Many hiring managers believe that applicants must sell themselves to the company during an interview. Many people overlook the importance of the employer selling the firm, job, and culture to the recruit. Recruiters must grasp the job description and seek talents and abilities that fit with it to guarantee that the correct individuals are hired inside a firm. Because it is their only obligation to hire the right individuals, they must exercise utmost caution; otherwise, it might reflect poorly on the company. This standard error is made by recruiters, hiring managers, and even candidates. Organizations often face difficulties recruiting, selecting, and maintaining the best-qualified employees (Srivastava & Mohanty, 2019). Among the many strategies that organizations can employ to match job seekers’ expectations with the reality of the job, Realistic Job Preview (RJP) can be utilized to lower job candidates’ expectations and better match expectations with reality.
Analyzing the approach to recruitment described in the article, there are some advantages to it. A realistic job preview is a recruitment tool that provides a realistic depiction of what the work entails — both the positive and negative elements of the future career. A realistic job preview ensures only the genuinely committed will take the job. It is an excellent tool for improving application quality; it assures a fit between the individual and the position and between the person and the business; it aids in employee retention (Vulpen, 2020). Furthermore, employees who have had a realistic job preview have more aligned expectations about their work – and the company – and will be happier with their employment as a consequence (Liu & Keeling, 2018). Other advantages are that there is less danger of unreal expectations of a job being built up and that honesty leads to productive and high-trust relationships at work (Vulpen, 2020). It is also worth mentioning that organizations can save money on recruitment expenditures due to first-round hiring. It is a win-win situation for both the candidate and the firm.
However, there are several disadvantages to this approach. Even though a high degree of negative information enhances self-selection among job candidates, it may discourage potential employees from applying for the job, and it could show management’s negligence. RJPs do not focus on applicant expectancies since the goal of RJPs is to move job applicants’ expectations in line with reality. This technique aims to highlight the benefits and drawbacks of the given employment. As a result, it solves the gap between job content expectations and reality. In addition, realistic job previews may mean that good potential employees are discouraged from applying for or accepting a job. This can be explained by different factors, such as harsh employee demands (Liu & Keeling, 2018). Furthermore, the nature of a job usually evolves with time, so the recruiter cannot explain all the positives and negatives of a job within one session. Therefore, updating the previews while employing people may be time-consuming and costly. Such an approach reduces the ability to compete for staff when other employers are more exclusively positive; it may demoralize new employees when managers want them to come in bounding.
There is a need to balance the above-mentioned potential benefits with the risk of failing to compete as effectively as competitors in the quest for competent staff. According to the approach discussed, warts and all recruitment messages cannot be put off in recruitment advertisements, graduate recruitment presentations, or notices placed at job centers. It does not assist in lowering the number of applications from unsuitable or uncommitted job-seekers because engaging a more extensive audience is not a solution. Such ads do not guarantee that the applicant would be qualified for the job (Srivastava & Mohanty, 2019). A recruitment office might waste time on the applicant who did not read the ads carefully or simply did not meet the requirements.
To conclude, recruiters should be careful about the people they hire. Business loses more than time, money, and effort by hiring, and training people who perhaps should not have been brought on in the first place. It is vital that organizations take all reasonable steps to avoid making hiring mistakes, and a realistic job preview is an excellent example of it. A realistic job preview is an organizational approach to the unrealistic expectations that many job candidates may initially have, especially candidates unfamiliar with the company or industry. During the dual matching process, in which the individual and the employer attempts to attract each other while reducing uncertainty, RJP is beneficial as a vigilant information processing tool for the candidate and as an adverse self-selection mechanism that could save money for the employers. Recruiters could develop RJP content with a medium degree of negativity, allowing moderate self-selection while encouraging new employee coping strategies simultaneously. The most measurable outcome of this program is reduced employee turnover. At the end, when an organization considers implementing RJP as a part of its recruiting, it must consider the program’s timing, scope, message, and medium.
References
Liu, Y., & Keeling, K. (2018). Maximising the credibility of realistic job preview messages: The effect of jobseekers’ decision-making style on recruitment information credibility. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 29(7), 1330-1364. Web.
Srivastava, U., & Mohanty, N. (2019). Internship: A realistic job preview and selection mechanism. International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering (IJITEE), 8(10), 2595-2602. Web.
Vulpen, E. (2020). The realistic job preview explained: 5 tips to do it right. Academy to Innovative HR. Web.