Documents · Glossary

What is a position description?

A position description is the document setting out what a role exists to do: its purpose, where it sits in the organisation, its main duties, and the skills and experience required. Australian public sector and larger employers use the term; elsewhere the same document is called a job description.

It is written once during recruitment and then relied on for years, in performance reviews, in restructures and occasionally in a dismissal. Very few organisations revisit it as often as they use it.

Indunil Asanka · Co-founder

5 min read · Published 12 September 2026

Three documents about one job, and what each one is for
	Position description	Job advertisement	Employment contract
Written for	Applicants, the manager and the employee	Candidates who have not applied yet	The employee and the employer
Length	One to three pages	A few hundred words	Several pages
Contains pay	A classification or a range	Sometimes a range	Yes, the actual rate
Legally binding	Not usually on its own	No	Yes
Used after hiring	Constantly, in reviews and planning	No	Whenever a term is in question
Updated when	The role changes	Every time the role is advertised	By agreed variation

Purpose before duties

The weakest position descriptions open with a list of tasks, which tells a reader what somebody does and not why the role exists. A single paragraph naming the purpose, the contribution the role makes and who it serves, changes how everything below it reads and makes the document useful for judging priorities when the work exceeds the hours. Then group the duties into four to six responsibility areas rather than listing twenty tasks, and state the outcome expected in each. Outcomes let a manager and an employee agree whether the role is being performed without arguing about activity. A list of tasks invites the answer that every task was completed, which is not the same thing.

Selection criteria, essential and desirable

The criteria section does the work in recruitment and should be written as things that can actually be assessed. Essential means a candidate without it cannot do the job and will not be shortlisted, which is a higher bar than most drafts apply: every desirable quality migrates into the essential list and the pool shrinks for no good reason. Keep essential criteria to the genuine minimum, usually four to six, and put the rest in desirable. Avoid proxies that exclude good candidates without measuring anything, such as a degree requirement for work that does not need one, or a stated number of years where demonstrated capability is what matters.

Position description against job advertisement

They have different audiences and different jobs, and using one as the other produces a poor version of both. The advertisement is marketing: it has to interest somebody who has not applied yet, so it leads with what is interesting about the role and the organisation, and it is short. The position description is reference material: it is read by the shortlisted candidate preparing for an interview, by the panel assessing against criteria, and by the employee and manager afterwards. Posting a two page description as an advertisement suppresses applications. Writing an advertisement with no description behind it leaves the panel with nothing consistent to assess against.

Where the contract takes over

A position description describes the work. The employment contract creates the obligations: the rate of pay, the hours, the classification under an award or agreement, leave, notice, probation, confidentiality and anything else that binds. The description is usually referred to in the contract rather than attached to it, which is deliberate, because duties change and nobody wants a variation to the contract every time a task moves. That structure only works if the contract says duties may be varied reasonably within the scope of the role. Where the description is attached and incorporated, changing it becomes a contractual matter, which is worth knowing before drafting it that way.

Why keeping it current matters

An out of date description causes problems in three places. In recruitment, it attracts candidates for a job that no longer exists. In performance management, a warning about a duty the description does not mention invites the answer that it was never part of the role. And in a restructure or redundancy, the description is the evidence of what the position was, which is what determines whether a role genuinely no longer exists or has simply been renamed. Reviewing it at each performance conversation, rather than only when somebody leaves, takes ten minutes and keeps all three uses honest.

The Australian terminology, and what is behind it

Public sector employers in Australia generally say position description and organise roles by classification level, with capability frameworks describing what is expected at each level. Private employers more often say job description and sometimes role profile. The content is the same: purpose, reporting line, responsibilities, criteria, conditions. Where the word choice does carry information is in what sits around the document. A public sector description usually attaches to a published classification with a defined salary band and a capability framework, which means the reader can see how the role compares to others. A private job description usually stands alone, and the comparison has to be made some other way.

Questions people ask

Is a position description legally binding?

Not usually on its own, because it describes work rather than creating obligations. It becomes contractually significant if the employment contract attaches and incorporates it, which is worth avoiding for exactly that reason. Even unattached, it is evidence of what the role involved, and it is read that way in disputes about duties and redundancy.

Who should write it?

The manager who owns the role, with input from whoever is doing it now and a check against the award classification. Written purely by a human resources team it describes a generic role; written purely by the manager it often omits the conditions and criteria. The person currently in the job usually knows which duties matter and which appear on the page and never happen.

How long should it be?

One to three pages. Beyond that it becomes a procedure manual that nobody reads, and the detail it adds is the detail most likely to be out of date. If a role genuinely needs extensive process documentation, keep that separately as a work instruction that can be updated without revisiting the description.

Should it include a salary?

A classification level or a range is more useful and more durable than a figure, because it survives annual increases. In the public sector the classification is usually published and does the work. In the private sector including a band helps applicants self select, which saves everybody time, even though many employers still prefer not to.

Can duties be changed without rewriting it?

Reasonable changes within the scope of the role generally can be, provided the contract allows it and the change does not amount to a different job. A material change, such as adding supervision of a team or moving to a different function, deserves a rewritten description and a conversation, and may need agreement depending on the contract and the award.

What about checks and requirements?

State them, since they affect who can apply and when they can start. A working with children check, a police check, a driver licence, a qualification registration or a right to work requirement all belong in the document, with a note on whether the employer arranges or reimburses them. Discovering a mandatory check after an offer has been made is a common and avoidable delay.

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Sources

Written and checked by the OneCraft team. Last checked 12 September 2026.