3.2 Job Analysis and Job Documentation

Building the Staffing Foundation

Job analysis is the systematic process of collecting information about what a job actually requires. HR uses interviews, structured questionnaires (such as the Position Analysis Questionnaire, or PAQ), direct observation, work logs, supervisor input, and existing documentation to capture duties, working conditions, tools, reporting relationships, and the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics (KSAOs) needed for success. Analysts distinguish a task-based approach (what gets done) from a competency-based approach (the behaviors and traits that predict success).

The output feeds many HR systems, not just a single document.

PHR questions place job analysis before recruiting or selection. If the role has materially changed — new technology, new duties, new reporting line — HR updates the analysis and description before posting. Using stale requirements can screen out qualified applicants, create pay-classification problems, and rely on criteria that cannot be defended as job-related and consistent with business necessity under Title VII.

Writing Defensible Job Descriptions

A job description translates the analysis into a usable document. Standard fields include job title, department, reporting line, summary, essential functions, required and preferred qualifications, work environment, physical requirements, FLSA exempt/nonexempt classification support, and approval/revision history. HR avoids vague criteria such as "good attitude" unless tied to observable job behavior.

The required vs. preferred distinction is high-stakes. Required qualifications must be necessary, consistently applied, and supported by the analysis. Preferred qualifications help rank candidates but must not silently become exclusionary screens. Watch for inflated requirements — demanding a bachelor's degree for a role that does not need one — that can produce adverse impact (an unintended disparate effect on a protected group) without improving performance.

Job documentation also anchors compliance decisions:

• ADA: Essential functions frame whether a qualified individual with a disability can perform the job with or without reasonable accommodation. Marginal functions are weighed differently.
• EEO/Title VII: Job-related criteria reduce bias in screening and interviewing and support a business-necessity defense if a practice is challenged.
• FLSA: The actual duties — not the title — drive whether a role meets an executive, administrative, professional, or other exemption test.

A practical PHR sequence:

1. Verify the job has not materially changed.
2. Gather manager and incumbent input where appropriate.
3. Identify essential functions and job-related KSAOs.
4. Separate required from preferred criteria.
5. Use the updated documentation across recruiting, selection, onboarding, and performance management.

The best-judgment exam answer usually updates the role before filling it. Recruiting from an inaccurate description seeds errors that follow the organization into interviews, offers, onboarding, and performance reviews.

From Analysis to Specifications, Competencies, and FLSA Tests

Job analysis produces two related documents that the PHR distinguishes. The job description describes the job — duties, essential functions, conditions, and reporting. The job specification describes the person — the minimum education, experience, licenses, and KSAOs a holder must bring. Confusing the two is a common test trap: a specification listing "five years' experience" is meaningful only if the analysis shows the job genuinely needs that level.

Many employers layer a competency model over the analysis. Competencies are clusters of behaviors and traits — such as judgment, collaboration, or technical proficiency — that predict success across a job family. Competency models drive structured interview questions, development plans, and succession decisions, and they let HR connect a single analysis to selection, training, and performance management consistently.

Job analysis is also the factual record behind several legal determinations:

• FLSA exemption turns on the actual duties, not the title or salary alone. The white-collar exemptions (executive, administrative, professional, computer, outside sales) each have a duties test, and most also require meeting a salary-basis and salary-level threshold. A documented duties analysis supports the classification if challenged.
• ADA uses the essential-functions list to decide reasonable accommodation and whether a candidate is "qualified."
• Equal Pay Act comparisons rest on whether two jobs require substantially equal skill, effort, and responsibility under similar conditions — a judgment the analysis informs.
• Pay structure and job evaluation use the analysis to slot a role into grades and ranges.

Because the analysis underpins so many decisions, HR should review descriptions on a schedule and whenever duties, technology, or structure change, keeping a dated revision history. On the exam, the answer that treats job analysis as a living foundation — refreshed before recruiting, classification, or discipline — almost always beats the one that reuses outdated paperwork for convenience.

A quick test heuristic: if a scenario describes the work changing, a vague or inflated requirement, an accommodation question, or an exemption dispute, the underlying problem is usually inadequate job analysis. The best response gathers current job information, ties every requirement to a documented essential function or KSAO, and applies the resulting description and specification consistently to all candidates and incumbents rather than relying on memory, manager preference, or a legacy posting.