Job Analysis describes the job as an activity which is necessarily to achieve the organization objectives. The basic questions which must be consider while going for the description of a job is like what the nature of job is; what type of activities to perform; who it will help to achieve the organization objectives and what type of qualifications or skills are must in order to perform a particular job.

To answer all these questions we have the process of job analysis in which we form the job description and job specification. Job description as its name indicates the description (what the job actually entails) of job, and the job specification are the required skills and qualification for performing the job. Now the question arises, where we have the use of this information?
The information we get from the job analysis can be used in different ways, some of the more commonly uses are

The history of the job analysis goes back to the age of Fredrick tailor which carefully study each and give raise to the scientific management. Same United States employees’ services, department of labor raining and development have also developed the dictionary of occupational title which defined the jobs. Throughout the history different contributions have been made in the process of job analysis. Different approaches have been developed; two of the most famous are deductive and inductive model. In deductive approach, first you collected the information about the job and then form a model which is called the job description. Same in inductive approach first a model is drawn about the job and then we collected the information about the job. In 1946 department of labor have developed a four pillars based model in order to define the job this formula consists of

These are the few jobs which must be answer through the process of job analysis. In 1972 the formula has been extended up to the five types of jobs.

A very famous approach regarding the job analysis is the position analysis questionnaire (PAQ), in PAQ we have a built in questionnaire which defined the worker activities, job oriented activities, worker oriented activities, machine, tools and equipment used, and the personnel requirement for the job. There are different dimensions of the job analysis. These are dependent on

In the level of analysis, we determined the employees’ attributes, the knowledge, skills, and abilities required by the job, and then we determined the tasks as in it what type of activities are involved in it. After this the groupings of same jobs have been made.

Job creates the linkage between the employees and the organization. So, a model has to develop to determine the relationship of job. This model is called the SYSTEMS EXCHANGE MODEL of job analysis. In vertical dimension there should be the person job relationship. The person brings his/her knowledge skill to perform the job. And the end result is the rewards and satisfaction which come after the performance of task. Same of the horizontal axis, the organization job relationship exist. The organizational brings the jobs resources needed to perform the job and ways to do the job. And the outcomes on the other end are the people, data and objects.

There are different ways for getting the information about the jobs, some of the techniques are traditional and some are modern. The most traditional way of getting the job information is to interviewing with the employees though it has many benefits, like you get instant response, and can better judge the employees feelings but on the other hand employees can started exaggerating the activities, or can get confuse and their performance can suffer with this confusion. In the same way, it is a very time consuming process when you have large number of employees. same questionnaire and survey both can be structured, pre defined formal and also can be unstructured and informal depending on the nature of job you are going to analyze.
The information you can get not only from the employees who are actually performing the job but also from the knowledgeable incumbents, supervisors, technical experts, and other deals with the incumbents of the jobs.

Beside all these stuff we can get much useful information from the organizations

Beside all these conventional procedures, there are also many credible sources to perform the process of job analysis. Like Department of Labor, Positional analysis questionnaire, comprehensive data analysis program, and O*NET. I will explain all these procedures briefly.
Department of Labor have developed a complete set of major jobs in which there is a description of each job i.e. the responsibility and duties incur with the jobs as well as the jobs specs have also been discussed here. In the same manner, the position analysis questionnaire developed by McCormick at Purdue University. The questionnaire contains 194 items called job elements. These questionnaires classify the jobs on the basis of mental activity, decision making skills, physical and mental output, and the environment of the job. The validity of this job is 0.79 out of 1.

Functional job analysis is the extension of DOL. It revolves around the data, people, and things. It helps us to determine the identification of purposes, goals and objectives. It also describes the tasks and performance standards and training contents. Same comprehensive data analysis program are also used based on the computerized generated program, which classify the jobs according to the tasks and activities to perform. Same O*NET occupational information network is also web based programs which facilitate to develop the job description and job specification in resemblance with the jobs.

Job description consists of three major components. It includes requirements, identification section, and worked performed section. All these components are there while writing any type of job description, however the difference may be in the managerial and non managerial job description may exist. In non managerial job description, the description is quite specific, the duties and responsibilities are clear. While in managerial job description, the statements are fewer specifics and more in general and broader sense exist.

In a nut shell job analysis is the basic process which provides the base to develop the job description and job specification, on the basis of which we can develop the other supporting processes like compensation system, performance appraisal and recruitment & selection process.