Job Analysis and Descriptions

Why understanding job analysis and descriptions lead to better comfortability in roles and suitability of positions. 

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Experiences

At this point in my college career, I have reviewed more internship and job descriptions than I can count. After looking through to see what I believe would best suit me, I do the process of going through and seeing what skills are required to fulfill the roles.

This whole process, while very lengthy, can teach a person a lot about the fields they want to go in. Job descriptions are necessary parts of understanding what will be asked of you in any given positions. KSAO’s are a key part of the job that people must have in order to carry out the roles assigned in a job.

KSAO’s, or Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other Characteristics are all ways to specify what an employee should be able to do. Using some of these, I have been able to help discover jobs, and even help write job descriptions for organizations I’ve worked at.

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Overcoming Challenges

Some of the best ways to navigate job descriptions are to understand what base level skills are needed for any given task. My job is in a kitchen. At any given time there were a lot of things that I was in charge of, but to start I listed out all the base level tasks. I was on my feet a good portion of the time so I had to let people know that this is a very physically demanding job. I was in charge of equipment and food and having an Oregon Food Handler’s Card was a requirement. From there, it was easier to narrow down what was essential parts of the job. We did catering with students so safety and sanitation was a priority. After that, branching out to what exactly we needed the employees to do got a lot easier.