Job Descriptions

Philosophy
At Middlebury our job descriptions are designed to concisely capture why a position exists. The job description reflects the impact the role has on supporting department and/or institutional goals. Responsibilities are tailored to reflect major outcomes and capture the breadth of budgetary, programmatic, or supervisory ownership.

Job Description Purpose

Job descriptions help employees understand what is expected of them and how their work contributes to the department and Middlebury as a whole. Job descriptions are intended to highlight the primary purpose of a position; identify the core responsibilities or essential functions of a position; provide an overview of the skills, abilities, education, or experience needed to be successful in the position; and to note any physical demands or working conditions.

Job Description Updates: Quick Reference Guide

Job Description Management

Job descriptions are reviewed and/or updated twice a year in conjunction with our semi-annual position request process. The semi-annual job description update process is intended to capture significant changes in the overall scope of the role or its primary responsibilities. This is the level of specificity that is critical may affect the market of a role. For this reason, the process includes only positions that have been placed in the current staff compensation structure. Job descriptions are used to evaluate the position against to market data to place the position in our compensation structure. It is critical that the potential institutional impact and financial resources be identified for any updates.

Budget additive updates and budget neutral updates, that are not part of a backfill or reorganization, will be reviewed twice a year by the Vice President (VP) of the division and Ways & Means Committee (WMC). Only after an update has VP and WMC approval can changes in role or responsibilities be communicated.

If you feel your description needs to be changed, please discuss this with your supervisor.

Searching for Active Job Descriptions

Middlebury maintains job descriptions in CompAnalyst for positions that have been placed in the staff compensation structure. For information on viewing job descriptions for roles not in the staff compensation structure (such as the contingent structure), please contact the HR Business Partner for your area.

Click here for a link to review active job descriptions.

Student Job Descriptions

Student Job Description Look Up

Job Description Format

Our previous compensation system relied upon specificity in a job description. Our current system is focused on highlighting the primary purpose of the position. It is the primary scope of a position that is used for benchmarking and placement in the market. Providing space for additional core responsibilities is useful when a position cannot be benchmarked and helps to identify comparable job families and roles.  It is important to understand that providing a complete task list, identifying every responsibility performed by the role and/or adjusting education/experience requirements in general will not impact the placement in the structure and market.  

We’ve designed the new one-page format to remove the burden of creating and keeping job descriptions updated. We encourage hiring managers to keep additional documentation, if necessary, that specifies business processes and task lists which describe the day-to-day tasks versus the primary scope of the position. Separate task lists from the job description are not required, however for certain positions it may be useful to identify the responsible party and any delegates; to create efficiency; and set expectations and priorities.   

Job Description Format:

Title
Position Number
Department
Position Purpose
Core Responsibilities
Position Prerequisites
Physical Demands

Detailed Overview of Job Description Format

Title

If developing a new title, it may be helpful to review other job titles at Middlebury in CompAnalyst. If your field has a national professional association, sample job descriptions and alternate titles can often be found there as well.

Position Number

This field will prepopulate with the existing position number.

Department

This field will prepopulate with the existing department.

Position Purpose

In 2 sentences or less summarizing the primary purpose of this role: the most important aspect of the position.

We recognize that there is rarely a position that doesn’t perform duties outside of its primary purpose. We are better able to find comparable positions in the market by limiting the information that is provided about the position and identifying the primary purpose of a position. Take, for example, an Admissions Counselor: the position’s responsibilities may include tracking completion of applications, giving tours, and directing questions to the appropriate offices but the primary purpose is to recruit and counsel students. We use that information to obtain market data for roles at other institutions that also have the same primary purpose. 

Core Responsibilities

Bulleted list of no more than 8 core responsibilities of the roles; starting with a verb. Focus on those that provide an indication of the scope and impact of the role. Include information that demonstrates the level of responsibility for material, financial, human, and information resources.

Core responsibilities are the essential functions of a position and should focus on important duties of the role and the impact that they have: on materials, finances, people, or resources. These help to determine the required knowledge, skills, abilities, and physical demands of a position and are used for many purposes – including, but not limited to, outlining how the position supports the mission of the institution, assessing reasonable accommodations under the Americans with disabilities act, and determining the appropriate salary for the position.   Providing a limited number of core responsibilities helps to identify comparable job families and roles when we are unable to benchmark a position.

Starting each sentence with a verb helps to identify the actions of, or the reason behind, a position.  

The following tips should be considered when developing position details and can be applied to the Core Responsibilities.

Loosely prioritize this list so that the most important tasks are at the top.
Avoid excessive detail; this list does not need to specifically name every single task. It can be helpful to create a detailed draft for this section by listing all activities, then group them into related ‘families’ of tasks and create a sentence or two that is broad enough to cover everything in that group. 
Ideally, each point includes the purpose and/or the result to be accomplished. For example, “Work with senior administrators to set appropriate goals for the ___ program, determine the most effective methods to achieve those goals, implement innovative program activities that engage employees, and evaluate results in order to ensure the College leads our industry in ____results.” rather than “Oversee _____ program.”
Avoid including information that changes frequently (i.e., refer to ‘applicable procedures’ rather than describing the procedure itself.)

