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Business Plan Consultant Job Description Template

A business plan consultant provides a financial, marketing, and operational roadmap to align stakeholders and help your business achieve its goals.

Trusted by leading brands and startups

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Business plans are the North Star for early-stage businesses, used as a reference point when making major business decisions, collateral when securing a new fundraising round, and as an introduction to the business and its goals when recruiting new key hires.

While business plan templates can be found online, these ready-made guides can drive entrepreneurs and their businesses away from what they actually need to achieve. A top business plan consultant will construct a custom plan that takes into account the specifics of your business, or review and pressure-test an existing plan while taking into account the latest industry trends.

Business Plan Consultant - Job Description and Ad Template

Copy this template, and modify it as your own:

Company Introduction

{{Write a short and catchy paragraph about your company. Provide information about the company’s culture, perks, and benefits. Mention office hours, remote working possibilities, and anything else that makes your company interesting.}}

Job Description

A business plan consultant provides strategic direction by {{creating or methodically pressure-testing and refining}} a company’s business plan, using an understanding of the company’s core operations, competitive advantages, and goals to provide direction on how to structure, run, and grow the business.

The ideal candidate will have some experience in running or advising early stage businesses, combining the analytical abilities of a CFA charterholder with the broad vision of a CEO to provide a roadmap to growth.

Responsibilities

• Develop an understanding of the existing business (including products/services, customers, competitors, the overall market and trends) through careful research and analysis
• Understand how major stakeholders are thinking about near-term growth, generally and in reference to specific growth initiatives, through interviews with these stakeholders
• Build a detailed financial analysis showing all of the assumptions, drivers, and financial statements for the next 3 - 5 years, accounting for a conservative, base, and aggressive case
• Conduct a total addressable market analysis for the business’ core market, assess major industry trends affecting the business, and describe what impact these trends may have on the business
• Review research reports and conduct primary research to hone in on ideal buyer type and assess customer demand for the company’s existing products and services
• Map out direct and indirect competitors, including potential future competitors, for existing and potential revenue channels
• Define a go-to-market strategy, including testing out potential marketing channels (if applicable)
• Review compensation plans and organizational structure to align incentives and ensure the health of the organization in the long-run

Skills and Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in finance, operations, research, statistics, math, economics, or related analytical discipline preferred
• Financial management experience with planning, forecasting, and business analysis; prior experience as an advisor to or executive at an early-stage company a plus
• Advanced Excel proficiency. 3+ years of practical experience of using Excel for building and maintaining financial models
• Proficiency with analytical and presentation tools {{(Excel pivot tables, SQL queries, graphing, PowerPoint)}}
• Experience within {{preferred industry}}
• A natural curiosity and a “big picture” mentality
• Experience conducting market research, including analyzing and synthesizing research reports and conducting primary research
• An understanding of marketing channels and go-to-market strategies
• Excellent spoken and written communication; comfort reaching out to and interviewing the company’s management, employees, and customer base

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Business Plan Consultants: Who They Are and How They Create Value

How to hire business plan consultants.

Business plan consultants have the industry knowledge and expertise to develop a business plan that maximizes your company’s potential and attracts investors. This guide to hiring business plan experts offers insight into best practices, skill requirements, job description tips, and interview questions and answers to help you identify the best candidate for your needs.

Hire a Top Business Plan Consultant Now

Toptal is a marketplace for top business plan consultants and experts. Top companies and startups hire freelance business plan consultants from Toptal for their mission critical projects.

Aleksey N. Krylov, CFA

Aleksey served in CFO roles of public and VC-backed private companies. As an investor, he contributed to 25+ private equity deals that have deployed $500 million. He has advised 50+ clients on raising $1.6 billion in equity in the healthcare, consumer, media, software, energy, and industrial sectors. Aleksey enjoys working with officers of early-stage and mature small-cap firms, and he freelances because it exposes him to a wide range of companies.

Josh Chapman

Josh is an investment banker turned VC who lives in Denver, CO. At Morgan Stanley, he covered the world's top hedge funds and sold over $5 billion in IPOs for companies like Alibaba, LendingClub, GrubHub, and more. He also has experience in M&A, startup fundraising, and as a founder. Currently, Josh is one of the managing partners of Konvoy Ventures, a VC firm focused on esports and video gaming.

Gary Calnan

Gary is a serial entrepreneur with CEO and CFO experience. Before co-founding an aerospace startup in 2017, Gary was the director of finance at a $120 million revenue SaaS company, where he was responsible for the financial management of multiple departments and supported three mergers. Gary leverages his unique blend of finance and entrepreneurial experience across early and growth-stage businesses to add value to Toptal clients.

Marc Howland

Marc is a Harvard Business School graduate with honors, a former investment banker from Goldman Sachs, and private equity investor at The Carlyle Group. He has helped execute more than $70 billion worth of global M&A and financing transactions in the tech, media, telecom, infrastructure and sports facility finance markets. Marc enjoys freelancing to contribute his knowledge and skills to others while working on his own early-stage ventures.

Travis Borden

Travis was part of the founding team at Moelis & Co., a $2.5 billion global investment bank, and has 18 years of experience advising clients on $40+ billion of M&A, capital raising, and restructuring transactions. In 2015, he founded a socially responsible advisory firm, Keene Advisors, named "Best for the World" 2017-2019. Travis joined Toptal to expand his network and share his expertise advising companies from startups to Fortune 500 firms.

Andy Vietor

Andy was recognized twice as an All-Star Analyst by the Wall Street Journal. He has been a strategist, operating executive, financier, and top-ranked industry analyst. As a freelancer, Andy advises a range of companies—from early-stage and middle-market to large caps—delivering customized solutions including effective investor presentations, dynamic financial models, and project finance structuring.

Bertrand Deleuse

Bertrand is a 25-year finance veteran with a true 360 experience, honed as an investment banker, venture advisor, project developer, CFO, and expert witness consultant in international arbitrations. He has advised and partnered on over 100 transactions and investment initiatives totaling over $16 billion. Bertrand is a seasoned problem solver and decision-maker with expert facilitation skills. Bertrand advises on M&A, corporate development, venture growth, project development, and financing.

Olivia Passoni

Olivia has over a decade of advisory experience, specializing in valuation, financial and business planning, M&A, capital raising, and due diligence. She has advised business owners globally on financial planning and strategy optimization during the fundraising and exit process. Olivia also works with investors for portfolio valuation work, the development of fund models, and due diligence. She is a Certified Valuation Analyst and is specialized in early-stage valuations.

Andrew Grigolyunovich, CFA, CFM

Andrew ranked fifth at the 2017 Financial Modeling World Championships. He served as CFO for Latvia’s leading retailer for seven years, navigating the firm through the global financial crisis and executing a turnaround that led to profitability and international expansion. He went on to freelance consulting, growing his client base to 250+ in 17 countries. Andrew joined Toptal to work with clients on FP&A, financial modeling, and M&A.

Discover More Business Plan Consultants in the Toptal Network

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How to Write a Job Description for a Business Plan [Sample Template]

Are you in the process of writing the job description section of your business plan? Or you need a sample job description template? Then I advice you read on. Here, you drive home the point that not only do you know what you are doing or where you are going, but that you have the right mix of talent and experience to actually make it all happen.

You will need to highlight key members of your management team ( which may be only you for the time being ) as well as external service providers such as lawyers, accountants, and contract professionals. Also, include your advisors or board members ( if you have any ) as well as the positions you will be looking to hire in the near future.

While planning your business, one of the most important steps that you shouldn’t skip is writing a job description for every position that you are planning to hire an employee for. This may not be important if you have no plans to hire employees.

