The qualifications section should be used to define the specific knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for successful job performance. Defining the qualifications helps to define the job for the purposes of hiring and establishing compensation. Written qualifications also are legally important in the event you are challenged under the ADA or other employment laws.
Once you have downloaded a job description to Microsoft Word, you will find a number of choices in the qualifications and physical demands sections. You will need to edit the choices, removing inappropriate or irrelevant information, and inserting additional information as needed for the particular job.
Additional information:
How to write good qualifications
Education and/or experience qualifications
Language skills qualifications
Mathematical skills qualifications
Reasoning ability qualifications
Physical demands
Work environment
How to write good qualifications
Jobs in the Sample NADA Job Descriptions have suggested levels of qualifications included. These should be used as a starting place only; they are not substitutes for your own analysis. If you are unfamiliar with the job, use the Questionnaire to gather qualifications information from someone who knows more about the job.
Tips for writing good qualifications:
- Analyze the text for each level and compare it to the essential duty statements. Each qualification should relate to one or more of the job duty statements.
- Get input from others, such as the employee in the job, the direct supervisor, peers, co-workers, and people who report to the job.
- Look at the qualifications of employees who held the job previously.
- Concentrate on what the job requires rather than looking at the skills of the person who holds the job now or just left it.
- Compare requirements for this job to the requirements for similar jobs in the organization to assure consistency.
- Don't write qualifications that are on paper only.
Using the Questionnaire:
To help gather information about a job, NADA Job Descriptions Online provides the Questionnaire.
You can either give questionnaires to the person(s) who know the job best, or you can interview those people and complete the questionnaire yourself. Gathering information from a variety of people will give you the most detail and best balanced picture.
See Sources of information and Who should write the job description? for ideas on who can give you information.
You can use the information to edit a job description from the Sample NADA Job Descriptions, edit a previously written job description, or start a job description from scratch.
For future reference, keep copies of completed questionnaires with other information documenting the process used to prepare your job descriptions.
Sources of information:
1) The person to whom the job reports:
This may be a manager, a supervisor, or foreperson. Because this is usually the same person who is responsible for selecting, training, appraising, and managing the person in the job, it is very important that he or she contribute to and concur with the job description contents.
More and more organizations require that job descriptions (or at least the first draft) be written by the person who supervises the job.
2) Employees:
Employees who hold the job now, or who have held it in the past, are usually excellent sources of information. They may know more than anyone about what they do and how they do it. They can contribute significantly to defining the job duties, physical demands, and work environment.
In completing the Qualifications sections, however, employees may not have all the knowledge or experience to accurately define the necessary skills. Further, employees may also have a slightly biased viewpoint and overlook duties they may not perform well or do not consider important.
3) Production records, status reports, performance reviews:
Review documents that show actual results of the job or its department. These will often call attention to job duties that might have been overlooked. The following documents are often consulted:
- Time sheets documenting the hours worked. They can also show overtime worked. When overtime is frequent, it may indicate that the duties cannot be performed within a normal schedule.
- Production records and status reports that itemize what has been done by an organizational unit or a specific job in the past can be very useful in analyzing job duties.
- Performance reviews highlighting past accomplishments, and the skills and knowledge required for a job. When performance has been less than satisfactory, determine if the missing knowledge, skills, and abilities should be part of the job description.
4) Other sources:
Other good sources for input about the duties and qualifications of a job can be:
- Subordinates who report to the person who holds the job (when it is a supervisory position).
- Other employees who interact with the job.
- Vendors, customers, and clients.
Education and/or experience qualifications
Most job descriptions include a section that describes the education and/or job experience required to perform the job satisfactorily.
This section can be the most difficult to complete if there are no specific educational requirements. For this reason, most experts recommend that you select the level of education and experience that will most closely match the minimum requirements of the job.
Unless a degree is a definite job requirement, NADA Job Descriptions Online suggests you include the language that states that some level of equivalent experience is satisfactory.
Edit the language produced by this section on your job description if more specific education and/or experience is required, such as:
- A particular type of degree, such as a B.S. in Engineering or required major field of study or courses such as civil engineering.
- A specific vocational education or apprenticeship program.
- A formal on-the-job training or employer-provided classroom training, such as company-sponsored infectious disease training program.
- Previous experience and/or length of time in a specific area, such as previous experience in customer service or related work, or specific time, such as at least two years prior experience.
Language skills qualifications
The purpose of the language skills qualifications section is to define the level of speaking, reading, and writing needed to perform the job satisfactorily.
Edit the text produced by this section on your job description if you want to specify more detailed language requirements as shown in the examples below.
- Speaking: Edit when it is important to specify particular speaking skills, such as public speaking before large audiences or being interviewed on television.
- Writing: Edit when it is important to specify a particular writing skill, such as writing for publication or using a specialized writing methodology.
- Reading: Edit when it is important to specify a particular reading skill, such as proofreading.
NOTE ABOUT FOREIGN LANGUAGES: If the job requires speaking, understanding, writing, and/or reading one or more foreign languages, you may want to add that requirement to the text produced for this section.
Mathematical skills qualifications
The purpose of the mathematical skills qualifications section is to define the level of mathematical or arithmetic skills needed to perform the job satisfactorily.
The text produced by this section may list some mathematical functions that are not requirements for a specific job. After copying the closest level text to the job description, you can edit it to best fit the job.
Example: Level 2 (Basic Skills) includes draw and interpret bar graphs along with other basic math functions. You might want to delete that phrase if it is not appropriate to a job.
Reasoning ability qualifications
The purpose of the reasoning skills qualifications section is to define the level of reasoning skills needed to perform the job satisfactorily. In theory Mathematics and Language are components of Reasoning; therefore, the level of Reasoning should normally be at least as high as the level selected for Mathematics and/or Language.
During the interview process, use the reasoning qualifications as the basis for developing questions that help you determine if an applicant has the needed reasoning skills.
Edit the text produced by this section on your job description if you want to specify more detailed reasoning requirements as suggested in the examples below.
- How much individual decision making and judgment will be required?
- What is the nature of the instructions provided? How detailed are they? In what form are they provided (written, oral, or as diagrams or schedules)?
- How much variety and ambiguity does the job encounter?
- What kind and degree of creativity is required?