Position Prerequisites

Bulleted list of 8 essential skills, abilities, education, or experience needed to be successful in this position. Include any certificates and licenses here.

We want to know what is needed for someone to be successful in a role. Having a limit allows us to identify the required and most important education, skills/abilities and/or experience for a successful employee.  

The following tips should be considered when developing position details and can be applied to the Position Prerequisites.

Define the minimum level of education, skills and work experience that would be required for someone to be successful in the position:

“High School Diploma or G.E.D. / Bachelor’s Degree in a related field is required.”
“Effective interpersonal skills required / Well-developed written and oral communication required.”

“At least ___ years of related experience is required.”

Include specific types of experience that are required and/or the ability to obtain a license or certification:

“Experience in closing leadership level donations is required.”
“Ability to obtain a driver’s license is required.”

Be sure to define the minimum level of qualifications, not the ideal. If you are hiring, you will not be able to consider candidates who don’t meet this minimum standard. Hopefully you will have many applicants with higher qualifications than the minimum to choose from.

Note that current incumbents do not have to meet the minimum standard. If the job requires an Associate Degree, but the current staff person does not have such a degree, that’s fine. Put the true requirement in the job description to ensure accuracy. The existing incumbent will not be affected by this.

Physical Demands & Working Conditions

Duration of, and scope of, physical demands required to perform the primary and core responsibilities of a role. Working conditions would include the environment in which the work is performed. This information is important when assessing ADA accommodations, workplace injury/FMLA return to work procedures when someone has an injury or illness that could impact their ability to perform their job, etc.

The following tips should be considered when developing position details and can be applied to the Physical Demands & Working Conditions:

Note the physical demands of the position. For example, “Ability to climb stairs frequently, lift up to 50 pounds occasionally, and kneel, stoop, or crawl regularly.”
If a post-offer pre-employment screening is required for the position, the Human Resources office will include a link to the full physical demand requirements for the position.

Job Description Writing Tips

Why have job descriptions?

So that employees know what is expected of them.
To help employees understand how their work makes a contribution to the department and Middlebury as a whole.
To communicate with applicants during the hiring process.
To define the minimum education and experience that would make someone qualified for a position.
To assist with determining appropriate compensation levels for the position.
To define the essential elements of the position, used if the employee requests changes to their duties as an accommodation under the ADA.

NOTE: The job description is an official document, therefore it should be written in appropriate language. Personal characteristics such as age, gender, race, religion, should never be used to define a position.

Writing Tips:

Write using the first or second person (i.e.; “You are an ideal candidate if….” or “We are looking for….”) rather than using the third person (i.e., “the ideal candidate”).

Use active verbs to start bullets and aim to match the tense of all verbs for consistent tone and structure.
Use short job titles.
Broadly define the primary purpose of the role. We recognize that there is rarely a position that doesn’t perform duties outside of its primary purpose but by limiting the information that can be provided about the position and asking managers to identify the primary purpose of a position, we are better able to find comparable positions in the market.

Take, for example, an Admissions Counselor: the position’s responsibilities may include tracking completion of applications, giving tours, and directing questions to the appropriate offices but the primary purpose is to recruit and counsel students. We use that information to obtain market data for roles at other institutions that also have the same primary purpose.

Loosely prioritize the list of core responsibilities so that the most important tasks are at the top.

A job function is considered “essential” when performance of the function is the reason that the job exists. A function may be “essential” when: the number of employees available to perform the function is limited, the function requires specialized skills, the function occupies a large percentage of time, and failure to perform the function may have serious consequences.)
Avoid excessive detail; this list does not need to specifically name every single task. It can be helpful to create a detailed draft for this section by listing all activities, then group them into related ‘families’ of tasks and create a sentence or two that is broad enough to cover everything in that group. 
Ideally, each point includes the purpose and/or the result to be accomplished. For example, “Work with senior administrators to set appropriate goals for the ___ program, determine the most effective methods to achieve those goals, implement innovative program activities that engage employees, and evaluate results in order to ensure the College leads our industry in ____results.” rather than “Oversee _____ program.”
Do not include information that changes frequently (i.e., refer to ‘applicable procedures’ rather than describing the procedure itself.)

It’s helpful to state the frequency of the duties that are performed. This gives the employee an idea not only of what is expected of them but how much of their time will be spent performing their tasks.

Note the duration of, and scope of, physical demands required to perform the primary and core responsibilities of a role. Working conditions would include the environment in which the work is performed. This information is important when assessing ADA accommodations, workplace injury/FMLA return to work procedures when someone has an injury or illness that could impact their ability to perform their job, etc.  For example, a Custodian may be exposed to hazardous materials and may be expected to work various shifts as part of the role.   
Look for opportunities to consolidate or keep like jobs together in one job description—if there are varied specific projects or areas of expertise that multiple people in a role might specifically take on, these can be listed together. Take, for example, an Admissions Counselor role that multiple people occupy: there may be a bullet describing that within the role there will be a specialization in region covered, specific student interest areas and/or partner programs.