In July of this year, HRSG launched its annual State of Job Descriptions survey to get a better idea of exactly what obstacles exist between your HR team and a stellar job description process.
This short post will discuss one of the key insights obtained from various HR professionals in North America and across the world.
Below is the breakdown of the survey data based on a multiple-choice question about the hardest sections of a job description:
According to this data, the top 5 sections that are hard to get “right” on a job description are Competencies, Responsibilities, Skills, Abilities and Knowledge.
It is important for an organization to not only have a standardized definition of these terms but to establish a clear understanding of how these components feed into the big picture when it comes to employee development and career pathing plans.
By addressing these sections, your organization’s job descriptions will become living documents that have immense value for your HR department (beyond your hiring process).
What are your organization’s core competencies? Do you have an established competency framework? What is your knowledge level on competencies?
If none of these questions have ever been addressed at your company then you will have a hard time adding competencies to your job descriptions.
Not sure where to start with your job descriptions? Read this blog post for some helpful tips -> Competency Based Job Descriptions: How to Build Them Correctly [Samples + Templates Inside]
Or watch this video to learn how competencies and job descriptions can work in tandem:
What are the responsibilities which will be used to measure job performance? Have the responsibilities at your company been updated? This second question is especially important since a lot of job descriptions are filed away in some folder until they are needed.
The right job description tool can help you draw from a number of AI-suggested job responsibilities and enable you to add those responsibilities to the required job description.
*Example of using software to add job responsibilities to a job position
Updated job responsibilities should reflect any changes in the industry related to the job position in question. After all, it would be unfair to assess your HR manager by the number of cold calls they make in a day.
Our complete report contains a wide range of insights from 100+ HR professionals about their job description process. Click here to view the job description survey results -- no sign-in required!
Post last updated: January 6, 2021