Creating your working learner role

Creating an effective job description

Best practices for job description posts

A job description is a crucial aspect of an overall hiring process and should accurately reflect the specific duties and responsibilities you are hiring for.  

They are often the first impression a student will have of your department or unit, and if written intentionally, can help them determine whether they see themselves working there. Transparency and honesty in a job description provide candidates with realistic expectations and a true understanding of the job they are applying for.

The additional consideration for working learner job descriptions is the opportunity to incorporate ongoing development, skill articulation, and connection, and retention of talent for those applying and ultimately, those hired for the student positions at your institution. Focusing on skill and career development for working learners may include some institutional-wide change or even partnership with Human Resources, but that lift will be extremely beneficial procedurally and experientially for those doing the hiring and being hired into these positions.

To ensure your working learning job descriptions contain sufficient information and detail to describe the overarching duties and responsibilities of the position, as well as essential functions of the office in which they will be working, consider using a sort of template. It is not necessary to include every single detail of the role as work is often flexible and adaptable to the time of year and varying needs. Instead, consider some key categories such as title, purpose, duties and responsibilities, skills, qualifications, and potentially knowledge, skills, and abilities, or working environment.

This resource will take you through a variety of commonly utilized job description categories and point out ways to best utilize them for your working learner positions.

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Best practices

A job title can often be seen as less important than the job purpose, but across posting platforms, the job title is the first (and sometimes only) thing a student sees and can lead a student to click or keep scrolling. Therefore, it is extremely valuable for hiring managers to be as intentional with the job title as possible. Find more information here along with some great examples.

The Job Purpose section of a job description is a great place to introduce your department, office, or unit and outline the ways in which this position will contribute to the overall goals or objectives of your team. This short statement should provide a reason as to why the job exists and allow the candidate to see how this job connects to the rest of the department or college.

Duties and responsibilities can be written in a lot of different, successful ways. Use a bulleted or numbered format to provide easy review and ensure the duties and responsibilities include an action verb and are frequently performed responsibilities. Using precise, clear, and concise language will be beneficial for the candidate when applying as well as when referring back to the job description while carrying out these duties. Here are a few overall pointers when writing out duties and responsibilities:

Try not to use internal lingo that may be unknown or confusing to the applicant such as acronyms.
Consider anticipated job responsibilities to give candidates a clear understanding of the role while not getting stuck in the minute details or specific tasks this position may carry out - instead, think of overall themes and larger scale impact.
Include explanatory phrases telling the applicant why, how, where, or how often the duties are performed.
List job duties that reflect the position requirements and ensure they are not based upon the
capabilities of any one individual.
If applicable, address type of supervisory responsibilities expected within the role.
List job duties in order of their importance or frequency.
Focus on essential activities and leave out trivial duties or occasional tasks.

Including a skills section is a wonderful way to focus on transferable skills and the ways in which this role can provide experiential learning for your chosen candidate(s). This section may be skills you are truly needing your candidate to possess coming into the role, but it is more likely it will be more beneficial if it is an area of the job description where you can highlight the skills you will train, teach, or support your team in learning during their time in the position. If there are specific skills or mandatory requirements for your position due to the nature of the work or the level of the position, consider including those in the Minimum or Preferred Qualifications sections and allowing the Skills section to truly speak to learning and development, training offered, career development, etc.

This can also be a perfect place to incorporate the National Association of Colleges and Employers
(NACE) Career Readiness Competencies in a digestible and direct format for candidates to connect it right to the position. Again, either skills you need the candidate to have prior to beginning the role or skills you can guarantee they will have the opportunity to strengthen during their time in the role.

When writing a job description, it can be hard not to write the description for an ideal candidate that
carries out all the necessary, anticipated, and ideal qualifications. But, creating criteria that is too specific or too strict may discourage applicants and may also misrepresent what you are actually looking for. Minimum qualifications should be the lowest level of education, skills, experience, knowledge, coursework, etc., needed to ensure the success of an incoming candidate. For student positions, we typically want an actively enrolled student who is willing and able to learn, grow, and show up. We don’t necessarily need a lot of specific skills for the average student position across campuses. Remember this when thinking of minimum qualifications and really think through the required education, experience, or skills you are looking for.

Another commonly leveraged qualification is a student's major. If your position is not a specialized role, try thinking of your ideal candidate outside of a particular major and other factors that may mistakenly define success in your specific role. Though some majors align nicely with specific roles and may provide foundational knowledge needed for your position, it is also important to not limit yourself in your candidate pool and limit students in their opportunities for transferable skill development.

If there are additional considerations you are looking for or aspects of a candidate you would prioritize, consider including preferred qualifications. These qualifications can be looked at as a good-to-have but not required or mandatory for candidate success. This is also where you may include if you are hoping for a specific major but don’t want to limit your pool.

The working environment can be a category allowing you to elaborate on the department, location,
working hours, or even number of hours per week you can offer the working learner chosen for the
position. This can be especially helpful if your office has multiple locations or hours of operation outside of 8am-5pm, such as a position working with Athletics that would be working a variety of games throughout the semester typically in the evening or weekends. This would also be a great place to include information that may help all candidates understand the direct environment they would work in such as a cubicle, office front desk, shared lobby space, back private office, classroom, research lab, outdoors, etc. This can be extremely helpful for students who are seeking or needing specific environments to be most successful. Your Human Resource department may have required specific Physical and Environmental Factors verbiage to include in order to recognize any accommodations which may be necessary for the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

Number of openings
Closing date of application
Length of position
- This can also include if you are able to offer working hours during institutional breaks,
  such as summer
Evaluation or appraisal process
Anticipated start date
Opportunities for ongoing advancement within the department
- This is ideal if you have varying levels of positions within your department and this
  position is not the highest level

Best practices for job description posts

A job description is a crucial aspect of an overall hiring process and should accurately reflect the specific duties and responsibilities you are hiring for.

Creating your role

Best practices

Job title

Job purpose and description

Duties and responsibilities

Transferable skills

Minimum Qualifications

Preferred qualifications

Working environment

Additional sections to consider adding

A job description is a crucial aspect of an overall hiring process and should accurately reflect the specific duties and responsibilities you are hiring for.  