How to prepare Job Description (JD) & Person Specification?

Employee Job Description and Person Specification both are important for the new employees as well as pre-recruitment processing. Without proper person specification, you are not in alignment with what type of employee or which skills do you need to achieve your organizational goals, while without a proper job description, you cannot unity of direction cannot be achieved easily. As a result, both are very important for moving forward with your Human Resources. As a Human Resource Expert, I would like to help you in the process of writing a good job description and person specification.

Job Description

Job description or shortly called JD is a full-fledged list of the requirements an employer asks from an employee to achieve the organizational goals. All the three-sixty-degree areas of the specific job are covered in the JD. The title of the job to examples of similar jobs are included in the Job Description.

Steps to Create a Job Description (JD)

What you include in the Job Description

First, you must know which are points you should include in the job description. Following is a list of necessary points those must be included in a job description:

1. Title of the job
2. Line Manager/Reporting Officer
3. Location of the job, where the employee should perform ie Office, Factory, etc.
4. The nature of the job, part-time, full-time, etc. should be included in the Job Description
5. A short brief of company objectives associated with the job
6. A proper list of Job Details to be performed by the employee
7. Skills, qualifications, and any kind of software use required should be included in the Job Description
8. Possible grounds for learning and development should be included in the Job Description
9. All the salary and benefits associated with the job must be included
10. Possible examples of similar jobs

What to look into

1. To prepare a job description, you should first look into if there was a previous record of a similar position available at hand.
2. Otherwise, you can look for a similar or same position of a job at different organizations and collect data about what the JD should be like.
3. If the position is totally new, then the HR department should consult with the employers or BOD to include what they expect from the employee.
4. After that, you can create the JD according to the list of details associated.

Precautions

You must be careful while preparing a Job Description because it has many Pros and Cons. It should include all the details of the job as well you should keep possible parts to include additional duties while required.

Why Job Description is Important

• To give an employee a view of what the employee requires from him
• To let the employee know about his or her work schedule and benefits
• To let the employee clear picture of what he must do to achieve organizational goals
• To mentally prepare the employee for the position
• To let the employee know about the technical knowledge he needs

Person Specification

Person Specification is indeed an important part of the job recruitment process. Without a personal specification, you are tending to recruit the wrong person without knowing. If you are willing to recruit the nearly perfect personnel for a specific post, then you should prepare a person specification. It is the document that specifies the experience level, skills, and even voluntary or character traits to look into a recruit to match the respected position within the organization. This is a document that may lead to recruiting a person with the ability to make a change in the work environment of the specific department.

Steps to Create a Person Specification

What You Must Include A Person’s Specification

Following is a list of particulars you need to include in a person specification:

1. Educational level required to match the position
2. Technical skills, if required from the employee
3. Level of experience required from the employee in the field
4. Communicative skills necessary for the job
5. List of creative skills – if necessary for the job
6. Role in the team ie a leader or a junior-level employee must be included in it
7. Characteristics required for the post
8. Volunteering experiences may elevate the chances of success at the post
9. Specific language skills may be required for the job
10. Organizational ability the recruit may need for the job

Preparing the Person’s Specification

After you decide on what employers want from the new recruit, then you should specify on the points and create the Person Specification clearly. The points cannot be vague as they have far more implications in achieving all the organizational objectives associated with the position.

Point to Remember

You must understand the Person’s Specification and Job Description is rather than a strategy for winning the organizational goals. Like every strategy, they are not absolute. With proper experience, you can also improvise while preparing them from time to time. To achieve advancement in organizational success, you can alter them when necessary in alignment with employee requirements and organizational requirements.

Why Person Specification is Important

The two documents are very much important for the following reasons:

• To identify whom you need for executing duties for a specific department
• To connect recruitment with organizational goals and objectives
• To create comfortability in the recruitment process
• To shortlist employees easily
• To look for specific skills and technical knowledge beforehand for the post

Conclusion

Preparing a JD and Person Specification is not as complex as it sounds. You can easily create it, rewrite or edit as necessary according to the time period and requirement changes.