Why you need a job description for each of your positions

If you’re a small employer, or just starting out in business, you might be tempted to skip writing formal job descriptions. After all, you probably have a hundred more pressing tasks battling for your attention each day—how important can a job description really be?

Turns out, plenty important.  Having a clear, detailed, and accurate description of a position’s purpose, tasks, and essential skills and knowledge is necessary for two main reasons:

• Nailing your job postings so you can attract the most qualified candidates; and
• Helping you and your employees better evaluate their current performance

As Payscale.com’s Compensation Today puts it, “Whether you’re hiring someone new, evaluating a current employee or determining compensation, a job description provides consistency and clarity for everyone involved. Taking the time to write an accurate job description now will save you money, time and energy in the future.”

Of course knowing that you need top-quality job descriptions and actually getting them written are two different things. What’s a busy small-business owner to do?  CareerOneStop’s Job Description Writer is a great free tool to help you get the job done.

The Job Description Writer walks you through a step-by-step process of building a meaningful job description. Get started here, where you’ll simply enter the occupation you need a description for, and select your location.  You’ll then see a draft of a complete, fully editable job description for that occupation. You’ll see details in eight key sections:

• Job purpose
• Education and experience
• Knowledge
• Skills
• Work context
• Tasks
• Activities
• Tools and technology

Each section is pre-filled with the most common information or data for that occupation, and you have the option to customize from there.

The information used for an occupation’s purpose, knowledge, skills, work context, tasks, work activities, and tools and technology data come from the Occupational Information Network (O*NET). The Education and Experience data are from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, Office of Occupational Statistics and Employment Projections.

Once you see your full job description, you can customize it and then download, or just download as presented and modify from your desktop.

Ready to create a job description?  Visit CareerOneStop’s Job Description Writer.