A job description is an important tool for hiring and managing your employees, as it helps them understand their roles and responsibilities even before they start working with you. It tells them what they need to do, how they need to do it, and what they will be held accountable for as soon as they assume their duties. It also reveal to investors who-is-who in your proposed or established business. In addition, a job description does the following:

4 Benefits of a Job Description in a Business Plan

• It helps you attract the right employees
• It gives a detailed description of an employee’s job or position
• It serves as a basis for outlining performance expectations, career advancement, job training, and job evaluation
• It provides a reference point for compensation decisions as well as unfair hiring practices

Writing a Job Description for a Business Plan – Sample Template

A job description should be clearly written, accurate, and very practical. It must effectively define your needs as well as what you expect from your employees. To write a good job description, you should start by analyzing the important facts about a job, such as:

The individual tasks involved

What are the tasks that the employee must complete on a periodic basis? Outline daily tasks, weekly tasks, monthly tasks, and quarterly tasks required of the employee. To be practical enough, outline the duration and requirements of each task as well.

The methods for completing each task

If the tasks outlined can be handled using more than one method, outline which methods you can afford to provide your employee (but for optimal employee efficiency, make provisions for the best method available).

The purpose and responsibilities of the job

Outline how the role played by the chosen candidate would contribute to the business. Also, outline what the employee would be held accountable for.

The relationship of the job to other jobs

Outline how the chosen employee would work with other employees within the company.

Qualifications needed for the job

Outline the relevant qualifications that each candidate must have. Also state the number of years for which the candidate must have gained working experience in the same position.

The Outline of a Job Description

A job description typically includes the following:

• Job objective or overall purpose statement
• Brief of the general nature and level of the job
• Detailed description of the wide scope of the position
• List of duties or tasks to be performed that are critical to success
• Key functional and relational responsibilities (listed in order of significance)
• Description of the relationships and roles within the company, including the supervisory roles, subordinating roles, and other working relationships

In addition to the above listed, the following items may be added to the job description if deemed necessary:

• Job requirements, standards, and specifications
• Job location where the work will be performed
• Equipments available to be used for the job
• Salary range

5 Tips to Note When Writing a Job Description

• Always use verbs in the present tense.
• For the purpose of clarity and adding meaning, use explanatory sentences telling why, how, where, or how often whenever necessary.
• Delete any unnecessary articles such as “ a ”, “ an ”, “ the ” or other stop words to make the description easy to read and understand.
• Be unbiased in your use of pronouns. Use the “ he/she ” approach or construct your sentences in such a way that you won’t have to use pronouns.
• Avoid the use of adverbs or adjectives that are subject to additional explanation and interpretation; such as some, complex, several, occasional, frequently, etc. Rather than use them, use clear sentences that define your intent.

What to Avoid When Writing a Job Description

Don’t be rigid with your job description, as this may make you miss out on many diligent employees who can become great assets to your business. Jobs are subject to change for personal improvement, organizational development, and evolution of new technologies. A flexible job description encourages employees to grow within their position and contribute over time to the growth and development of your business.

In conclusion , a well-written job description can make all the difference between a successful business that grows over the years and one that remains on the same spot after several years. The right employees, if chosen for your business, can help propel your business to great heights within a short period. Only with a good job description can you hire such.

• Go to Chapter 8 Part E: Planning your Business Legal Structure

More on Business Plans

Business Plan Template for Job Description

• Great for beginners
• Ready-to-use, fully customizable Subcategory
• Get started in seconds

Finding the right talent for your business is crucial, but creating job descriptions can be a time-consuming task. That's where ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Job Description comes in!

This template is designed to help small to medium-sized businesses and startups streamline the hiring process by providing a structured format for outlining roles, responsibilities, and qualifications. With ClickUp's template, you can:

• Easily create comprehensive job descriptions that attract the right candidates
• Ensure clarity and consistency in defining job expectations
• Streamline the hiring process by having all the necessary information in one place

Don't waste time writing job descriptions from scratch. Use ClickUp's Business Plan Template for Job Description and find the perfect fit for your team today!

Business Plan Template for Job Description Benefits

Creating a solid business plan template for job descriptions can offer numerous benefits to your organization, including:

• Streamlining the hiring process by clearly outlining the roles, responsibilities, and qualifications required for each position
• Ensuring consistency and uniformity in job descriptions across the organization, promoting clarity and reducing ambiguity
• Facilitating effective communication between hiring managers and potential candidates by providing a comprehensive overview of job expectations
• Supporting strategic workforce planning by identifying skill gaps and future hiring needs based on the job descriptions
• Promoting fairness and transparency in the hiring process by providing a standardized framework for evaluating candidates.

Main Elements of Job Description Business Plan Template

When it comes to creating job descriptions for your business, ClickUp’s Business Plan Template has got you covered. Here are the key elements of this template:

• Custom Statuses: Keep track of the progress of each job description with statuses like Complete, In Progress, Needs Revision, and To Do.
• Custom Fields: Add important details to each job description using custom fields like Reference, Approved, and Section, making it easy to organize and filter your job descriptions.
• Custom Views: Access different views to manage your job descriptions effectively. Use the Topics view to focus on specific areas, the Status view to track the progress, the Timeline view to visualize the timeline of each job description, the Business Plan view to see the big picture, and the Getting Started Guide to quickly onboard new team members.

With ClickUp's Business Plan Template, creating and managing job descriptions has never been easier. Stay organized and streamline your hiring process with these powerful features.

How To Use Business Plan Template for Job Description

When it comes to creating a job description for your business plan, using a template can save you time and ensure that you cover all the necessary details. Here are six steps to help you effectively use the Business Plan Template for Job Description in ClickUp:

1. Understand the role

Before you start writing the job description, take the time to fully understand the role you are hiring for. Consider the specific responsibilities, skills, qualifications, and experience required for the position. This will help you create a targeted and accurate job description.

Use a Doc in ClickUp to outline the key responsibilities, skills, and qualifications for the role.

2. Start with a strong introduction

Begin the job description with an engaging introduction that provides an overview of the position and your company. This will capture the attention of potential candidates and give them a sense of what to expect.

Use custom fields in ClickUp to include key details about your company, such as mission, values, and culture.

3. Outline the responsibilities

Clearly outline the main responsibilities and tasks that the candidate will be responsible for. Be specific and provide enough detail to give candidates a clear understanding of what the role entails.

Create tasks in ClickUp to list and prioritize the responsibilities for the position.

4. Define the required qualifications

Next, list the qualifications, skills, and experience necessary for the role. This can include educational requirements, certifications, specific technical skills, and any other relevant qualifications that are essential for success in the position.

Use custom fields in ClickUp to track the required qualifications and make sure they are clearly communicated.

5. Highlight the benefits and perks

To attract top talent, it's important to showcase the benefits and perks of working for your company. This can include competitive salary, flexible work hours, professional development opportunities, and any other unique benefits your company offers.

Use a Table view in ClickUp to create a visually appealing list of benefits and perks.

6. Include application instructions

Finally, provide clear instructions on how to apply for the position. This can include details on submitting a resume, cover letter, and any other required application materials. Also, specify the deadline for applications and any additional steps in the hiring process.

Use a Doc in ClickUp to provide step-by-step application instructions and include any relevant links or contact information.

By following these six steps and using the Business Plan Template for Job Description in ClickUp, you'll be on your way to creating a comprehensive and compelling job description that attracts the right candidates for your business.

