Guidance for submitting job descriptions for grading

Before sending in a role to be graded please take a look at these points below to ensure all the relevant information is included. Doing this will ensure this process is completed in a timely manner.

Criteria / Additional Information / Completed
Correct Job and other Titles / Ensure that the job title is correct and up to date. Ensure it reflects the appropriate Deanery/College/Section and or Centre.
No Grades / Do not include the grade you wish the role to be and do not include any gradings on the actual job description.
Clean Final Version / Check documents before sending in so it is the most up to date version and without spelling mistakes, edits or track changes showing.
No job advert within the job description / The job advert is a separate document and should not be included in the job description.
Apportion % to main responsibilities (nothing below 10% 5%) / It is important to a grader to be able to see the percentages of main responsibilities. It can be helpful to understand how significant parts of the role are which can affect the outcome of the grading.
Include an organisation chart / Must include an organisational chart that highlights where the role being graded sits within the department.
Use of templates? / Give more than just basic information. Academic job descriptions should have more information than just the basic template information. They should not contain ‘either/or’ as written in the template; the correct option should be determined.
Explain acronyms / Assume that the grader does not know about the area this role will be in so explain any acronyms and their context.
Job Purpose / Job purpose should be no more than 2 paragraphs at most.
Info about project / Should be limited and should be added to section 10 – Context.
Context & Dimensions / These sections should contain some information in them. E.g. value of budgets, number of staff, need for flexibility etc
Skills, knowledge and experience / Should reflect what is required for the job and not what a potential candidate has.
Experience in a role / Avoid saying that x number of years required in a similar role. Instead describe the type of experience and skills needed to fulfil the role.
Describing Responsibilities / Make sure sufficient information is supplied so that graders can ascertain scope and complexity of a post. E.g. one sentence to describe 50% of a job is not sufficient and grading is not possible.
Complete all sections / Do not omit sections from the job description. Information about decision making and planning and organising etc help graders gauge complexity of a role.

Other points to consider before submitting a role for grading:

  • Highlight up front if the role is a like for like and provide that information
  • Sense check and spell check the job description i.e. look for conflicting information
  • Where job descriptions lack the relevant information they will be returned and this will hold up the length of time for grading it.
  • Please send to HR admin and not to HR Advisors so they can log and allocate the request for grading.
  • Forward planning we will endeavour to turn around a job grading that has all the relevant information within 10 working days. There might be peak times where we will not meet this deadline but you will be made aware of this when you log the job for grading.
  • Please be aware that approximately 50 posts are submitted for grading each month. Providing comprehensive information ensures that a job description will be dealt with more quickly.