Generic job descriptions are a useful tool for businesses because they provide a template for creating positions that can quickly and easily be applied to any role. They also allow employers to outline their desired skills, qualifications, and experience without having to write lengthy descriptions for every job.
But using generic job descriptions is an unproductive and outdated practice that fails to recognize the needs of the modern workforce. This practice can lead to expensive gaps in key skill sets in the workforce and limit organizational performance as a whole.
Advantages of Generic JDs
1. Cost-Effectiveness
Generic job descriptions require little effort in terms of writing or editing and can be used by multiple departments, which reduces the associated costs of recruitment.
2. Clarity
Generic job descriptions clearly spell out the requirements of a particular position, making them a valuable resource both for internal staff who may not be familiar with a given role as well as prospective candidates looking to apply.
3. Time Saved
Generic job descriptions help consolidate all relevant information needed when posting roles, eliminating the need to write lengthy individual documents that contain the same information over and over again.
4. Consistency
By outlining specific requirements, generic job descriptions ensure that applicants are assessed fairly on an even playing field and based on their relevant experience rather than other subjective criteria like ‘cultural fit’ which is often difficult to assess through resumes alone.
5. Diversity & Inclusion
Generic forms serve to increase application counts from underrepresented groups by removing highly specialized terminology from standard job postings, ensuring all candidates understand what’s required of them and can assess if they possess applicable qualifications prior to applying.
Disadvantages of Generic JDs
1. Recruitment Process Â
Using generic job descriptions can be damaging to a recruitment process as it fails to accurately convey the duties and responsibilities of the job, leading to poor quality applications, misalignments between the required skills and relevant experience, difficulty recruiting experienced professionals, and replicant candidates rather than people who possess unique perspectives.Â
2. Unmotivated Employees
By relying on generic job descriptions, employers discourage their workers from being excited about opportunities for improvement within their roles and career development. Job descriptions that are too general often do not include specific details about what it takes to achieve success in a given role. This means that employees won’t feel as if they are valued or that their challenges are noticed or met by management. This will have a negative effect on employee engagement and affect productivity as well as morale within the organization in the long-term.
3. Lack of Necessary Skills
Relying on generic job descriptions can create costly gaps in necessary skills within a workforce because employers might not understand what skills are necessary when hiring for certain roles. For example, if a company creates overly broad job postings not detailing out any specific nuance associated with the position, qualified applicants may be overlooked due to having overlapping skill sets that aren’t articulated properly throughout the recruitment process. In addition, having too vague of job postings can limit potential creative collaborations between managers and employees, because how expectations were set up from day one wasn’t clear enough for everyone involved to be successful.
4. Poor Organizational Performance
When relying on generic job descriptions, organizations fail to outperform competitors since they don’t fully equip their staff with the resources they need to succeed on individual level and companywide levels. Their expectations aren’t tailored to each role nor do they account for changes and trends in their industry or advances in technology, meaning companies could find themselves falling behind instead of keeping up with industry standards leading them to miss out on key market opportunities while existing employees become dissatisfied due difficulties adjusting in such an inefficient working environment ultimately leading poor performance at all levels of operations.
Using generic job descriptions is the wrong thing to do because it continues to support stereotypes about what certain jobs should entail and discourages potentially talented candidates from applying – those who may possess unique views and perspectives. Relying upon these documents also creates a higher turnover rate amongst workers due lack of interest caused by unclear directions issued by managers in comparison to job, alongside with costly gaps in skill sets required by modern workplaces and more.