Get Started with ClickUp’s Business Plan Template for Job Description

Small to medium-sized businesses and startups can use the Business Plan Template for Job Description in ClickUp to streamline the hiring process and create clear job expectations.

First, hit “Add Template” to sign up for ClickUp and add the template to your Workspace. Make sure you designate which Space or location in your Workspace you’d like this template applied.

Next, invite relevant members or guests to your Workspace to start collaborating.

Now you can take advantage of the full potential of this template to create comprehensive job descriptions:

• Use the Topics View to organize job descriptions by department or position
• The Status View will help you track the progress of each job description, with statuses like Complete, In Progress, Needs Revision, and To Do
• The Timeline View allows you to visualize the hiring process and set realistic deadlines for each job description
• The Business Plan View provides an overview of all job descriptions and their alignment with the company's goals
• The Getting Started Guide View offers a step-by-step guide on how to use the template effectively
• Customize the Reference, Approved, and Section custom fields to add relevant information and streamline the hiring process
• Update statuses and custom fields as you progress through each job description to keep the team informed and ensure a smooth hiring process
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What Does a Business Planning Manager Do?

Find out what a Business Planning Manager does, how to get this job, salary information, and what it takes to succeed as a Business Planning Manager.

The Business Planning Manager plays a strategic role in steering the company’s direction through comprehensive market analysis, forecasting, and resource allocation. This position involves synthesizing complex data into actionable strategies that align with the company’s long-term goals and financial objectives. By closely monitoring industry trends and evaluating business performance, the Business Planning Manager ensures that the organization remains agile and responsive to changing market demands. Collaboration with various departments to develop and implement plans that enhance operational efficiency and profitability is also a significant aspect of the role. Through a balanced approach to risk management and opportunity identification, the Business Planning Manager supports the company in maintaining a competitive edge and achieving sustainable growth.

Business Planning Manager Job Duties

• Develop and implement comprehensive business plans to facilitate achievement by planning cost-effective operations and market development activities.
• Analyze and forecast financial, economic, and other data to provide accurate and timely information for strategic and operational decisions.
• Coordinate cross-functional teams to develop business strategies and objectives, ensuring alignment with corporate goals.
• Evaluate competitive market strategies through analysis of related product, market, or share trends.
• Identify and drive initiatives to improve operational efficiency, including process improvements, cost reduction, and systems enhancements.
• Facilitate communication and collaboration among departments to ensure that business planning and strategies are aligned with company-wide goals.
• Oversee the preparation of operational and risk reports for management analysis.
• Spearhead the development of new business opportunities, including expansion, mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships.

Business Planning Manager Salary & Outlook

Factors affecting a Business Planning Manager’s salary include industry sector, company size, years of experience, and specific skills in strategic planning, financial modeling, and market analysis. Performance outcomes and the ability to influence business growth also significantly impact compensation.

• Median Annual Salary: $110,250 ($53/hour)
• Top 10% Annual Salary: $152,000 ($73.08/hour)

The employment of business planning managers is expected to grow faster than average over the next decade.

This growth is driven by the increasing complexity of global markets, the need for strategic planning in competitive environments, and the demand for innovation in product and service development. Business Planning Managers are pivotal in navigating these challenges, making their role more critical than ever.

Business Planning Manager Job Requirements

Education: A Business Planning Manager typically holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration, Finance, or a related field. Coursework often includes strategic management, financial analysis, market research, and organizational behavior. Advanced degrees like an MBA can enhance prospects, focusing on leadership, advanced strategic planning, and international business. Specialized courses in data analysis, project management, and economics are also beneficial, equipping candidates with the necessary skills to excel in developing and implementing business strategies.

Experience: Business Planning Managers typically come from diverse experience backgrounds, with a significant portion having substantial experience in strategic planning, financial analysis, and project management. Many have progressed through roles that required increasing responsibility in business strategy and operations. On-the-job training is common, often through mentorship or rotational programs within a company, allowing for hands-on experience in different business units. Training programs focusing on leadership, data analysis, and market research are also valuable, equipping candidates with the skills to lead cross-functional teams and drive business growth. Successful candidates often demonstrate a blend of practical experience in business planning and strategic initiatives, coupled with formal training programs that enhance their analytical and leadership capabilities.

Certifications & Licenses: Certifications and licenses are not typically required for the role of Business Planning Manager.

Business Planning Manager Skills

Strategic Forecasting: Leveraging data-driven insights, a Business Planning Manager predicts market trends to develop strategies that align with organizational goals. This involves synthesizing diverse information sources to anticipate challenges and opportunities, keeping the company agile and competitive.

Market Analysis: Through the meticulous examination of trends, customer behaviors, and competitor activities, Business Planning Managers can forecast market demands and pinpoint opportunities or threats. This skill hinges on thorough data collection and interpretation to inform strategic decisions.

Financial Modeling: Business Planning Managers create detailed, predictive models of a company’s financial future to forecast revenue, assess risk, and efficiently allocate resources. This requires a solid grasp of accounting principles, spreadsheet software proficiency, and the ability to interpret market trends for data-driven strategic planning.

Risk Management: By identifying potential threats and developing strategies to mitigate them, Business Planning Managers protect the organization’s interests and ensure its long-term sustainability. Analyzing market trends, financial forecasts, and operational vulnerabilities is crucial for preemptively addressing challenges.

Stakeholder Engagement: Building and maintaining strong relationships with investors, partners, and internal teams is critical for aligning business strategies and meeting project milestones. This skill ensures smoother project execution and fosters an environment of trust and mutual respect.

Performance Optimization: Data-driven insights and lean methodologies are used to streamline operations, reduce waste, and boost business efficiency. Analyzing performance metrics, identifying bottlenecks, and implementing strategic interventions are key for sustained organizational improvement.

Business Planning Manager Work Environment

A Business Planning Manager typically operates within a structured office environment, where the workspace is designed to foster both concentration and collaboration. The setup usually includes personal computers, advanced planning software, and access to data analytics tools, essential for strategic decision-making and forecasting.

Work hours might extend beyond the traditional 9-to-5, especially during critical planning phases, though many organizations offer flexibility to accommodate work-life balance. The dress code tends to align with corporate standards, leaning towards business casual or formal, depending on the company’s culture and external meeting requirements.

The role demands frequent interaction with team members, stakeholders, and departments, necessitating strong communication channels and a cooperative atmosphere. Travel may be required for industry events or company-wide meetings, adding variety to the routine.

Professional development opportunities are often available, encouraging continuous learning and advancement in strategic planning methodologies and leadership skills. This role thrives in a setting that values analytical thinking, adaptability, and collaborative problem-solving.

Advancement Prospects

A Business Planning Manager can ascend to higher strategic roles within an organization, such as Director of Strategy or Chief Operations Officer (COO), by demonstrating exceptional analytical, leadership, and decision-making skills. Success in this career path hinges on the ability to drive business growth and efficiency through innovative planning and execution.

To achieve these advancements, a Business Planning Manager should focus on spearheading high-impact projects and initiatives that align with the company’s long-term goals. Gaining experience in cross-functional team leadership and developing a deep understanding of the industry’s competitive landscape are crucial.

Building a track record of successful business plans and strategies that have significantly contributed to the company’s profitability and market position will set a solid foundation for moving into top executive roles. Engaging in high-level decision-making processes and demonstrating a keen insight into market trends and business opportunities are essential steps toward career progression in this field.

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How to Write Your First Job Description

Candice Landau

9 min. read

Updated October 25, 2023

Whether you’re hiring your best friend, or someone you’ve never met before, it’s important to make sure you’ve written a job description.

