HR Paper

ASSIGNEMENT : What You Do on Your Job, and the Knowledge, Skills and Abilities required to do them.

On every job in your career, you will be responsible for doing and/ or achieving certain things. Generally referred to as “Tasks, Duties and Responsibilities” (TDR’s), these are the activities one engages in or what one does on the job (both of which are behaviors) and/or what one accomplishes or achieves (results accomplished). For example, a sales representative’s tasks might include:

       - Communicate with existing clients by phone, email, in writing or in person.

       - Contact potential new clients.

- Provide new and existing clients with relevant product information.

- Create price quotations for potential new sales

Note that these are all behaviors or actions that the sales representative would do in order to make sales. Making the actual sale would be accomplishing a result. Generally, it is desirable to include both behaviors and results in the Job Description (statement of Tasks, Duties and Responsibilities) in order to have a through understanding of what is done and accomplished on the job. A job description should include all of the important or major TDRs of the job. (The example above is incomplete.) Note too that if a job required that a person work closely with coworkers or customers, or if the job required working in a team, then the job description would describe these social requirements of the job as well (and do so in sufficient detail).

In order to accomplish these TDR’s, an individual in the job would need to have a corresponding set of “Knowledge, Skills and Abilities” (KSA’s) in order to accomplish the TDRs of a job. Knowledge refers to the factual or procedural information necessary to successfully perform a task. In the sales example above, the sales rep would need to know all about the product they were selling, the client’s needs, how to communicate in business writing, how to send an email, etc.

In many Management jobs, a great deal of specialized knowledge is required. A CPA certification covers a great deal of knowledge about multiple areas of Accounting. Similarily, the NASD (Securities dealer certification) exams and CFP (Financial Planning) exams specify a great deal of knowledge for certification in Finance. You’ll find information at APICS for Operations, SHRM for Human Resource Management certification, AMA for Marketing (CPM certification) and other Management professional Associations. All of these are excellent sources of Management knowledge in their specific areas.

Skill is an individual’s level of proficiency or capacity to perform a task. So, our sales representative would need to have the skill to persuade a client that our product would fill their needs, and perhaps be better than our competitor’s product. Note that being persuasive requires one to have knowledge about the product, but is much more then just having the knowledge: It involves convincing the client of the merits of our product. Finally, Ability refers to some more basic or fundamental enduring capability an individual has. For example, our sales rep would need to have the ability to speak in the language(s) of our existing and potential customers. Typically we would want to specify both the specific languages and the educational level of the required language. Reading would be another example of an ability because it is a relatively permanent characteristic of the person.

NOTE: Understanding what constitutes knowledge, skill and ability is critically important. In common language, many people use the word “ability” to mean that somebody is capable of doing something. For example, “She really has the ability to sell!” or “He’s able to sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo”.  While common or frequent usage, these statements are not useful or helpful in job analysis, because they describe results that have been achieved or could be achieved, rather than the knowledge, skills and fundamental abilities necessary to achieve them.

Being able to determine what is done on a job (Job Description or TDRs) and the KSAs required to do the job (the Job Specification) will be very important to you and your ability to manage your own career. Being able to talk about the TDRs of a job you are applying for and then being able to show that you have the required KSAs will make you a much more attractive applicant, and more likely to get a job offer. As another example, once you are in a job, you will want to plan on how you can advance your career. If you can look at the next higher job and tell what gets done (TDRs) and the KSAs required to do them, you will be able to assess which of those skills you do and do not have. You will then be better able to plan on what skills you need and how you will acquire them. (Wouldn’t it be terrible to be interviewed for a promotion, and during the interview discover that there was a major area of the new job that you knew nothing about, and for which you had none of the required KSAs?) This assignment is designed to help you determine the TDRs and KSAs in a job, and to plan on how you will acquire those KSAs that you currently are lacking. (See chapter 4 for uses of job analysis information.)

