Job description and person specification Essay Example for Free

Job description and person specification Essay A job description is a document that lists the main tasks, duties and responsibilities required in the job place. At Woodbridge high school job descriptions are present for every job from caretaker to the head teacher post. The following are the main features of a job description. Job title for example head of department Job location at WHS in Woodford green Essex Nature of the organisation, WHS is a secondary school Lists of main tests Standard expected Pay and other benefits Promotion The person to whom the job hold reports to, at WHS the head of department will report to senior management team. Who the job hold is in charge of, head of department will be in charge of subject teachers working in that department. The job description is important to WHS as they use it for appraisals, identification of training needs for WHS staff and pay determination. With out this document WHS would not get the right candidates for the job which in turn will affect there performance, or might lead to a lot of resources being wasted on training. Person specification This document sets out the qualities of an ideal person for the job. The format of a person specification is based on Rogers 7-point plan. This plan requires WHS to distinguish between essential and desirable qualities under each of the seven headings. 1. Physique, health and appearance, this includes grooming, looks, dress sense, voice, hearing and eyesight as well as general health matters. Due to safety issues WHS might not employ staff if they have HIV/AIDS. 2. Attainments, this includes educational qualification. At WHS all teachers are required to have degrees the school will not employ any teaching staff who does not hold a degrees in a stain subject. 3. General intelligence, organisation such as WHS uses IQ tests and by assessing general reasoning ability of the candidates WHS can estimate the IQ of the candidate. 4. Special aptitudes, this section includes skills with words, with numbers, with musical instruments and with artistic technique. WHS needs people with such skills; this improves the schools results performance. 5. Interests, WHS would like to know whether the candidates are intellectual or practical or social or a mixture of them all. WHS would prefer to employ some one with a mixture of them all because of being a mixed culture school. 6. Disposition, this is an assessment of the persons acceptability by other staff, leadership qualities, the persons emotional stability and self-reliance. 7. Circumstances these are factors such as age, whether applicant is single or married, mobile or not. Evaluation of the job descriptions/ person specification Administrative assistant This job description is very brief it lists the job title as administrative assistant for Woodbridge high school. It lists the name of the organisation but does not list its location and there is No address for the applicants to send the application to if they were to apply. It lists the main duties and the person whom the applicant reports to as the director of administrative service. But still the job description does not provide potential applicants with the all the information that it should provide. In fact this job description would not receive any applicants applying for the job simply because there is no address to which application forms are to be sent. The job description does not provide information about pay and benefits, hours the applicant will be working and does not give aims and objectives that the person should be aiming for. The JD does not talk about the purpose and does not give any conduct details. WHS could improve this job description by providing a brief outline of what WHS does this will give the potential applicant an idea of what to expect if he is employed. The document should does not list a point of contact, it does not tell the applicant who he/she will be responsible for and it does not have a deadline for the application forms. WHS could also provide pay and other benefits and promotion prospects, if WHS give this information on there Job description they are more likely to get many people applying for job because applicants would know how much the job is going to pay and what promotion prospects are involved. Promotion prospects are very important because most people dont want to get stack in one career level not moving on. With the shortage of staff to work in school in London east this job description would not get very many applicants applying for job because it does not provide the most important information that applicants look for. The person specification does not give potential applicants the right/ clear level of qualifications required; it states that a good level of general education is required. Different people will understand this in different ways. WHS should give the applicant clear qualification levels that the job will require. It states what they will gain and learn from the post. It does not mention any thing about physique, health or attainments. Nothing concerning ages and sex of the person required has been stated. The person specification needs a lot of adjustments as its very brief and does not give applicants the information they need to know for this job as an administrative assistant. Teacher of drama (CPS) The job descriptions provides the applicant with the most relevant information for the job for example job title, purpose of the job, principles duties and responsibilities, and general duties. It also states to who the teacher will be reporting to. But it does not provide the most important information that every potential applicant will be looking like the objectives and aims of the job. For example most applicants will be interested in how much they will be earning/ salary which the job description does not show. It does not show promotion prospects of the job which applicants are interested in as they would want to know what will happy in the future if say they got the job would there be a chance of being promoted to a higher post or are they going to be stack in the same position for ever. Because WHS did not provide this information it might discourage applicants to apply for the post leaving WHS with no one to cover the post. It also does not talk about the aims and objectives of the job and number of hours to be worked. In future WHS should provide a brief outline of what it does, pay and other benefits, and promotion prospects this might lead to more people applying for the post. Also WHS would mainly need to give an address to which the applicants will send the application forms, because with no address the job description is useless as no one can apply for the job because they dont know were the organisation is located and to whom they should send application forms. The person specification for the teacher of drama lists clearly the qualification required; it states what experience the applicants must have and the abilities. However the person specification could have been improved to provide physique, health and appearance requirements that the job might require. This person Specification should be adjusting to include skills and knowledge need for the post. Deputy headteacher-development-LI7+O.L.A. The job description provides the applicants with information about the nature of the job. What the job involves, its purpose, job title, principal duties and responsibilities, to whom the applicant will be reporting to and who the applicant is responsible for. Though this document provides most of the relevant information about the nature of job however this document would not attract very many applicants because WHS has missed some of the most important information the applicants would most be interested in e.g. pay and working conditions. WHS should provide information about the location of the job/ WHS; they should also give a brief outline of what WHS does. The job description should state the aims and objectives of the job on offer, and hour that need to be worked. It does not state whether the post is full-time, part-time, temporary or permanent. WHS could improve their job description by adding information about pay/ salary per year and other benefits that the job will offer for the applicants. Applicants will also be interested in promotion prospects; they will want to know what will happy in the future for example would there be a chance of promotion after a stain number of years working for WHS. As in all the documents WHS does not give point of contact and address to which application forms are to be sent, this causes problems as applicants wont know were to send the application forms. The person specification lists qualifications and experience required however it does not provide information with regard to the ideal person for the job for example it does not provide information about physique, health and appearance, general intelligence, interests and special aptitudes. It does not give any contact numbers for contact. All the above job description and person specifications are brief and dont not provide any form of contact details e.g. addresses or telephone numbers which are vital for the application forms to be sent back to. They dont tell the applicants of the location of the job, so applicants dont know how far to travel and what travel costs might be acquired. The job descriptions and person specifications need a lot of improvement e.g. contact details, pay and benefits, hours worked, and promotional prospects if they are to attract any body to apply for the posts.