A good job description isn’t simply a list of to-do’s, but rather a guide, something that will benefit both you and the employee.

The best job descriptions benefit both employer and employee.

If you’ve taken the time to think it through and write it well, your employee will have a clear idea of what is expected of them, and will therefore be able to do the best work possible. And you will be able to measure their performance and hold them accountable for work completed.

If you aren’t at the hiring stage yet, take the time now to start thinking about the type of person you may want to hire in the future. Your new employee’s values will have a big impact on your company, especially if you’re small.

It’s all about first impressions

There’s another benefit to spending a good amount of time writing job descriptions: You will have a better chance of enticing the right candidates to apply.

Consider: If you require your employees to have a master’s degree, you’re probably going to cut out a whole chunk of the talent pool. If that’s a must in your line of business, that’s fine.

But, what if you’re looking for a people-person, someone who can answer the phone and troubleshoot customer problems? In that case, a master’s degree probably isn’t going to mean much. You’ll want to hire someone with the right attitude—someone with compassion. Someone who can hop on the phone and do what an introverted computer scientist can’t.

The question is: How do you get all of this across in what is likely to be a single page of text?

• The 3 essential parts of a good job description

The best way to think of writing a job description is like you might a high school or college essay:

• First, you’re going to want to do your research. What should you include in the description? What does your competition include?
• Next you’re going to draft your outline. This is a good time to make a bullet list; include the duties you want the employee to fulfill, required qualifications if you have them, and any performance standards you’d like the employee to meet.
• And last, you’re going to tie it all together. Make sure that your business values are reflected in your tone of voice, that you’ve shared a sense of company culture with your applicants via the style, and that you’ve recorded all the important nitty-gritty details.

Let’s break it down a little further and talk about what you’re going to want to cover:

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• 1. Specific details of the position

A good title: A good title is relevant to your industry and to “the times.” If you’re looking to hire a marketer, should you advertise for a digital marketing executive, a content marketer, or an internet marketing manager? Well, this truly depends on where in the world you’re located, on what is popular at the moment, and on the information you need to convey.

Avoid titles that only have meaning internally; “Business Representative III” doesn’t mean anything to an outsider. It’s better to opt for a title like “Business Development Manager.”

It’s also a good opportunity to get your company culture across. For example, might you convey more or prompt a different audience to apply by hiring a “Happiness Manager” instead of a “Customer Service Representative”?

You may have to do a bit of research first.

A short summary of the job: The keyword here is short. You will want to give potential candidates an overview of the key responsibilities and the purpose of the position. Is this a full-time position? Is it part-time? Is it an internship? Be clear!

A brief overview of the company: In one to three sentences, say who your company is, what your goal is, and what you’ve achieved. You’ll want to strike a balance between honesty and marketing here. Yes, you want to paint a good picture so good applicants will apply; no you do not want to lie about how big your company is, how much you’ve achieved, or what you’ve done.

Skills, qualifications, or certifications required:  Are there any industry, state, or other legal certifications your employee needs? For example, a bartender will need a license in order to serve drinks. List both the required and the preferred qualifications. This will help sort the wheat from the chaff.

Manager and supervisor information:  Who will the new hire be reporting to? What department will they work within? This information isn’t always necessary, but can help to paint a more complete picture, ensuring there are no surprises for the new candidate, and no issues you have to work through.

Location details:  This doesn’t have to be a stand-alone section in its own right, but it’s worth clarifying some of the details to avoid any potential confusion. Where is the position located? Is it remote work? Is it a nine-to-five job? Will any travel be required and if so, does the employee need to have a driver’s license or their own car?

Salary:  It’s ideal to include the salary or the salary range within the job description. This is also a good place to include any benefits. Some employees opt for a slightly lower salary than industry standard, but then have great benefits. If you have space, include the benefits, number of vacation days, and any other perks.

• 2. Duties the candidate will be expected to perform

This section is arguably the most important part of the job description, as the duties detail exactly what the candidate should be able to do, and what they will be doing in this role on a daily basis.

They will also reveal more information about the level of responsibility the employee will have, the scope of the work, and its complexity. This should help weed out those who can’t perform all of the duties you require of them.

If you’re as of yet unsure about how to come up with a list of duties, but broadly speaking know the role you need to fill, here are a couple of things you can do to help you think it through:

Exercise 1: Brainstorm a list of all of those duties that are taking up a lot of your time, or taking away from something more important you could be doing. For example, are you answering all the customer phone calls, when really you’d be getting a better ROI going out to meet people? Think of all those things you could delegate. Jot them down. While you may not be able to include all of these duties in one job description, many of them probably can be tied together to fit under one title.

Exercise 2: Go back to your vision or your goals. What things do you need to be able to do competently in order to get you where you want to go? List out those duties. Now, work backward. What role should that person be able to fulfill?

When you’re listing out duties, try to make them as “active” as possible. Instead of writing a broad list of general duties like “customer service,” “writing skills,” and so on, make the duties more descriptive.

This will prompt you to think more deeply about the type of help you need, and will give the candidate a better idea of what you’re looking for.

A more explanatory list of duties might be, “answer incoming telephone calls, liaise with suppliers and order new stock, write press releases, and maintain the company’s social media profiles.” Immediately, you have a better idea of what the job will entail.

You could even frame the duties in a more story-like fashion. Consider going down the route of, “A typical day in the life of [insert job title here] will include [a list of the duties].”

• 3. Performance standards

A job description is often used as a means to an end: to fill an open position.

In reality, it’s a lot more than that. It’s an opportunity for the employer to lay out his or her expectations and is the first document that can be used as a basis from which to measure performance.

Consider: In six months time, when your employee asks you for a raise, how will you know whether or not to give them one?

If they’ve done everything required of them and gone above and beyond, provided there are no financial or cash flow issues, maybe you will want to give them a raise to reward their efforts and to encourage them to keep doing great things.

But, if they’ve not performed well enough, this is a great time to use the job description to explain why you won’t be giving them a raise or promoting them.

Start thinking about the job description as a training tool. What knowledge, skills, and abilities does your employee need to have in order to complete all of their duties to the best of their abilities? If they don’t yet have these skills, the job description will detail what they need to work toward, and will give you something to use when it comes time to evaluate their performance.

For the sake of clarity, separate this section into a list of its own. For example:

Performance standards

• All customer-facing, written communication is expected to be error-free and grammatically correct
• Knowledge of QuickBooks accounting system is essential
• Work well and collaborate with team members

What’s next?

If you’re still not sure about where to start, a great first step is simply to get out there and start reading similar job descriptions for the position you want to fill.

Search LinkedIn, check out popular job sites like Monster and Indeed, and take a peek at competitor’s sites or other similar business sites perhaps in neighboring states. You could even try Glassdoor.com to find out what salaries people in your area are paying for a similar position.

Once you feel you’ve got a good sense of what to include and how to write the description, follow that “essay format” we recommended earlier. Write your skeleton framework, then fill in all the details.

Clarify your ideas and understand how to start your business with LivePlan

Candice Landau is a marketing consultant with a background in web design and copywriting. She specializes in content strategy, copywriting, website design, and digital marketing for a wide-range of clients including digital marketing agencies and nonprofits.

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How to Write a Scope of Work (Examples & Templates Included)

What Is a Scope of Work?

A scope of work document is an agreement on the work you’re going to perform on the project. The scope of work in project management  includes deliverables, a timeline, milestones and reports. Let’s look closer at each of these elements below.

What Should Be Included in a Scope of Work Document?

