The job description: what the business needs done
Definition
Job description: a document written by the business setting out the title, duties and responsibilities of a particular job.
- A vacancy starts with the business writing down three things about the role, because it cannot describe the right person until it knows the work.
- Job title and reporting line: the name of the post, where it sits in the structure and which manager the person answers to.
- Duties and responsibilities: the tasks the person carries out day to day and what they are held accountable for.
- Hours and location: full time or part time, the shift pattern, and the site or shop the person works at.
- Its first job is to tell an applicant what they would actually be doing, so someone who wants different work rules themselves out before applying.
- Its second job starts after the hire, because the listed duties become the standard the manager measures the employee against when the work is reviewed.
The person specification: who could do it
Definition
Person specification: a document written by the business setting out the qualifications, skills, experience and personal qualities the ideal candidate needs.
- The person specification turns those duties into the qualities someone would need to carry them out, and the requirements are usually split into two lists.
- Essential: the candidate cannot do the job without it, such as a full clean UK driving licence for a delivery round.
- Desirable: it would help but can be trained later, such as having used the same till system before.
- The split gives the business objective criteria, so every applicant is measured against the same written list rather than against whichever candidate the manager warmed to.
Common Mistake
- The job description is about the job, and the person specification is about the person, which is the distinction thrown away most often in this topic.
- Sort any item by asking whether it describes work to be done or a quality a human has.
- "Serve customers at the till" belongs in the job description, while "friendly and reliable" belongs in the person specification.
- Listing duties under the person specification scores nothing, however accurate the detail is.
The application form and the CV: what the applicant sends back
- An application form is a standard set of questions written by the business, covering personal details, qualifications, work history, why the applicant wants the job and who will give a reference.
- Because every applicant answers the same questions in the same order, the business can hold each form against the person specification and shortlist quickly and fairly.
- A curriculum vitae, or CV, is the applicant's own summary of their education, work history and skills, written and laid out however they choose.
- That gives more of a sense of the person, and the layout itself shows how clearly the applicant writes.
- It also makes comparison slower, because no two CVs are set out the same way and an applicant can leave a gap in their work history out altogether.
Example
- A chain such as Greggs, hiring across hundreds of high-street shops at once, needs every applicant to answer the same questions, because nobody can read that many differently laid out CVs against the same criteria.
- The form costs time to design, but that cost is spread over every vacancy it is later used for.
- A bakery in Leeds hiring one Saturday assistant gains little from designing a form, so asking for a CV is cheaper and quick enough at that scale.
Why these documents matter beyond paperwork
- Written documents make selection more objective, because each applicant is judged against criteria fixed before anyone applied rather than against a manager's impression on the day.
- That helps the business meet the legal duty not to discriminate covered in 1.5.3b, since the person specification is the evidence that the same test was applied to everyone.
- The documents also cut the risk of hiring the wrong person, which is expensive because the business pays to advertise, interview and train someone before that person is productive.
- A vague job description is the usual cause of that waste: the person hired expected different work, so they leave within months and the whole cost of recruiting and training is spent again on a replacement.
Exam technique
- When the command word is define or state, name who writes the document and what it holds, because that one sentence is the whole answer.
- When the command word is explain, carry the document through to a consequence: a standard form means identical answers, which means faster shortlisting, which means a lower recruitment cost.
- Sort any item you are given by asking whether it describes the work or the worker, a test that settles almost every option offered.
- Name the business in the source booklet and the sort of staff it hires, because application marks are gated on that context.
Self review
- Which document describes the job, and which describes the person?
- Give three things a job description contains.
- What is the difference between an essential and a desirable requirement?
- State one advantage to a business of an application form over a CV.
- Why can a vague job description end up costing a business money?