Essays --

Human beings have to made decisions right from childhood stage but the complexity of the decisions to be made or the circumstances preceding a decision vary from simple personal decisions to being in a group making corporate decisions. Individual Decision Making involves arriving at the decision at a personal level without involving external persons or making the decision regardless of an external or group's view point. This is the common method of making decisions and it has been observed to be effective when input from external parties is not necessary or in circumstances when a person might find themselves in need of immediate decision in order to tackle a particular situation. For example a person who is driving a car needs to make decisions about what action to take as he drives along the road with regards to following the driving laws and how to respond to actions by other road users. In this situation, an individual utilizes the intuitive decision making process (Cottrell, 2 009) which is based on the experience that he has gone through. According to Buchanan and Huczynski (2013), an individual’s quality of decisions can be influenced by how they perceive the surrounding circumstances in a given situation. This process falls in the â€Å"rational decision-making model† whereby an individual rationalizes and makes a decision based on the rational circumstances. For example a manager might be required to make a decision on whether to punish or pardon an employee who has made an error but his decision is based on the circumstances surrounding the event. If two managers were to independently evaluate the situation, one person might decide to punish while another might decide to pardon because it will depend on the personal interpre... ...decisions than can be arrived at and their consequences. An example of how this decision making process can be used is when a jury is unable to make a common decision mostly due to group polarization, one of the jurors can play the devil’s advocate by presenting an argument from the ‘other’ perspective opposite to what he rest of the group are focusing on in order to help them to make a decision. According to Berniker and McNabb (2006) the dialectical inquiry method can also be used by a group to help them make a decision. In this methodology, two alternatives are presented to the group for evaluation and they are discussed and then the group evaluates the two options and chooses whether to pick one of the options or to combine the two and use that as the final solution to the debate. This decision making process closely mirrors the devil’s advocacy method.

