Career Paths – Research Specialists

Career Paths - Research Specialists Heading link

The Career Paths framework for the Research Specialist job family depicts the steps for promotional progression based on defined increases in job characteristics, research activities, communication skills and the knowledge required to perform the job successfully. Follow the procedures and use the documents below to determine how your position is best classified

Use the Career Path levels documents to assist you in accurately classifying the level of your Research position. Once selected, the standard job description can be submitted and used in the hiring process.

The standard job descriptions are meant to provide a broad perspective of the work and are not intended to be inclusive of all duties.The specialized needs or requirements of each position should be detailed in a separate document.

Procedures to determine the correct classification Heading link

1. Select the correct Career Path levels document – Natural Sciences or Social Sciences.

2. Review the duties of your position and compare them to the information for each level to determine which one best fits your position.

3. Select the level that best describes the work performed. Consider where the majority of your position’s responsibilities fall. Note that the match will not be exact and that it is expected that some individual characteristics and activities will fall into different levels. However, most should be in one level that will serve as best fit.

4. If the position’s duties are split closely between two levels, select the level that aligns with the primary reason the job exists.

5. Use and submit the standard job description for that level in the hiring process.

6. For civil service classifications (Research Technologist I and II in the Natural Sciences levels document) standard job descriptions were not developed. Each department is required to write their own job description based on the specific duties and responsibilities of that position.