Most position descriptions are written once, used to place a job ad, and never opened again. That is a waste, because a good one quietly does four jobs at once: it attracts the right applicants, it sets expectations from day one, it underpins your award classification, and it gives you something concrete to point at if performance becomes a conversation.

Start with the outcomes, not the tasks

A task list tells someone what they will be doing. An outcome tells them what it is for. “Process accounts payable” is a task. “Suppliers are paid on time and the business always knows what it owes” is an outcome — and it tells a candidate far more about whether they want the job and whether they can do it.

Aim for five or six outcomes. If you have fifteen, you are describing two roles, which is worth knowing before you hire for one.

Be honest about the shape of the work

This is where small businesses have an advantage and usually waste it. Roles in a small team are broader, messier and more autonomous than the equivalent role in a large organisation. Some candidates find that energising and some find it exhausting. Saying so plainly filters better than any interview question.

Include the practical realities too: the hours, whether weekend or evening work is part of it, how much of it is on site, what the busy periods look like. A candidate who finds out about the December crunch in December is a candidate who leaves in January.

The parts that earn their place

  • Role title and who it reports to. In a small business, also who they work most closely with.
  • Purpose. Two sentences on why the role exists.
  • Key outcomes. Five or six, expressed as results.
  • Scope. Any budget, systems, decisions or people the role is responsible for. This is the part that maps most directly to award classification levels, which are usually written around responsibility, judgement and supervision.
  • What you actually need. Separate genuine requirements from preferences, and be ruthless about which is which. Long “essential criteria” lists disproportionately deter good candidates who meet most of them.
  • Employment type and terms. Full-time, part-time or casual, the award if one applies, and the classification.

What to leave out

“Other duties as directed” is doing nothing for you. It is legally close to meaningless on its own and it signals that the role has no defined shape. If the job genuinely varies, describe the variation.

Also leave out anything that could look like an unlawful requirement — age, “young and energetic”, physical requirements that are not genuinely inherent to the role. These slip in through habit rather than intent and they are exactly what a discrimination complaint is built from.

Keep it alive

Give it to the new starter on their first day rather than filing it — it is the anchor for the first thirty days. Review it when the role changes, not just when you are recruiting. Duties drift, and drifting duties can change award coverage without anyone deciding anything. A description that matches the actual job is also the anchor for performance conversations — it is very hard to have a fair discussion about whether someone is meeting expectations if the expectations were never written down.

Twenty minutes of thought at the start saves a great deal later, and it is one of the few HR documents that pays for itself immediately.