Realistic job preview advantages and disadvantages

Before diving into anything, it is always beneficial to be well-informed about the advantages and disadvantages of it. That helps us prepare ourselves. This detailed guide explains realistic pros and cons to keep you informed and prepared about the job-seekers’ pulse.

When appearing for an interview for a particular job opening in your company, candidates look forward to hearing a thorough description of the job, which gives them slight context to the challenges they would have to face while on the job.

A realistic job preview is one such guide that tells them about a particular job in detail and without any filters. They usually get this information from people who are currently working in that position in other companies.

What is “realistic job preview”?

It is a compilation of overviews of the positives and negatives of a given role and company. It is not necessarily an evaluation but is more like an explanation of the challenges and benefits that the employees face and enjoys, respectively. It includes honest reviews to help the candidates decide how they want to go about this recruitment process. It cannot be used as an evaluation of the company since it could merely be a personal opinion of a candidate.

Importance of a realistic job preview

This preview helps potential candidates identify their best fit. They get a fair idea about what can be expected from the company and from the job itself. It helps in bridging the gap between the expectations that the recruiting team might have and the expectations of the candidate. Having an idea of the expectations of the company and the job also helps the candidates in preparing themselves better for the interview in order to present themselves well. Apart from that, it also helps them realise some of the weaknesses and they can take a call based on that. This is not meant to scare the candidate nor is it meant to glorify the company. As the term suggests, the only purpose of it is to give the candidates a clear picture of what their life would look like if they take up the job.

What should be included in a realistic job preview?

Different people are going to have different experiences of being on in the same job. That would bring subjectivity in the evaluation and presentation of different employees in this preview. To give it a structure, a realistic job preview can include the following points. This will help in preventing the preview from being vague and specific issues can be addressed adequately.

1. Job description and duties

At the time of recruitment, candidates are given a job description, which states the duties expected from an employee in a formal language. But that may not necessarily be clear enough to get an idea of how that is translated into action. Realistic job previews help in identifying the duties of an employee and how it pans out as a whole.

1. Expectations beyond the duties

Some companies may expect employees to work only during working hours. While some may expect them to do some amount of homework above and beyond their expected duties. That may not necessarily be a direct ask but more like a complementary task for them to get better at their job. A job preview will help you understand that and prepare for it accordingly.

One of the most important things to learn from a job preview is about company culture. Because across companies, the job description and duties may remain more or less similar. But company culture is something that makes a workplace favourable or not for a candidate. Gaining perspective about company culture will be the deciding factor for whether they want to take the job up or not.

A job preview also talks about the benefits of the job beyond the salary. It includes various allowances that are a structure of the leaves, the flexibility in allowing the leaves and consideration overall. It also includes other perks that employees might be enjoying like pick up and drop services for night shifts and nurseries on campus for new mothers. Knowing about this helps you understand the readiness of the company to retain the employee as well as the facilities that are provided to you.

1. Avenues for personal development

Avenues that aid personal development through the job and career ladder can be explored through the job preview. Answers to questions like “when are the promotions due”, “do they really happen”, and “what would be the hurdles” would help a potential employee understand these avenues better.

1. Appraisals and recognition

These form an important part of the feedback rate, which is given to the employees for the kind of work that they do. These appraisals are critical to some employees, and they may also provide them with an analysis of the weaknesses that they can work on.

1. The bond between various managerial level employees and subordinates

Clear analysis of the connection between the subordinates and managers and the transparency within various hierarchies helps a potential employee get an idea about the boundaries between these levels.

Some companies are bound to have cells like grievance redressal and prevention of sexual harassment (POSH) against women at the workplace. Realistic job reviews must give an idea about the existence and function of these things for the employees to be assured safety and security as well as accurate legal handling of the matters.

Now that we had a look at constituents of these previews, let us understand them through some realistic job preview samples or examples.

1. Testimonial video from employees

This video can include employee experiences in an interview format. It can be structured as one of the pre-decided components of the job preview. The video can contain an interaction between the employee and the interviewer or just the narration of experiences by the employee.

1. Documenting a day in the life of an employee

A video of the life of an employee would give the best idea of what a day at work looks like from outside. It will give an idea of the company environment.

This video can include the personal insights of the employees in an interview format and then document that day in the rise to give a realistic idea of the day.

This would be a fun way to bring out real responses of the employees to certain questions regarding their job. It will also help keep the humour intact despite bringing out the real picture.

A brochure can include testimonials of employees about the job and the company that can help potential employees understand it by reading about it.

This would include creative format animated videos to document the experiences of employees and overall company culture.

48% of employees who leave their job have the opinion that their expectations and the reality of the job did not match. When attrition is caused due to such experiences, it can cost the company a lot. Hence, it is important to create realistic job previews to attract the right kind of employees.

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Realistic job previews is a process during recruitment of an employee which clearly highlights all the pros and cons related to the job profile, giving the candidate the most accurate information about the job.

Realistic Job Previews (RJP) are developed to provide the potential applicants a true picture of the different features of the job. It highlights not only the positive aspects, but also the associated hazards and problems.

A Realistic Job Preview provides the following:

• Pay

• Work hours

• Job related tasks

• Schedule flexibility

• Work culture

• Related pressure

• Degree of customer interaction

• Degree of physical risk

• Priority associated to job

Advantages of Realistic Job Previews:

For the employee:

• Reduced stress: The employee takes up the job knowing exactly what to expect. This reduces job related grievances considerably and thus keeps the employee from getting too stressed

• Taking an informed decision: When a Realistic Job Preview is shared, the candidates apply only when they know that they will be able to cope up with the expectations

• Increase in job satisfaction: Unpleasant work details are not presented to employees post joining. Their job tasks are exactly as described to them. This increases job satisfaction

For the employer:

• Reduced attrition: As the job preview describes the associated negative aspects of the job clearly, the new hires do not face any unknown unpleasantness. E.g. X took up a job knowing that he is expected to work on erratic shifts. So working on weekends or night shifts does not stress him and he does not consider leaving the organization for the same.

• Better hiring decisions: On providing a Realistic Job Preview, the talent pool that applies are well aware of the job and turnover is low. So, cost of bad hire is reduced

• Increase in corporate citizenship behaviour: The employee sees Realistic job Preview as an act of honesty on the part of the organization. Thus the employer-employee trust increases, thereby the organizational citizenship behaviour of the employee increases

Disadvantages of Realistic Job Preview:

• They may lead to negative attitude towards a job

• The nature of work changes with time. Updating the previews along with the changing job may be time consuming as well as costly

They would be aware of what he organization will pay them, the duty hours, culture of the organization, duty schedule. Also they would be knowing what is expected of them – late hours, stress, customer interaction, urgency in work, some physical risk etc.

An organization where there is high turnover of new hires has some problems which should be tackled quickly. The employees could be unpleasantly surprised by an aspect of their job. For example, if the employees understand that they won’t have to work on weekends and after joining are immediately asked to work on Saturdays then it undermines the trust that the employee has for the organization.

RJPs can be in the form of a video, testimonials or short test. Whatever be the format, an effective RJP shows the actual culture of the organization that the employee is about to enter. Candor and openness are the 2 most critical components of a RJP. Ideally, information in a RJP should focus on the things that matter most to the candidate demographic, parts of the job or culture that correlate with engagement and turnover.

The 4 issues that challenge Realistic Job Preview are:

1. Realistic Job Previews are not shared by the recruiters during the interview.

2. The nature of information shared is unclear.

3. Right questions are not asked.

4. Applicants report desiring more specific information than they commonly receive.

Hence, this concludes the definition of Realistic Job Preview along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

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