The Assignment:

First, read the text (portions of CH 4) on job analysis so you understand what constitutes a well-done statement of TDRs and KSAs. It might be useful to look for a professional association’s website to see what they have to offer in terms of knowledge. The knowledge in those websites may be a little broader than those in a specific firm, but they will most likely be very useful.

When looking at many specific firms’ websites, you will almost surely run into many poorly done sets of TDRs and KSAs (Most often, the KSA description is lacking).  Be sure to know what constitutes Knowledge, what is a Skill, and what are underlying Abilities required perform the job. This will help you eliminate poor sources quickly.

Use the web to find a specific organization that has a good statement of TDRs and KSAs for an entry-level job in your occupation. You are looking for a very high quality job description (TDR) and job specification (KSA), and many organizations will not have done them very well. I suspect that on average, you might have to look at 10 to 20 (or more) organizations’ websites before you find a well-done (complete, unambiguous, understandable, detailed) job description and job specification. KEEP LOOKING UNTIL YOU FIND IT, although you may be able to supplement a specific firm’s description with the knowledge requirements you pick up from professional associations.

Things NOT TO DO

DO NOT use a generic job search site like Monster or HotJobs.

Do not use an internship that you have had.

Do not use an informal statement by an old or new boss, a family member or a friend in some existing organization.

You are looking for a high quality, professional job analysis, and nothing short of that will let you do well on this assignment.

You paper should consist of the following points in the following order (PLEASE BE SURE TO FOLLOW THIS ORDER):

1. Job Title and a short paragraph describing generally what is done on the job, and the name of the organization and its web address for the job.
2. A list of the TDRs required in this job. They should be through, complete and understandable by somebody outside of your field of expertise. Write this in list form. You may copy (cut and paste) a list from a well-done web site.
3. A list of the KSAs required to perform the job. These should conform to the definition of KSAs given above, and correspond to the TDR list (These need not be in the same order as TDRs).
1. If they are well done on the firm’s web site, you may cut and paste the list into your paper. Simply acknowledge the source (web address is fine).
2.  If you say “Excellent communication skills” or “Excellent computer skills” are required, you are far too general and ambiguous, and you need to find a more specific statement of KSAs for the job.
3. Saying something like: “Excellent communication skills” or “Excellent computer skills” without adequate explanation of the specific KSAs will result in lowering you grade by at least one letter.
4. WHILE YOU MUST FIND A SPECIFIC FIRM’S WEBSITE, once you have one you can get help filling in specific KSAs from ONET (http://online.onetcenter.org/). Use our discussion of ONET in class as a guide, and keep in mind that ONET is much broader than a specific job. DO NOT START WITH ONET: Consult ONET after you have found a specific job at a specific firm. Note too that many professional associations have something that looks like certification criteria for entry level or early career positions. Check SHRM for HR; APICS for operations/logistics & IE; CPA exam for accounting; AMA for marketing; NASD for finance, etc. These will be a good deal broader than a specific entry level job, and you will more likely find they cover sets of related entry level/early career jobs in the occupation. This can help you with the KSAs for a specific job.
4. Do a self-assessment of which KSAs you now have, and which you are lacking (to some degree). 
5. State how you plan to acquire the KSAs that you need but do not presently have. (E.g. take another course; do a special project with a firm,  etc.)
6. Write a succinct paragraph (150 word maximum) that you will use to describe your KSAs to a prospective employer. What are the most important things you want to tell a prospective employer about yourself, and how will you communicate those points?
7. MANY organizations say things like “we want self starters who are driven to success and can work well in a team…” Anticipating this, what will you tell them? Much BETTER how will you demonstrate this to them? (“Actions speak louder than words…” my Mom (and possibly yours) would so often say!)

The paper of course must be typed, and hard copy delivered in class or to the TA outside of class. (Please do not email them or shove them under my door as I am afraid that they might get lost). You cooperation in following these directions will be a great help in the logistics of grading and recording so many papers. Thank you!