Updating the Description of a Job Description

Do you recall some of the early writing lessons you had in grade school? Remember the assignment where you were supposed to describe a dog? The finished sentence went something like, "The dog was big and black." The reader still did not know if, upon meeting the dog, he should prepare to have his face slurped in exuberant friendliness, or if he would be more likely to lose a chunk of his ankle.

Many job descriptions haven't evolved much beyond a third-grade creative writing project. They still read like an inventory of attributes and say very little about what to expect as an outcome. Most job descriptions are duty lists that have been divorced from the esprit of the work.

As "The Staffing Advisor" at wordpress.com laments, "The most accurate part of many job descriptions is 'other duties as assigned.'"

As a remedy, some HR professionals are taking a new look at old job descriptions. They're asking if this old staple of business needs to be retooled to keep up with the times. They suggest that business ought to shift the old paradigm of determining the talent needs by the number of jobs to a new one that is more focused on the output of the work.

It may seem a subtly of language to move from "what should the employee do" to "what should the employee accomplish," but the effect can be profound. It shifts the focus from the drudgery of the work to the achievement of the goal. It redirects the attention away from a list of tasks to a description of performance expectations.

This new orientation will necessarily alter some of the traditional approaches to hiring. Different questions will be asked, and different qualities will be looked for.

Goals and expectations change over time, as do markets and technologies. The new breed of job descriptions will have to be more fluid and adaptable than in the past. For many jobs, an employee's natural talent will become just as important as his honed and practiced skills.

Effective hiring managers consider not only where a company is today, but where a successful employee will help to take the firm in a year's time. In the past, ill-fitting job descriptions confined this forward-looking approach to hiring upper management. But focusing on results is a principle that is not just for the big guys anymore.