You Want Me to Do What in This Job? An Experiential Exercise in Understanding the Usefulness of Realistic Job Previews for Recruitment and Retention

A key management function for any organization is recruitment. An organization needs to attract qualified applicants for open positions and retain effective employees. To enhance the recruitment and retention of employees, job applicants should be given Realistic Job Previews (RJP’s) which includes both the positive and negative aspects of the position. Research shows that RJP’s provides applicants a clearer view of the tasks of a job, which results in reduced turnover and other benefits. This paper summarizes the research on the effectiveness of RJP’s, then presents an experiential exercise in which students write RJP’s for various jobs, so they can learn how RJP’s are created and gain a better understanding of why RJP’s are useful to both job seekers and organizations.