Job Descriptions No Longer Describe Jobs

The most accurate part of many job descriptions is “other duties as assigned.”  The rest of it is just a dull list of responsibilities and qualifications lacking all context.  I read them all the time and can rarely understand what the job is really all about.

Any perceived relevance of the job description rarely survives contact with actual work – they are outdated the moment they are written. Rarely do they define the work to be accomplished, and they almost never define the goals to be achieved.  They are, quite simply, a relic of the industrial age.  In the Brand for Talent blog, Libby Sartain asks what’s next if the job description is no longer relevant?  She says:

“The changes of the past decade point to a different environment in which business must search for people. Instead of measuring talent needs by the number of jobs, the forward-thinking business thinks in terms of work—the incremental activities that it must successfully complete for the business to meet its obligations. The measurement of effort as work instead of jobs enables business to focus on output rather than on the input of people in specific roles.”

Hmmmm, measuring the outputs (results), instead of the inputs (activity) – that sounds like a Results-Only-Work Environment (ROWE) to me.  Are we finally moving from industrial age, activity-based time and motion studies and into the future of work –  managing for results?  I sure hope so.

We take this results-based approach in our consulting work with small to midsize enterprises.  At the start of each search engagement we ask the hiring manager what success looks like a year from today.  What will need to be accomplished in the next 12 months for the new hire to be considered a success?  What talents and abilities must someone have to drive those results?  What values fit well within the company culture?   We write it all up in a document we call a Hiring Blueprint.  But really, we could call it a “Results Description” – it’s what a job description could be (if it actually wanted to be relevant).  So how do we know our documents are actually relevant?  Because people refer to them frequently in performance management conversations.

In fact, one of the great joys in our consulting work is following up on the placements we’ve made.  During the first year, we check in with the hiring manager about every 3 months, asking not just ”How is Frank working out?” but ”What have you achieved together?”   We call and ask the candidate not just “How do you like the job?” but ”How does the job differ from your expectations going in to it?”   We judge our own performance by the accuracy of the performance expectations we set and the corresponding results that were achieved. 

Yes, we have an enviable track record of success on our placements, but this is not a “set it and forget it” approach – Results Descriptions change year to year.   Jobs change, unforeseen challenges emerge.  Growing businesses outgrow people, technology and market forces change the nature of the work, and eventually people outgrow jobs.  Work is not static, and job descriptions should not be static either.

If you agree with the following statements, it’s no wonder that very few firms hire effectively:

• The typical job description is useless in defining performance expectations.
• The typical resume is useless in predicting the job performance of the candidate.  

If the Job Description is no longer viable, let’s at least consider replacing it with the Results Description.  As to the resume, I have no idea what to replace it with… 

 (By the way, if you want to see a sample of our Results Descriptions, just take a look at our current searches).