Here’s an overview of the main components of a scope of work. You can add or remove some of these elements to better adjust to your project stakeholders’ requirements.

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Scope Of Work Template

Use this free Scope Of Work Template for Word to manage your projects better.

Project Deliverables

This is what your project delivers. Whether it’s a product or a service, it’s the reason you’re executing the project for your customer, stakeholder or sponsor. Whatever that deliverable is, and it can be some sort of document or report, software, product, build (or all of the above), you need to clearly identify each item here. Creating a work breakdown structure can help with this step. Also, make sure there’s an acceptance criterion for the project deliverables, such as quality standards or functional requirements.

Project Timeline

Think of a timeline as a road leading from the start of a project to its end. It’s a section of the document that delineates the major phases across the schedule of the project’s duration. It should also mark the points in the project when your deliverables are ready. As you can guess, it’s essential to scope out the overall plan of any project. This is best presented visually, like a rolled-up Gantt chart plan, so the stakeholders can see the high-level timeline.

Project Milestones

Projects can be long and complex, which is why they’re laid out over a timeline and broken down into more manageable parts called tasks. Larger phases of the project are marked by what’s called a milestone . It’s a way to help you monitor the progress of the project to ensure it’s adhering to your planned schedule. Define your key milestones on a timeline in the scope of work document, including project kickoffs, meetings, hand-offs, etc.

Project Reports

You’ll be generating reports throughout the project, delivered to either your team or customer, stakeholder or sponsor. These can include status reports , progress reports, variance reports and more. They’re a formal record of the progress of your project, but they’re also a means of communication beyond whether the project’s on schedule or not.

Depending on how you customize reports , there’s a wealth of data that can serve a number of different audiences. Define how you’ll be reporting on the project and when the stakeholders can be expecting them and from whom.

How to Write a Scope of Work

Now that we’ve listed the elements of a scope of work document, let’s go through the step-by-step process of writing one. These steps can help you create a scope of work for different industries such as construction or manufacturing.

• Define the project goals: Before writing a scope of work, you should define what project goals will be accomplished through the execution of the project tasks that’ll be included in your scope of work.
• Use a work breakdown structure to identify project tasks: The first step when writing a scope of work is to identify all your project tasks. This is done by using a work breakdown structure (WBS), a project management tool that lets you break down projects and work packages into individual tasks, so you can better plan and schedule them.
• Determine your project deliverables: A project deliverable is a tangible or intangible output from tasks. They’re an important part of a scope of work as they’re the outcomes of the project.
• Establish acceptance criteria for your project deliverables: Project deliverables must meet the acceptance criteria established by the project client, such as quality standards or functionality requirements.
• Use the CPM method to create a project timeline: The critical path method is a project scheduling technique that allows project managers to create a project timeline and estimate project duration by identifying the longest sequence of tasks. It’s important that you use this or other project scheduling techniques to create a realistic schedule for your scope of work.
• Establish payment terms for the project: You may include payment terms as a section of your scope of work.
• Establish project reporting procedures: Communication between the project team and project stakeholders is very important, so your scope of work document should include a section that explains how reporting will take place.

Scope of Work Template

Now that you know how to write a scope of work, as well as what’s included in this all important document, download our free scope of work template for Word . It has everything you need to make a scope of work document for your own project, so your stakeholders know exactly what to expect in terms of schedule, deliverables and effort.

Scope of Work Example

To understand the purpose and importance of a scope of work in project management, let’s start with a simple scope of work example, planning a wedding. A wedding is a project, and depending on the bridezilla (or groomzilla), it could be bigger and more complicated than building a highway or an airport.

Let’s take one aspect of that larger project, the wedding invitations, and break this down into a scope of work. We’ll outline the deliverables, timeline, milestones and reports in this scope of work example.

Deliverables

• Invite list
• Addresses of attendees
• Addressed envelopes
• Jan. 1: Decide on the invite list
• Feb. 1: Have addresses collected of attendees
• March 1: Pick invitation style and have printed
• April 1: Address and mail invites
• May 1: Get the final count of guests
• June 1: Wedding
• Selection of guests and collection of addresses
• Mailing of invitations
• The final count of attendees
• Check on the status of address collection
• Stay in touch with the printer for progress on invitations
• Check RSVPs against the invitation list

With ProjectManager , you can build a project timeline in seconds with our online Gantt chart maker. Map your scope of work, create a budget, assign tasks, add dependencies and more. Then present to your team and stakeholders to get the project moving on the right foot. Try it free today.

Construction Scope of Work Example

Now, let’s create a scope of work for a small construction project , building a house. This project involves many steps, but for practical purposes, this construction scope of work example will only focus on some of the main deliverables, timelines, milestones and reports.

Project deliverables: These project deliverables are individual, tangible outputs from different construction activities.

• Land clearing
• Ground leveling
• Sewer Lines
• Wood Framing
• Sheathing Installation
• HVAC system installation
• Electrical panels and wiring installation
• Roof installation
• Insulation installation
• Drywall installation
• Interior painting, appliances, cabinets and other final details

Project Timeline: The scope of work timeline depends on the complexity of the construction design and the agreement that the project owner reaches with the general contractor, who will hire subcontractors to accomplish different types of construction work.

Project Milestones: The scope of work milestones marks important achievements during the project as tasks are executed . Instead of referring to individual project deliverables, they describe project phases that have been completed successfully. As a project manager, you might choose the milestones that are significant for your project.

• The building envelope has been completed
• Foundation, framing, plumbing and electrical inspections have been passed
• Exterior work has been completed
• Interior work has been completed
• Project has been delivered successfully

Project Reports: The reports that you use to track the scope of work might vary, but these are essential construction project reports.

• Project status reports
• Daily construction logs
• Construction punch list

Why Is It Important to Write a Scope of Work?

Here are some of the reasons why writing a scope of work is beneficial for projects.

Defines the Project Scope

The main purpose of a scope of work is to define the scope of a project . This means defining the work that’ll be done as well as project exclusions, activities or deliverables which aren’t part of a project.

Prevents Scope Creep

Scope creep is a risk that can affect any project. It occurs when additional project tasks are added to the initial project scope during the execution of a project. These unplanned additions of work cause extra costs and derail the project schedule. Scope creep can be avoided by having a clear scope of work that establishes what will and what won’t be executed. However, changes might be made to the project scope by using a change request, another important project management document.

Sets Clear Expectations for Project Stakeholders

Without a scope of work document, project stakeholders might have unrealistic expectations about a project , such as assuming certain tasks and deliverables will be done. Therefore, it’s important for project managers and project teams to make sure there’s a scope of work that lets stakeholders know what to expect.

Scope of Work Tips

But before you get to writing, you need to make sure you follow these tips.

• Be specific : explain the terms used clearly
• Use visuals : a picture is worth a thousand words
• Get sign-offs : make sure everyone who needs to okay the work, does

It’s not that difficult, but it needs to be thorough because you don’t want to have to play catch-up with paperwork when you’re in the heat of the project.

Pro tip: The SOW is essential to the project plan and is often included as part of the overall project plan, but it can be time-consuming to write. We’ve created dozens of project management templates to help you create all your project documents. 

How to Manage Your Scope of Work With Project Management Software

It can feel overwhelming with so many tasks to keep track of, but project management software can simplify the process. In ProjectManager , you can import your spreadsheet or use one of our industry-specific templates to get you started.

A list of tasks is only a start. To bring order to that chaos, you’ll want to estimate duration by adding start and finish dates. We then automatically put your tasks on a timeline in our Gantt chart project view , so you can see the whole project in one place. Further reign in the tasks by prioritizing them, linking dependencies to prevent bottlenecks later in the project and setting milestones to break up the larger project into more manageable phases.

