Job descriptions

A job description is a document that clearly defines a role by outlining its responsibilities, accountabilities, requirements, and qualifications. A well-written job description helps to attract a diverse pool of talented candidates, supports effective recruitment, and helps to set clear performance benchmarks.

What do we use job descriptions for?

• Recruitment: to help managers and recruiters find suitable candidates
• Employee expectations: to set clear guidelines on job responsibilities
• Performance evaluation: to use as a reference for assessing employee performance
• Equal pay: to enable the evaluation of jobs to ensure equal pay for equal work

Inclusive job descriptions

We need to make sure that our job descriptions are inclusive so that we can attract a diverse range of candidates; we can do this by:

• Using inclusive language and avoiding gendered words (you can find free gender de-coder tools online to check the language)
• Keeping sentences clear and concise. When you write more, people understand less.
• Avoiding jargon or complex language
• In the personal specification, listing only the essential criteria required to perform well in the role and avoiding additional desirable criteria
• Making sure you only list a degree or other qualification if it is essential for the role
• Avoiding asking for a specific number of years of experience
• Ensuring a good balance of technical and soft skills. Technical skills may well be essential for role but it’s the soft skills that will determine high performance and attract a wider pool of diverse talent.

Job description template and guidance

Our Job description template has been approved by the People Executive Board for use across the University.

It must be used for Professional Services roles, including technical roles, and can also be used for academic roles where appropriate.

Faculties and Schools may already have existing job descriptions in place for academic roles, which can continue to be used. Over the next 12 months, we will be working towards developing greater consistency across academic job descriptions.

In the meantime, any academic job descriptions should ensure they take account of the following:

Legal Briefing Note

Academic Guidance Note & Recruitment Documentation

Academic Role Profile

As a minimum, academic job descriptions should ensure that the standard wording of the behaviours element from the Job Description template is included, relating to:

• One University
• Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom
• Service Excellence
• Agility
• Sustainability
• Inclusion
• Social Responsibility