Job Description – are all JD’s Authentic ?

Well, no I am not going to discuss on what a JD a.k.a. Job Description is or how it is prepared.

We are going to discuss if a JD that a company posts in a job site can really be an authentic one.

I know most of us are smart enough to understand about a JD while attending  an interview, but what do we do when we come across circumstances where the job you are hired for does not match with the JD mentioned in the job portal !

 

Hmm, you may ask me a question now – “What the no sense deal are you talking about?”

 

It’s a general human tendency to do a bit of research or approach known contacts inside the prospective hiring company to enquire about the company, its policies, the approach of management towards employees and other key aspects like salary revision policies etc., before taking the leap of getting hired by a new company.

More than 60% of employees searching for new jobs tend to leave a company due to job dis-satisfaction.  But we generally tend to do less research or ask questions on the Job description that the company advertises. We enquire mostly about JD only during the interview and have to believe what the interviewer explains us during the interview.

But what if the interviewer does not himself have a clue what the JD would be going forward.

Yes, you read right!

 Now with increasing trend of globalization and companies looking towards globalizing their activities by creating hubs (like global research centers, global finance process centers and other functions), there are very much good prospects of creating good job opportunities for qualified personnel.

These job roles may be newly transitioned or may be existing roles for an established process.

We can gather some information through our friends within the company about the established roles, but what we will not know is about the future of the newly transitioned roles. 

The requirement for the hiring position may change and you may be redirected to a role for which you are not suitable.

Once an employee joins and takes up the new role of transitioning a work from other people, where in the process is being newly setup in the current location, the job given to the employee may be entirely different from what the JD that was advertised in the job portal for hiring candidates.

And in this case a hiring / people’s manager cannot do anything but to convince employee that the work currently performed by the employee is the JD for which he is hired.

Shock! Then pours all the no sense deal in this job.

Your mind starts saying that you were utterly cheated by a company into a position that was not really meant for you. You will then be disheartened and will loose all interest in the work that you are currently performing.

The options that are left for you will be:

1. Start searching for a new job again 

2. Or – continue working in the current role until you find your appropriate role within the same organization.

But what if you are not going anywhere with the above options and get stuck with the job role which has never interested you. This is a situation which is out of your control. This is when your Luck is not shaking hands with you. You can read through my post on Luck vs Hard work  to know about my views on situations which are out of our control.

The only option left for the employee is to hold on to their current role until the right opportunity knocks their door. They can improvise to the current situation and concentrate on the self development, instead of loosing all energy by getting depressed. This will turn the tide favoring the employee at later point of time.

But I would be more than happy to know about your opinions if an employee gets stuck in this situation. Please do share your thoughts, views or suggestions which can help guide the employees in this kind of situation.