be consistent from statement to statement. That is, adjectives such as sweeps, files, and supervises are consistent whereas sweeps, file, and supervised are not.
Each statement should contain one action and one object. For example, "Files" only has an action whereas "Files correspondence" has one action (files) and one object (correspondence). The task statements "Types and files correspondence" would be incorrectly written as it has two actions (types and files).
Each statement should make sense by itself. That is, "makes photocopies" does not provide as much detail as "makes photocopies of transactions for credit union members" which indicates what types of materials are photocopied and for whom they are copied.
For activities that involve decision making, the level of authority should be indicated. This level lets the incumbents know which decisions they are allowed to make on their own and which ones they need approval from a higher level.

Tools and Equipment Used

A section should be included that lists all the tools and equipment used to perform the work activities in the previous section. Even though tools and equipment may have been mentioned in the activities-section, placing them in a separate section makes their identification simpler. Information in this section is primarily used for employee selection and training. That is, applicants can be asked if they can operate an adding machine, a computer, and a credit history machine.

Work Context

This section should describe the environment in which the employee works and should mention stress level, work schedule, physical demands, level of responsibility, temperature, number of coworkers, degree of danger, and any other relevant information. This information is especially important in providing applicants with disabilities with information they can use to determine their ability to perform a job under a particular set of circumstances.

Performance Standards

The job description should outline standards of performance. This section contains a relatively brief description of how an employee's performance is evaluated and what work standards are expected of the employee.

Competencies

This section contains what were historically called job specifications and are more currently called competencies. Competencies are the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (such as interest, personality, and training) necessary to be successful on the job. Competencies are determined by deciding what types of KSAOs are needed to perform the tasks identified in the job analysis and to achieve an organization's goals. Some competencies might be specific to a particular job (e.g., dexterity for a motor assembler) whereas others might be needed for every job in a business unit (e.g., accounting skills in the finance department) or every job in the organization (e.g., reading ability, listening skills, ability to think logically). These competencies can be determined through a combination of logic, research, and use of specific job analysis techniques (e.g., Job Components Inventory, Common Metric Questionnaire).

The competencies section should be divided into two subsections. The first contains KSAOs that an employee must have at time of hiring. To reduce legal risks, these KSAOs should include not only such traditional factors as education, experience, and skills, but also information about personality and interpersonal style. The second subsection contains the KSAOs that are an important part of the job but which can be obtained after being hired. The first set of KSAOs is used for employee selection and the second for training purposes.

HR Humor

Interesting Applicant Behavior

An applicant was completing a job application. When he came to the question, "Have you ever been arrested?" He answered, "No." Not realizing that the next question, "Why?" was intended only for people who had answered "yes" to the first question, the applicant responded "Never got caught."

Interviewer: Do you think you can handle a variety of work?

Applicant: I ought to be able to. I've had ten different jobs in four months.

Interviewer: In this job, we need someone who is responsible.

Applicant: I'm the one you want. On my last job, every time anything went wrong, they said I was responsible.

Interviewer: Though you are applying for a job as the assistant city manager, where do you expect to be 10 years from now?

Applicant: Well, let's see. In 10 years I will be the city manager. Since it's Wednesday afternoon. I guess I'll be on the golf course by now.

Interviewer: Where did you receive your training?

Applicant: Yale.

Interviewer: Good, and what's your name?

Applicant: Yim Yohnson

Interviewer: For an applicant with no experience, you sure are asking for a high salary.

Applicant: Well sir, the work is so much harder when you don't know what you're doing!

Mike Aamodt, a Professor of Psychology at Radford University serves as our Associate Editor for the Technical Affairs column and as our unofficial humor editor. If you have a technical question you want answered/discussed, wish to comment on this month's article, or want to share a humor item please contact Mike. He may be reached by email (maamodt@runet.edu), phone (540) 831-5513 or fax (540) 831-6113.