The Fashion Indistries Affect on Body Image

Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror and felt disappointed? Or thought to yourself, â€Å"l wish I looked like them? † We may sometimes have an idea in our mind of what we think we should look like, compared to how we actually look. This is called body image dissatisfaction, otherwise known as a negative view upon ourselves. Body image issues are relevant all around the world. They impact both men and women of varied ages. These negative thoughts about ourselves can be influenced by many things, including the fashion industry. But how does fashion media impact our body image issues?Celebrities in the media can impact us negatively, but they don't always have to be negative influences, they can be positive too, as well as different types of media may alter the opinions we have on ourselves. The image that individuals have of their body is largely determined by social influences. From an early age we are exposed to images and messages that reinforce the idea that to be happy and successful, we must be thin. Seeing celebrities that we admire ND aspire to look like can often make us feel dissatisfied with our physical appearance.Celebrities who are super skinny and always dressed nicely make us think twice about the way we look and might contribute to an eating disorder or low self-esteem. 97% of women admit to having at least one â€Å"l hate my body' moment each day (Media Influence, 2012). There are always stories of celebrities losing weight to fulfill what the media wants them to look like, because if they are not â€Å"perfect†, the criticism can be very harsh. They will go to the gym, diet, possibly even starve themselves to make these changes.Since we look up to these people, we think we need to do the same. We believe that we must also be slim, small-framed, and have wide hips but a tiny waist to be beautiful, which is unrealistic and very sad. â€Å"The fashion industry simply loves a skinny young girl. And for the average woman, fashion media continues to deliver a brutal, frustrating fantasy' (Giving, R. , 2012). But, fashion and media don't always have a negative impact, they can most definitely eve a positive one too. To some, certain celebrities may be an inspiration or a role model when it comes to body image issues.If you idealize a celebrity who doesn't give in to such pressures when dealing with weight, it has potential help you feel better about yourself knowing that they believe that we should all feel beautiful and comfortable in our own skin. It can also lead us to want to follow in their footsteps, which involves being true to you. Jennifer Lawrence says she refuses to ‘be hungry to aka other people happy' when discussing her weight (Watkins, J. , 2013). It's celebrities like her that send a positive message to the general public about body image and being confident.Stars like Kelly Clarion, Jessica Alba, and Mary Kate Olsen have all battled with eating disorders. They admit that the pre ssure to be skinny in the Hollywood world of fame led them to binge, purge and restrict themselves to a certain amount of calories. Although it is very unfortunate that people in our society feel they need to do these things, them coming out about with heir stories and seeking help to be healthy again can allow anyone in the general public to feel that they too should get help and become healthy, which demonstrates learning to be confident in who you are.Positive and negative impacts can also come from different types of media that are open to and shared with the public. Television advertisements, billboards, magazines, and interviews are all examples of ways we can see what is going on in the world of fashion and fame that can either leave us dissatisfied with ourselves, or feeling empowered. The positive side to these are that we are able to connect with celebrities on a personal level if they have experienced body image issues, but fashion's impact on us is seen to be far more ne gative. 0% of commercials aimed at women mention physical attractiveness, a People magazine survey showed that 80% of female respondents felt that women in movies and television programs made them feel insecure about their bodies (Media Influence, 2012) , and the more that teens think about the images they see in magazines and compare themselves radically to them, the more likely they are to have problems with body image and each disorders (Curious, 2011).A study showed that â€Å"sixty-nine percent of the girls reported that magazine pictures influence their idea of the perfect body shape, and 47 percent reported wanting to lose weight because of magazine pictures† (Field, 2000). Many people would call the negative impact media has on us, â€Å"fashion's full figured failure† simply because we have failed to see that we do not need to look like the skinniest actress and we do not need to be a size O to be beautiful.Celebrities have a strong negative influence on us, b ut they also have a very comforting positive impact. The images and messages we see through different forms of media have the opportunity to corrupt our minds, or build us up to be confident individuals. You have to define your own type of beauty and ensure that you feel good about yourself, which is hard to do when you're in a world full of comparison. The struggle of body image issues is very important and is something to be discussed amongst everyone.

Importance of Technical Writing

Although creative writing is a complex and complicated discipline in its own right, it would be wrong to consider that mastering it can give you any edge at all in technical writing. Technical writing follows a completely different set of rules and principles; and the importance of their proper implementation can hardly be overestimated. After all, the everyday workings of modern world depend in a much more crucial way on technological documentation than on fiction and even journalism – for good or worse. Technical writing deals with specific knowledge, generally in the sphere of science and technology, and may be used in a wide variety of media: technical documentation, manuals, scientific articles, dissertations and so on. Each of these kinds of writing follows its own set of rules, and in order to write, for example, an article in a scientific magazine one doesn’t simply have to know his subject – one has to know the conventions of this genre, the way scientific and technological thought is to be expressed. It doesn’t mean that otherwise you wouldn’t be understood – although in some cases you really wouldn’t – it simply means that no self-respecting magazine is going to accept your article if it isn’t written properly. And it isn’t merely an arbitrary choice to do something in a specific way – it is a result of the long evolution of language used in science and technology. A lot of different other ways were tried out and found wanting – thus, what we have now is the most effective way of imparting knowledge found so far. That is why technical writing is of such tremendous importance. At a glance one may say that students of technology and science should concentrate on their primary disciplines – their particular branches of technology and science – in order to achieve more in them, and skills of communication and writing are superfluous at the very best, redundant at the very worst. It is, however, far from being true. A person may be an excellent scientist or engineer – he may even have ideas in his head that, if properly addressed, can change the way we perceive his discipline, or even science in general. But if he lacks these necessary writing skills he won’t be able to impart his ideas, to persuade others in their merits. And in our modern competitive world it is more important as ever. A second-rate specialist with a better grasp of technical writing can prepare a better, more organized project than a brilliant expert who neglected this part of his education. And taking into consideration that the majority of technologists and engineers today are working in business, in competitive fields, it is worth mentioning that their (Engineering) department is always just one of many, and it has to contend with other units: management, marketing, design and so on. Although technically all departments within one company strive to achieve one and the same goal, they don’t necessarily agree on how it is to be done. Engineers, when all is said and done, do the work that is the job of others to sell – they are by definition less inclined to deal with other people, prove their point and sell their ideas than, let’s say, marketing department. And if a technologist is going to be competitive in such an environment, he has to have tools to prove his point – namely, good understanding of technical writing. That is why every person willing to pursue a career in science and technology will do himself or herself a world of good by doing their best and getting the grasp of technical writing before it becomes an issue.