HR glossary · Hiring and contracts

Job description

A job description is a written summary of a role's duties, requirements, hours, pay and reporting line, used to hire for and manage a job.

Also called: JD, position description, role description

What job description means

A job description is a document that sets out what a job is: its title, purpose, main duties, the skills and qualifications it needs, working conditions, hours, pay range and who the person reports to. It describes the job, not the person in it.

It is the base for most of your hiring. Your job posting, prescreen questions, interview questions and offer letter all come from it. Later, it helps you set expectations, run probation reviews and decide whether a request for accommodation can be met.

No province requires a small business to have a written job description. Still, writing one first saves time, because you decide what you really need before you start reading resumes.

How it works

Start with the work, not the title. List the 5 to 8 tasks that take up most of the person's time, roughly in order of importance. Add the less frequent duties after that. Then write what someone needs to do those tasks well: skills, licences, physical demands, language and any certifications.

Separate "must have" from "nice to have". Every must-have should link to a real duty. Human rights law in every province and territory protects people from being treated differently because of grounds such as age, disability, family status, religion and place of origin. A requirement that screens people out on one of those grounds, such as "must be able to lift 25 kg" or "must work Saturdays", needs to be truly needed for the job. When it is, state it plainly so applicants can tell you if they need an accommodation.

Include the facts applicants and employees ask about: where the work is done, regular hours and shifts, whether the job is full time, part time, seasonal or fixed term, and the pay or pay range. Some provinces now require pay in public job postings, so deciding the range at this stage makes the posting easier.

Common mistakes: copying a big-company description with duties nobody in your business does; asking for years of experience the job does not need; and never updating it. Review it when you hire again and when the job changes a lot.

Is it the same in every province?

No province or territory requires a written job description for a private employer. The rules that apply are the ones for postings and hiring, such as pay in job postings (Ontario, British Columbia and Prince Edward Island) and French for job offers in Quebec, so check the posting rules where you hire.

Example: A café writes its first job description

Daniel owns a 6-person café in Charlottetown. His last ad for a "barista" said "2 years' experience required" and "must be energetic". Few people applied, and the people he hired were not sure what the job involved.

This time he lists the real duties: making drinks, running the till, opening the café at 6:30 a.m. three days a week, and basic cleaning. He drops the experience requirement because he trains everyone, keeps "able to open at 6:30 a.m. on set days" as a must-have because the job needs it, and adds the pay range. Because Prince Edward Island requires the expected pay or a range in public postings, he copies that range straight into his ad.

Job descriptions in Staffkin

Staffkin has free job description templates. In the app, a job description is attached to each job and can be exported to Word.

See the job description templates

Free tools and guides for this

Questions about job description

Is a job description legally required in Canada?

No province or territory requires a private employer to have one. It is still useful, because job postings, interview questions and offer letters all depend on knowing what the job is.

What is the difference between a job description and a job posting?

A job description is the internal record of the job. A job posting is the public ad that invites people to apply, and some provinces set rules for what a posting must include, such as pay.

Should a job description include pay?

It helps to. Ontario (25 or more employees), British Columbia and Prince Edward Island require the expected pay or a range in public job postings, so deciding the range in the description keeps them consistent.

How specific should duties be?

Specific enough that a stranger could tell what the person does all day. List the main tasks first and tie every requirement to one of them.

Official sources

General information for Canadian employers, not legal advice. Rules differ by province and territory and change over time, so check with your provincial employment standards office (or the federal Labour Program if you are federally regulated) before you rely on it. See employment standards by province.

Checked against official sources on 4 November 2026.