Morgan Zimmer50106056MGI 301 Job Analysis PaperOverview of Job Analysis: Job analysis is a foundation for every aspect of Human Resources. It is a purposeful systematic process for collecting information on the important work related aspects of a job. Organizations must understand job analysis to be able to match job requirements and to efficiently maximize high-quality performance in the workplace. A job analysis identifies the tasks workers perform, the context of the position, and the job specifications, or the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics, absolutely necessary to perform the job. Job analysis is crucial, not only to the Human Resource Department, but to the managers as well. The Human Resource Department and the managers obtain detailed information about the job and its specifications, and together are then able to make intelligent hiring decisions to find the candidate who is best suited for the position. There are three choices when conducting a job analysis; the type of information obtained, the method for data collection, and the source used to collect the information. When identifying what tasks are essential for a specific job, one must defy how often each task is performed, the importance of each task, how difficult each task is, and whether or not each task can be learned on the job in a timely and efficient matter. There are two types of approaches in collecting this type of information; the task-oriented approach and the worker-oriented approach. The task-oriented approach is more specific, in that it gathers a description of the particular activities that are performed on the job and describes the characteristics of the job, such as what materials and tools that are used and so forth. However, the worker-orientedapproach is more general, in that it gathers a description of the job specifications, the knowledge,skills, abilities, and other characteristics, needed and required to perform the specific job. Knowledge refers to factual or procedural information that is necessary for successfully performing a task. A skill is an individual’s level of expertise at performing a particular task. Ability refers to the basic capacities for performing a range of activities. For example, cognitive abilities, quantitative abilities, and reasoning abilities. Other characteristics is a category that is set to incorporate any other factors that could be relevant to the specific job. For example, a person’s motivation or interests. When obtaining information for the job, it is important to include the physical activities entailed by the job and the conditions of the work environment. Including physical activities is necessary because a job may entail only sitting at a desk or a job may entail frequently lifting heavy objects. The conditions of the work environment are very important as well because the job must be performed safely and potential hazards may exist. When collecting data for a job analysis, there are a variety of ways in which to do so. For instance, a job analyst can directly observe information, there can be individual interviews, interviewing a worker or a supervisor, orthere can be subject matter expert interviews, or a questionnaire can be administered. The PAQ, Position Analysis Questionnaire, is a method to obtaining information through a questionnaire and it contains 194 items. The 194 items represent work behaviors, work conditions, and job characteristics that can be generalized across a wide variety of jobs. There are six sections of thisquestionnaire; information input, mental processes, work output, relationships with other persons, job context, and other characteristics. The PAQ measures 12 dimensions of jobs and the scores from these dimensions has been proven to be very useful in the process of job analysis.The agent that is used to collect the information for the job analysis can be one of many. It can be from a written job description, which is a detailed list of the tasks, duties, and responsibilities that a job entails. Information can also be obtained from a person performing the job, a job incumbent, or it can be obtained directly from a supervisor because both know the job well. Any of these sources provides the information needed for a job analysis. Overview of Structured Interview:A structured interview is an interview in which all of the potential candidates are asked the same questions, which are job analysis based. While the interview is in process, detailed notes are taken by the interviewer or by an observer. After each question is asked, the response israted numerically on a scoring rubric. There are two approaches to a structured interview; an experience-based approach and a situational interview approach. In an experience-based approach questions are asked about the applicants’ past behaviors which are relevant to the job. This approach is also called a behavior-based approach. A question which may be asked in this approach is “what was your response when an employee was late for work four days in a row?” A situational interview approach is completely opposite of the behavior-based approach. In a situational interview approach the applicant is asked to project what his behavior would be in thefuture. Therefore, this approach has a future-based approach. A question which may be asked in this approach would be “if you were a manager, what would you do if an employee was tardy four days in a row?” If an applicant did not have very much past experience, the interviewer could choose to take the situational interview approach and ask a future scenario question. As there are structured interviews, there are unstructured interviews. In an unstructured interview, the course of the interview is relatively unplanned. The interviewer asks the potential candidate whatever question pops in their head. The type of questions asked are random, basedon the interviewer’s intuitions or past experiences, and are casual and open-ended. The interviewer may ask “tell me about yourself” or “if you were an animal, what would you be?” Structured interviews are preferred and produce better results in comparison to unstructured interviews. Research shows that in unstructured interviews the interviewer appears to be unprepared, which triggers a negative impression upon the applicant. The type of questions asked in an unstructured interview produce low validity because they do not predict job performance. Different