Writing a Position Description
A good position description serves many functions:
- Defines the ongoing job responsibilities for the employee.
- Identifies the required knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to be successful in a role.
- Provides a basis for writing interview questions.
- Used to set the appropriate classification and level of pay for the job.
- Used as a legal document should performance issues arise.
A good position description that targets the right candidates, allows for a great hire, and clearly defines the responsibilities for the new employee to be successful will save you a lot of time and money later on. The following content provides the basics of writing a position description (PD) and covers the following sections of the PD in PageUp:
- PD information
- Job duties
- Physical and environmental demands and conditional terms
Additional information is provided below on a number of topics. If you have other questions about PDs, contact your HR Representative.
Position Description Information
PD information contains general information about the job, including the job type (wage, staff, AP faculty, T&R faculty, or research faculty), working title, department name, location, appointment information (AY/CY, regular/restricted, hours per week, work schedule, etc.). Note: The working title for a job should be based on the main functions or role of the job. Stray away from very specific or vague job titles. Instead create a working title that appropriately describes the role of the job and responsibility level.
- Consists of one to three paragraphs.
- Summarizes the main points of the job, which may include key responsibilities, functions, and duties of the job.
- Keep sentence structure as simple as possible and omit unnecessary words that do not contribute pertinent information.
- Brief highlight about your department and/or senior management area.
An applicant must meet all required qualifications in order to be interviewed for a position.
- Limit required qualifications to what the person must absolutely have in order to start the job. If the person can learn a duty in a short period of time do not include it as a requirement; move these items to the preferred qualification section.
- Do not include systems such as Banner, PageUp, or university knowledge as a requirement. These are items that can quickly be learned. Including them limits the applicant pool to people who are current or previous employees; move these items to the preferred qualification section. Do consider including verbiage such as "Experience with applicant tracking systems, human resource management systems, financial systems, etc."
- Use action verbs to describe qualifications.
- The university does not allow using “requires ‘X’ years of experience in____” statements.
- Include appropriate degree statements. Contact your HR generalist if you have questions on how to word degree statements:
- Staff: Pay Band 3 and below have no degree requirements, but may be listed as preferred requirement. Pay Band 4+ can have a degree requirement with “and/or relevant experience” statement.
- AP Faculty: All AP positions should have a Masters degree requirement or other preapproved degree wording.
These are additional qualifications that describes the ideal candidate for a role. Examples of preferred qualifications include certain certifications and/or experience.
- Limit to three or four preferred qualifications.
- These must be hard skills that are screenable from the application materials.
Job Duties
Well written and organized job duties accurately convey the complexity, scope, and level of responsibility of a job. Following is additional guidance on writing job duties:
- Span of Control: Virginia Tech's Board of Visitors adopted an industry standard of between 3.5 and 4.5 direct reports per supervisor. Ensure the appropriate use in assigning supervisory responsibilities while creating job duties. Ask whether the work of the unit necessitates the use of a supervisory position. Assigning a supervisory title or supervisory duties as a means to retain or recruit a particular employee are prohibited.
- Wage/Staff/AP Faculty positions: List the essential (core) job duties of the position and the percentage of time devoted to each over the course of a year. All job duties listed must total 100 percent.
- Title each section to summarize the function/role.
- Limit to what is required to perform the job.
- Begin each job duty with an action verb.
- Do not include duties that are no longer performed or those that may be required in the future.
- Write job duties in terms of what the position itself requires, not based upon the capabilities of any individual.
- T&R Faculty: We advise job duties be completed for all positions. This information assists Human Resources with classifications. This information will also help in the event of ADA accommodation requests or workers’ compensation claims. All job duties listed must total 100 percent.
- Research Faculty: Job duties are required for all research faculty positions. This information assists OVPRI's Human Resources team with classifications. This information will also help in the event of ADA accommodation requests or workers’ compensation claims. All job duties listed must total to 100 percent.
Physical and Environmental Demands and Conditional Terms
Identify any additional requirements necessary to perform the job. These may include certain licenses (driving or CDL) or some other requirement based on a policy or law. Conviction checks are required for all non-student hires, which includes full-time and part-time wage, staff, AP faculty, T&R faculty, research faculty, emergency hires, sporadic hires, P-14s, and volunteers.
- Check those that apply to the essential functions of the job.
- Conviction/Driving check results must be back before the person can start working.
- Completing this section will assist in the event of any ADA accommodation request.