Collaborate at the Task Level

Tasks need people to execute them and move your project forward. You have your schedule, so onboard your team and start assigning them tasks. You can do this from any of our multiple project views. We offer collaborative tools that make teams more productive and help them work together. You can direct them with task descriptions and by attaching files to the task. Then, they can work together, commenting at the task level with other team members, who are notified by email. This is great for remote teams and even those working in the same room.

Track Progress to Stay On Time and Under Budget

Speaking of distributed teams, how can you keep track of their progress if you can’t check in on them? We solve that problem with great monitoring features, such as a real-time dashboard that shows you task progress, costs and other high-level views of the project. Our software takes status updates and automatically displays them in easy-to-read charts and graphs. You can even share them at stakeholder meetings to keep them in the loop.

For more in-depth data, we feature one-click reports that can be filtered to show just the data you’re looking for. Reports track project variance, workload and more. You’ll catch issues and resolve them quickly before they become problems that threaten to derail your project.

If you want that scope of work to be the beginning of a beautiful project, then try ProjectManager for free with our 30-day trial offer.

Video: Scope of Work Best Practices

In this video, Jennifer Bridges, PMP, shows you how to write a scope of work for project management . Follow her steps to get started or use our project plan and scope document template!

Here’s a shot of the whiteboard for your reference!

If you need a tool that can help you manage and track your scope of work document, then sign up for our software now at ProjectManager .

Deliver your projects on time and under budget

Start planning your projects.

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JOB DESCRIPTION

JOB SPECIFICATION

During the process of preparing a Job Specification, a number of questions will have to be answered as outlined below.

QUESTIONS RELATED TO A JOB SPECIFICATION

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Business Continuity Manager

Job summary:.

The Business Continuity Manager will collaborate with department directors and the executive team to develop and implement plans to anticipate, address, and mitigate the effects of various business interruptions.

Supervisory Responsibilities:

Duties/responsibilities:.

• Develops and maintains a business recovery plan and procedure; reviews, revises, and expands existing plans and protocols.
• Conducts risk assessments for various departments and functions, analyzing potential business impact of unpredictable business interruptions such as natural disasters, security breach, legal claims, and market disruptions.
• Collaborates with IT staff to develop and implement best practices to protect and restore data and systems in the event of natural disasters, viruses, and hackers.
• Identifies and implements recovery operations and methods to allow the company to function at limited or partial capacity in the event that part or all of the infrastructure is damaged or destroyed.
• Creates and facilitates practice drills for plan execution.
• Develops and provides staff training on risk management and disaster recovery.
• Works with health, safety, and security staff and local, state, and federal agencies to align the organizations emergency management plan with established best practices and community standards.
• Performs other related duties as assigned.

Required Skills/Abilities:

• Thorough understanding of risk management.
• Excellent strategic, problem solving, and analytical skills.
• Ability to think through hypothetical situations and concepts and to identify risks and weaknesses in various business processes.
• Ability to collaborate with others to develop an emergency plan.
• Excellent communication skills.
• Proficient with Microsoft Office Suite or related software.

Education and Experience:

• Bachelors degree in Business Administration, Finance, or similar field required; Masters degree preferred.
• Minimum of five years of management experience with at least two years in a risk management position required.

Physical Requirements:

• Prolonged periods sitting at a desk and working on a computer.
• Must be able to lift up to 15 pounds at times.

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How immigrants are helping boost the U.S. job market without affecting inflation

Blockbuster job growth continues to power the U.S. economy, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting 303,000 payrolls added in March .

Usually, such strong growth might signal that inflation could pick up. If employers see more demand for goods and services, they need to hire more workers — and if there aren’t enough workers, they have to increase pay, which increases the overall cost of running the business.

But while annual price growth, at more than 3%, remains above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target, it is still well below the 9% peak seen in the summer of 2022.

Economists increasingly believe that the post-pandemic surge in immigration is a key reason the economy has been able to grow steadily without pushing inflation higher, as the new arrivals have helped employers fill roles at levels of pay that have kept a lid on overall price growth.

In a note to clients published Friday, titled “Why we have both strong growth and lower inflation,” Goldman Sachs chief U.S. economist David Mericle said rising immigration had boosted labor force growth. As a result, the strong demand that consumers continue to exhibit elsewhere is unlikely to raise prices by much, “if at all,” he said.

In fact, so far, measures of labor market “tightness,” like wages, “have continued to fall or move sideways, not rise,” Mericle said.

“Won’t stronger growth prevent inflation from falling or even reignite it?” he wrote. “We don’t think so.”

The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan federal agency, was the first to cite the immigration surge that began in 2022 as the primary factor helping to expand the overall size of the U.S. labor force.

This year, the agency increased its projection of how large the U.S. labor force could be in 2033 by 5.2 million people. Most of that increase is expected to be a result of higher projected net immigration.

The Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan think tank, came to a similar conclusion earlier this month, saying the economy can now tolerate a more brisk pace of job growth without adding to cost concerns.“Faster population and labor force growth has meant that employment could grow more quickly than previously believed without adding to inflationary pressures,” Brookings said.

Wendy Edelberg, a former Federal Reserve economist now serving as director of Brookings’ Hamilton Project, told NBC News the net effect of immigration on inflation is not entirely obvious — but is likely marginal. Indeed, Fed Chair Jay Powell has expressed similar observations, saying the effect of the new wave of arrivals is “broadly neutral.”

What is clear, Edelberg said, is that the immigration surge will allow the economy to tolerate higher levels of job growth without overheating.

“Without immigration, if I’d seen an increase of 300,000, I would have been utterly baffled that wages were not higher,” she said, citing the March jobs report released on Friday.

Wage data shows the annual pace of average hourly pay growth has declined to 4.1% in March after hitting a post-pandemic peak of 5.9% in March 2022.

If the supply and demand for labor were truly out of sync, the pace of wage growth would be much higher, likely translating into higher overall inflation.

Instead, thanks to the immigration surge, businesses in the aggregate can tap into the newly growing labor pool to meet continued demand for their goods and services, without having to raise wages significantly to compete for workers.

For many parts of the economy, from federal Social Security payments all the way down to local businesses that may be looking for workers or new customers, immigration is usually a net good, Edelberg said.

At the same time, it tends to put a strain on state and local budgets , she said.

Immigration now ranks as the most volatile domestic issue facing President Joe Biden, with Gallup survey respondents ranking it as the country’s “most important problem,” the first time it has held that position since 2019. Republicans have called on Biden to take extreme measures to stem the entry of migrants, while former President Donald Trump has referred to them as “not humans” and “animals.”

Big cities like New York and Chicago, meanwhile, have faced crises stemming in part from political stunts by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that have involved sending migrants to those cities at a pace they’re not equipped to handle.

But while the focus of the debate has been on undocumented immigration, the majority of immigrants arriving are actually authorized to work in the U.S., Edelberg said.

Plus, they’re more likely to spend a greater share of their labor income.

“So they’re increasing the demand for goods and services, and helping to supply labor,” she said. “So the net effect on inflation is actually small.”

Rob Wile is a breaking business news reporter for NBC News Digital.

Silicon ‘nopes’: Utah tech workers discuss lack of flexibility, culture problems

Workers who responded to the tribune’s survey disputed the idea that the salt lake market is the ‘hottest’ in the country..

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Dave Sunderland, a director of client services for a local Utah tech company, poses for a portrait on Thursday, April 11, 2024. Sunderland says he loves his job and is optimistic about the tech industry despite widespread views to the contrary.

