What is a Job Family?
The term "job family" refers to a grouping of jobs that handle similar types of work and require similar types of training, skills, knowledge and expertise. Some job families have more jobs in them than others, and those with many jobs may have specialty areas. In all cases, a job can only reside in one job family. However, jobs in a job family may not be unique to just one department, lab or center; i.e. jobs in the same job family may reside in the same department or in different departments across the Institute.

The following example references the "Financial" job family - a large job family with a number of specialty areas:

The Institute requires many diverse resources to ensure that its financial operations are planned, managed, and carried out effectively. In the above illustration, the Staff Accountant, the Project Accountant and the Manager, Accounting, MIT Press are all jobs within the Accounting specialty, but they each report to a different department:

• Staff Accountant-Controller's Accounting Office
• Project Accountant -Department of Facilities
• Manager, Accounting, MIT Press-MIT Press

Continue to How Job Families May be used in the Future.