Job Specification

The job specification states the minimum acceptable qualifications that the incumbent must possess to perform the job successfully. Based on the information acquired through job analysis, the job specification identifies the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed to do the job effectively. Individuals possessing the personal characteristics identified in the job specification should perform the job more effectively than individuals lacking these personal characteristics. The job specification, therefore, is a important tool in the selection process, for it keeps the selector’s attention on the list of qualifications necessary for an incumbent to perform the job and assists in determining whether candidates are qualified.

According to Dale Yoder, “The job specification, as such a summary properly described is thus a specialized job description, emphasizing personnel requirement and designed especially to facilitate selection and placement.”

Flippo has defined job specification as, “Job specification is a statement of the minimum acceptable human qualities necessary to perform a job properly ………….. It is a standard of personnel and designates the qualities required for acceptable performance.”

In is clear from the above definitions that job specification is a statement of summary of personnel requirements for a job. It may also be called “standard of personal for the selection”

A Job Specification should include:

(i) Physical characteristics, which include health, strength, endurance, age, height, weight, vision, voice, eye, hand and foot co-ordination, motor co-ordination, and colour discrimination.

(ii) Psychological and social characteristics such as emotional stability, flexibility, decision making ability, analytical view, mental ability, pleasing manners, initiative, conversational ability etc.

(iii) Mental Characteristics such as general intelligence, memory, judgment, ability to concentrate, foresight etc.

(iv) Personal Characteristics such as sex, education, family background, job experience, hobbies, extracurricular activities etc.

All these characteristics must be classified into three categories:

 Essential attributes which a person must possess.

 Desirable attributes which a person ought to posses.

 Contra indicators which will become a handicap to successful job performance.