Salt Lake City was the “hottest” job market in the nation last year, according to a new Wall Street Journal analysis , which highlighted Utah’s “tech hub” for the region’s job success.

The geographic discrepancy aside — the Journal’s analysis includes Silicon Slopes, based mostly in Utah County, as part of Salt Lake City — some Utah tech workers aren’t feeling the heat.

Recent data suggest the tech job market is relatively stagnant — growing or shrinking by fractions of a percent. And respondents to a Salt Lake Tribune survey largely reported feeling disillusioned by the industry and unsure of its future.

Twenty-eight tech workers responded to the Salt Lake Tribune’s survey. It’s a small fraction of the state’s tech workforce of more than 100,000 people. But their responses largely dispute the optimism often ascribed to Utah’s tech scene, celebrated at such conferences as Silicon Slopes Summit and Domopalooza.

Competition for jobs, not wages

Cass Swallow is among the majority of survey respondents who found tech work outside the state after losing his job in Silicon Slopes last year. The job market he was forced into felt unrecognizable from the one he joined as a young software developer a decade ago, when he said he was offered a job practically on-site at a tech networking event. Now, he said, it can take up to a year to land a new tech job.

Swallow took a job as an app developer for a small company in another state last summer. He said he does not expect much growth potential at his new company, but in exchange he has gotten more flexibility and work-life balance. He can take his kids to school, he said, or take care of an ailing parent — both of which he said he has had to do in the last year. But such flexibility has always been the promise of tech work.

“The trade-off is worth it, but I didn’t expect going into a tech career that I’d have to make that sacrifice” to trade career growth for work-life balance, he said.

Big tech companies, such as Pluralsight, have been offered tax incentives from the state for recruiting more employees to Utah. The incentives are “post-performance,” Jim Grover, director of grants and incentives for the Governor’s Office of Economic Opportunity, told The Tribune last July, after Pluralsight laid off more of its workforce. The incentives only kick in, he said, if a company can prove growth on their tax returns.

But after a few years of rapid growth, some big tech companies are now tightening their belts . Pluralsight moved many of its jobs to India and has implemented at least seven rounds of layoffs in the last two years. Its cuts were company-wide — Pluralsight has employees around the world — and Utah employees were among them.

One survey participant, who did not wish to be interviewed, said they are in their fifth job in four years. Two of those jobs have been based in Utah. “It’s tough right now,” they wrote. “Due to how turbulent it’s been, it’s very difficult not to wonder if the work I’m putting in will be worth anything.”

Tech companies nationwide are facing “economic headwinds,” industry analysts say. The wave of layoffs was not exclusive to Utah companies, and the industry is competitive anywhere you go.

Ryan Welling said he was able to find a new job with a 50% salary increase just two years ago — the job market was “hot,” and knew he could get “whatever job” he wanted.

Now, he sees jobs on LinkedIn with hundreds of applicants, all fighting to stay in the industry.

“The number of jobs has dried up,” he said.

It’s not a Utah-specific problem, but Utah’s market has some unique challenges, survey respondents said. Some Utah employees have given up on Silicon Slopes altogether.

“I feel like so many places in the tech world failed their people, especially here in Utah,” said Wendy, a program manager in healthcare software who asked to be identified by her first name to avoid jeopardizing her highly coveted new job.

Wendy recently took a job out of state after 10 months of unemployment and more than 250 applications. It was a “brutal uphill battle,” she said. Most companies didn’t offer an interview; one offered a job, but for $40,000 less than her previous salary.

“The industry is so saturated, companies started taking advantage of applicants,” she said. “One job I was applying for had 2,600 applicants. I’d apply for a job, get a denial — not even an interview — and then they would repost that job not even a week later.”

For Cal Christensen, the decision to take a job outside of Utah came down to two factors: Flexibility and pay.

Christensen survived two rounds of layoffs at a Salt Lake City-based tech startup before meeting the chopping block at the end of 2022. He had more success in the job hunt, interviewing with several companies and even getting a verbal offer. But the Utah companies he interviewed with all wanted him in an office — a gripe Wendy also noticed.

The bigger problem, Christensen said, was salary. Utah’s tech wages have not kept pace with the rest of the industry, Christensen and several other survey respondents said, despite the industry’s wages being higher than state’s median wages.

“The money’s better, without a doubt,” Christensen said of out-of-state tech jobs. He estimated the offers he got from non-Utah companies were as much as 45% higher. In one case, Christensen said he got two offers for the same role — one in Utah, one in North Carolina. The Utah company offered him $65,000. North Carolina offered more than $100,000.

Utah tech still a ‘boys club’

Christensen also has a theory about why his applications went further than those of some colleagues: Christensen is in his early 30s. Young enough, he said, to be taken seriously.

His older colleagues “aren’t even getting looked at,” he said.

Other survey respondents agreed. Three said they felt Utah’s tech workforce discriminated against its older members, instead favoring young, less expensive talent.

Several survey respondents said it was the culture of Silicon Slopes that drove them away or soured their job satisfaction. Twelve responses — nearly half — mentioned cultural biases, like racism and sexism, in their assessment of Utah’s workforce.

“The Utah tech industry is a concentration of Utah County companies dominated by a ‘BYU Bro’ culture,” one wrote, adding that they “say that as an active, practicing Latter-Day Saint.”

“While I lived in Salt Lake County and have many colleagues working in Utah tech companies, I have only worked in one Utah County tech company and have avoided them since, opting to work for Silicon Valley and Seattle tech companies that are eager to hire a remote workforce and don’t have all the Utah weirdness baggage.”

Two respondents, including Welling, likened Utah’s tech industry to a multi-level marketing “scam.” Expanding on his answer in an interview with The Tribune, Welling said Utah’s tech culture also feels explicitly Mormon and “bro-y.”

Welling has avoided Utah companies his entire career, instead working for out-of-state companies with Utah offices.

“I would rather some good old-fashioned corporate greed ... than having to deal with anyone in Utah,” he said.

One respondent said they have “never experienced such homophobia, racism or ableism” as they did in their Utah tech job.

Another wrote that as “an attractive white woman, I am underestimated the moment I walk in the door. … I frequently get ‘dumb blonde’ comments from people who barely know me. … If you aren’t a white LDS male, good luck!”

Wendy told The Tribune she was explicitly called a “token female hire” at a company in Lehi.

“And I was treated like the token woman,” she said. “It was a boys club.”

Opportunity still abounds

Survey respondents were not uniformly disappointed in Utah’s tech industry. There is still plenty of opportunity to be gleaned, some said, if you know where to look.

“I am proud to be part of the Utah tech industry,” wrote Dave Sunderland, a client services director at a Utah fintech company. “I know that just getting by has become increasingly difficult for many Utahns with the high rate of inflation, but I feel like tech, while not perfect, offers a higher standard than most other sectors.”

In a follow-up interview with The Tribune, Sunderland said he can understand his fellow tech workers’ frustrations. His own company cut staff last year. Fear of more layoffs looms large over tech workers’ heads.

But Sunderland said rather than succumb to that fear, he and his colleagues have focused on how to grow in their current roles and within their current companies. There are fewer tech jobs now than there were three years ago, but there is also less turnover, Sunderland said.

And the perks of working in tech — flexible schedules, good benefits, higher pay compared to the state’s median wages — outweigh the risks for Sunderland.

“In general, for people who want to raise a family and have a somewhat flexible schedule, tech is a pretty good industry,” he said.

Other respondents said they have faith in the ubiquity of tech — it powers our world, two people wrote, and therefore always will be relevant.

