As a technical recruiter for 25 years, I have been listening both to companies dictate job opening requirements to me and to applicants describe their job duties and experience. Some companies actually give me a job description to assist in my search, but this practice has been more the exception than the rule. Usually, companies have a general idea of the years of experience that they expect, a certain level of skills they want, and knowledge of an industry they require (such as manufacturing, distribution, retail, etc.). They also may require some specifics, such as a particular software package or utility software or communications expertise. In many cases, companies are looking for a clone of the person whom they just lost to a “better opportunity,” and they expect to pay the new employee at a rate of less than or equal to their former employee’s old salary.

Reality or Wish List?

When I do see a job description, it is often very detailed. This detailed description can be good for giving employees a structured definition of the scope of their job or what they can do. It can also be utilized as a method of evaluating employees in their performance reviews. For employees, the detailed job description can be used to help write their résumés and evaluate what they are doing and learning at their present job. One problem I see with detailed job descriptions occurs when managers use the job description as a method of screening potential candidates for an opening. Also, the technical manager can sometimes rely too heavily on the job description as a screening tool, which can lead to having unrealistic expectations of the interviewees and missing the opportunity to hire potentially good employees. This is especially true when the job description is given to human resources as a screening tool.

Another problem with job descriptions is that a person’s job title could be misleading. Over the years, I have encountered numerous people who had the title of MIS manager or data processing manager, only to realize during the interview that they were actually more of a computer operations supervisor. The “technical support manager” at one company might be the “operations manager” or “data center manager” at another. Software companies hire programmer analysts and call them “developers.” Then, there is the systems

analyst programmer who at another company would be a programmer analyst, or the PC support person who at another company would be the LAN administrator or vice versa.

Lots of Titles, but Who Does What?

Job categories or titles will vary by the size of a company’s information technology (IT) staff. Remember, there are variations from one company to another. Certain unique circumstances may warrant an unusual title or position, such as a user support liaison, an electronic data interchange (EDI) specialist, an applications support specialist, etc. In a small- or medium-sized shop, multiple functions may be handled by the same person, although maybe on a smaller scale. For example, the senior programmer analyst is also a systems analyst and a quality assurance analyst, and he or she also trains the users and documents the system. The manager of a small shop might also be the operations manager, project manager, systems analyst, and occasional programmer. The title of data processing manager is ancient, and the updated title should be information technology, information systems, or information resources manager or director. This holds true for the name of the IT department as well. Changing the title of the department could do wonders to create a higher level of respect and credibility within your organization. Not only is there a lack of uniformity of job titles and duties, but such inconsistency also makes it difficult to interpret meaningful information from a salary survey. (For an example of what a typical IT staff might consist of, see Figure 1.)

Finally, due to the ever-changing nature of technology, there is a myriad of new job titles that were not even in existence five years ago. Do you know of a data warehousing manager with five plus years’ experience with data warehousing and data mining tools? How about a manager of e-commerce systems? Web page developers were an unknown category five or six years ago. Lotus Notes developers would be another new category. Many technical areas, such as computer operations support, have branched out into several more specialized areas as well. The new job titles also make it difficult to interpret salary surveys. I have been compiling salary ranges for over 15 years, and I have been finding it necessary to continually add new categories of job titles. Unfortunately, it is unlikely that companies or the IT field will ever come to any agreement as to what a job title entails or how to standardize job titles.

To Create a Job Description for an AS/400 Shop, Keep it Simple

Typically, an IT department is broken down into two major areas: application programming and development, and operations support. Depending on the size of the department, the applications programming area could have various middle managers, such as an applications development manager, project managers and project leaders, systems analysts, programmer analysts, and programmers. On the operations support side, there may be a technical services manager, operations manager, communications support specialists, operations supervisor, computer operator, and help desk and LAN/WAN support specialists.

When defining job descriptions, start with a simple list of basic duties. You can always elaborate at a later time. Keep these basic duties very generic, such as user interface, coding, analysis of business systems, user training, documentation, etc. Have your staff members write up their own version of their job duties and how their time is divided by major tasks. Analyze your version and each employee’s version of the job descriptions, and develop a consensus job description. While you are at it, develop a brief list of basic skill sets that a potential candidate would need to be qualified for each position. Include a desired and minimum level. When you are searching for a new employee, remember that people want opportunities to grow into a position. They want to learn new skills or acquire more in-depth knowledge of the skills they have. If they are not challenged or learning new skills, they probably won’t stay very long.

Do you remember when you were starting out in the computer field? You probably didn’t have all of the skills needed, but a manager took a chance on you, and the rest is

history. It is usually better to hire someone who doesn’t have all of the skills you want but has a strong desire to learn. You become that person’s mentor. Or better, assign a new hire to one of your senior people and give an opportunity to someone on your staff to help train and supervise another. Everyone wins! While degrees are good to have, leave yourself an opportunity to allow for equivalent experience.

In the IT field especially, we have seen continual changes due to technological advancements. In the last 25 years, just think of how programming has gone from RPG to RPG II, RPG III, RPG/400, and RPG IV. How in the world did programmers make the transition? They were given an opportunity to learn! Now, with the Internet, e-commerce, and new programming languages and tools on the immediate horizon—and personnel shortages—it is more important than ever to be creative and open to new concepts in managing for success.

A small IT staff (three to eight people) • An IT manager or director

• Two or three programmer analysts
• One or two computer operators (one of whom might also support the LAN and PCs)

A medium IT staff (eight to 25 people) • An IT director

• An applications manager
• Four to eight programmer analysts
• An operations manager
• Two or three computer operators
• A LAN/PC specialist
• A help desk person (possibly)

A large IT staff (25 to 60+ people) The application programming and development side might consist of the following:

• A Chief Information Officer (CIO) or a vice president of IT
• A director of applications development
• Project managers over application areas such as manufacturing, finance, and logistics
• Project leaders
• Business systems analysts
• Programmer analysts
• Quality assurance
• A database administrator

The operations support side might consist of the following:
• Director of technical services
• An operations manager
• Communications specialists
• Systems engineers
• Computer operators
• Help desk support
• LAN/WAN administrators
• PC specialists

Figure 1: Examples of technical positions in a small, medium, or large IT staff

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