“There are just so many different jobs in tech, both in and out of the ‘tech’ industry,” one wrote. “I feel confident I’ll always be able to find something.”

Another wrote, “if you are experienced and have an in-demand skill set, there is still ample opportunity to land a well paying role.”

Sunderland offered this advice to Utah tech workers who may be struggling: Expand your skillset. It’s easier to learn and grow in a job you already have, he said, and more skills equal more value.

“If you can get into a field you like at least moderately, there are usually paths [forward],” he said. “Companies are interested in creating road maps for internal mobility.”

Shannon Sollitt is a Report for America corps member covering business accountability and sustainability for The Salt Lake Tribune. Your donation to match our RFA grant helps keep her writing stories like this one; please consider making a tax-deductible gift of any amount today by clicking here .

Editor’s note • This story is available to Salt Lake Tribune subscribers only. Thank you for supporting local journalism.

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Plan to Stash Pollution Beneath the Sea Could Save Money and Jobs

The Italian energy giant Eni sees future profits from collecting carbon dioxide and pumping it into natural gas fields that have been exhausted.

This gas processing plant at Casalborsetti is the focus of the first phase of an ambitious plan to capture carbon dioxide and bury it under the sea. Credit... Maurizio Fiorino for The New York Times

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By Stanley Reed

Stanley Reed, who writes on energy and the environment, visited Milan and Ravenna to report this story.

• April 4, 2024

Renowned for ancient churches and the tomb of Dante, the 14th-century poet, the city of Ravenna and its environs along Italy’s Adriatic coast are also home to old-line industries like steel and fertilizer. The manufacturing plants are of little interest to the many tourists who help sustain the area’s economy, but these sites employ tens of thousands of people.

The question is: For how long? The factories, like others in Europe, face increasing pressure from regulators to reduce the climate-altering gases that their operations produce. The worry is that rising costs from regulation will force them to close.

“We are very scared about the future of our industries,” said Michele De Pascale, the mayor of Ravenna. “We have to reach this goal to reduce CO2 emissions, but we want to do it without destroying our industries,” he said.

Italy’s energy giant, Eni, which has a large presence in Ravenna, is pushing a plan that the mayor says could help preserve the region’s heavy industries: create an industrial pollution collector.

The company is proposing to construct a network of pipelines to sweep up the carbon dioxide from the sites and store it away in old natural gas reservoirs. It sees this process, known as carbon capture and storage , as a promising new business line that would aid its shift to cleaner activities.

Eni is working on similar plans elsewhere in Europe, notably in Britain, where many mature oil and gas fields offer large volumes of storage potential. There are other carbon capture projects around the world, including in the United States, often aimed at reducing emissions from oil and natural gas production.

The company wants to diversify away from the oil and gas sales that have long been its mainstay, but it faces an uncertain future because of climate change concerns. Eni executives calculate they will have an edge because they can make use of the company’s existing infrastructure like wells and pipelines and redeploy employees.

“It is very easy to reskill or shift people,” said Claudio Descalzi, Eni’s chief executive.

Mr. Descalzi plans to turn carbon capture into a “satellite” company that could attract other investors seeking profits that he forecasts could be about 10 percent a year.

The transition to cleaner energy will succeed only if it spawns sustainable businesses, Mr. Descalzi said. “Otherwise, it will fail,” he added. “Because resources are limited and you can’t burn money.”

Eni has about 50 operating petroleum platforms in the Adriatic Sea off Ravenna, beyond lagoons dotted with flamingos. With production falling, Eni plans to pump carbon dioxide into the depleted gas reservoirs, which will act as giant sponges for the waste gas.

The company is spending about 100 million euros on modifications designed to remove about half the carbon dioxide emanating from a gas processing plant in nearby Casalborsetti. Work is largely complete, and Eni plans to begin sending the carbon dioxide through a new well into a gas field about 12 miles offshore and 10,000 feet below the seabed soon.

If this first phase goes smoothly, Eni will move to a much larger plan, initially costing as much as €1.5 billion, that will hook up factories and other large polluters in Italy and perhaps even France, to eventually draw as much as 16 million tons of carbon dioxide a year for burial.

Just as oil experts use powerful computers to crunch data into three-dimensional images to figure out how to efficiently extract gas from the ground, they are now using similar techniques to model how to safely inject carbon dioxide into porous rock.

Launching carbon capture projects, though, is proving a grind — an indication of how challenging the energy transition may be as countries shift from some of the easier areas to clean up, like electric power, to more difficult sectors like cement and steel.

Carbon capture needs to account for 8 percent of cumulative emissions reductions if the world is to achieve net zero by 2050, according to the International Energy Agency, an intergovernmental organization. Yet to be on track, the volume of stored carbon dioxide needs to jump twentyfold by 2030, to one billion tons a year — “a very ambitious undertaking” said Carl Greenfield, an analyst at the agency.

Polluters are struggling to evaluate whether it is worthwhile spending tens or even hundreds of millions to retrofit their plants. “They don’t have even the expertise to understand which is the best technology,” said Guido Brusco, Eni’s chief operating officer of natural resources.

But pressure from customers and taxes on carbon are pushing businesses to look seriously at carbon capture projects. Some analysts forecast that the European Union’s carbon tax will soar well above €100 a metric ton in future years, making proposals like Eni’s, which Mr. Brusco says will cost less than €80 a metric ton on average, an easier sell.

Andrea Ramonda, chief executive of Herambiente, which burns municipal waste to produce energy, is weighing the pros and cons. He figures that building what he calls a “washing machine of gases” at the plant could mean roughly doubling the €110 per metric ton that it now costs customers to to burn their garbage.

“We have to be very prudent” when managing the money of citizens, he said.

High costs and other obstacles mean that these proposals tend to require government backing, at least in the early stages.

“At the end of the day, you have to have some sort of government support,” said Bassam Fattouh, director of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, a research organization. “Otherwise, many of these projects will not be realized.”

The British government has for years backed work by Eni, including a plan to clean up emissions around Liverpool and Manchester in northwest England. As part of the project, known as HyNet North West, Eni would build and manage a 40-mile pipeline for collecting carbon dioxide from factories and other polluters in the area and pump the gas into wells beneath Liverpool Bay. Eni says it has reached a preliminary agreement with the British government to receive a guaranteed profit.

“We’re backing this industry with £20 billion,” Martin Callanan, Britain’s minister for energy efficiency and green finance, said in an emailed statement.

Negotiations with the Italian government are less advanced, although Eni executives hope Italy will copy Britain’s approach. Vannia Gava, Italy’s deputy energy minister, recently visited the Ravenna project and said afterward, “This is an enormous opportunity for Italy.”

Eni and other operators of carbon capture systems are targeting large emitters like cement and fertilizer plants that analysts say lack options to clean up their operations.

Heidelberg Materials, for instance, operates a large cement plant at Padeswood in Wales that it wants to tie into the Hynet pipeline. Simon Willis, chief executive of the company’s British business, said about 60 percent of the plant’s substantial emissions came from a chemical reaction in the cement-making process.

“There is nothing we can do about that other than collect it and store it,” he said.

Even some environmental groups are inclined to give carbon capture at least a lukewarm pass as long as it is not a means of prolonging the use of fossil fuels.

“If CO2 release to the atmosphere is otherwise inevitable from an industrial installation, then it is better to capture it,” said Doug Parr, chief scientist of Greenpeace UK.

Stanley Reed reports on energy, the environment and the Middle East from London. He has been a journalist for more than four decades. More about Stanley Reed

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