Employee Recruitment: Attracting qualified candidates for job openings

Slidedoc

Cyn D. Fisher Professor of Management Bond Business School 1

Introduction to Recruitment

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Table of contents

5 Steps to Recruiting Effectively

06 Internal Recruitment Methods

11 Active and Passive Candidates, External Recruitment Methods 12

Employment Agencies and Executive Search Firms 14 Networking and Social Media, Homework 17

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Employee Referral

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The Applicant’s Point of View and Realistic Job Preview

Preparing for the class sessions on Recruitment:

Week 4 Session 2: Carefully read slides 1-13 of this Slidedoc, including doing the embedded exercises to develop your understanding. Read the three assigned articles on this topic by Johnson, Krell, and Weirick. Links to articles can be found in iLearn.

Week 5 Session 1: Carefully read slides 14-end of this Slidedoc, including following the hyperlinks to additional materials to read or view. Do the homework on social media recruitment as described on slide 17. Submit your homework before midnight Monday February 13.

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In class, we will examine the concept of employer branding, discover how to create effective recruitment ads and corporate careers websites, and practice creative recruitment planning.

Be sure you are in class to enhance your skills and knowledge related to employee recruitment.

This Slidedoc sets the stage for understanding five steps to effective recruitment. Some specific methods of recruitment are discussed here, others will be explored in class.

The three assigned articles provide further advice and insights on aspects of recruitment.

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INTRODUCTION TO RECRUITMENT

Recruitment vs Selection

Some people use the term recruitment to refer to both attracting job candidates AND assessing them to decide which are best to hire. In this subject, I will use the term Recruitment to refer only to the first part of this process – reaching out to find and attract the right kind of job candidates, motivating them to apply for a job with your firm and remain interested while you are making up your mind about them, then accepting a job offer if you decide to make one. I will use the term Selection to refer to the process by which you assess candidates to see if they have the knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes (KSAAs) you require, and therefore whether or not you want to make them a job offer. These processes overlap in time.

It is very important to be able to attract good people to apply for open positions the firm might have. First, you need to fill openings so that your business can continue to produce products, serve clients, or grow. Second, remember that the goal of recruitment is to attract a “qualified response” from the labour market, not just any response. It does no good to the company or the candidates to have a large number of job applicants if many of them lack the skills needed to do the job.

Third, you’d like your recruitment process to produce a favourable selection ratio (number of applicants per opening) so that you have the luxury of being selective and choosing the very best.

Part of effective recruiting is cultivating an employer brand so that people in the labour force understand what your company is like as an employer, view it favourably, and are likely to apply and later accept job offers. This will be discussed further in class.

There are many methods available for recruitment, some of which will be discussed later in the document and/or in class. The right mix of methods must be chosen for the best results in any given search – there is no one method that is always most suitable.

Recruiting Costs Recruiting can be quite expensive if you consider all the costs from the time the need to hire is recognised until a new person (or people) is hired, trained, and as competent as the employee they may be replacing.

Brainstorm all the likely sources of expense to a company in the process of replacing an employee with a new hire from outside the company. Make a list then turn the page to see some answers.

Attracting well qualified people to want to work for your firm is

essential to business success.

1. Pre-work. Preparing/updating job analyses, developing selection criteria, planning the recruitment campaign

2. Advertising. Creating ads and paying the fee for advertising on a job board, newspaper, billboard, radio, etc.

3. Employment agency or executive search firm fees, if used, and managerial time to liaise with these outside firms

4. Maintenance and updating of the company’s corporate careers webpage

5. Clerical and managerial time in correspondence and record keeping, which may be with dozens of candidates for even a single opening

6. Travel expenses for candidate to company visits, and/or for recruiters on road shows, to job fairs, to campus visits

7. Referral bonuses to current employees if applicable

8. Managerial time for short-listing meetings and interviewing. This can be huge as decisions often involve a selection panel of 3-4 managers, and several candidates may be interviewed for each open position

9. Other pre-employment assessments – in addition to interviewing, candidates may undergo costly testing, reference and background checks, medicals, etc.

10. Lost management productivity in other areas due to involvement in recruitment, meetings, negotiations with the candidate, etc.

11. Poor service, stress, overtime payments to other employees, and lost productivity while the role is unfilled if the business is understaffed

12. Signing bonus to new hire if applicable

13. Relocation expenses if applicable

14. Onboarding costs. Administration of employee induction/orientation, salary and benefit set-up, etc.

15. Training, managerial time for coaching, and lost productivity until the newcomer is as good as the person they replace

As you can see, finding and hiring new employees is expensive. Some of the above are arguably selection and training costs rather than purely recruitment costs, but they are expenses that are incurred when hiring a new employee from outside the firm. Many companies don’t keep very good records so they under-estimate these costs. A firm is often better off to retain a good employee than to have to replace them if they leave.

RECRUITMENT RELATED COSTS

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1. First, know the job!

– Duties, conditions, KSAAs needed

– Inducements/value proposition/brand you can offer

2. Decide which labour market to target

– Internal

– External (where exactly?)

• Local, state, national, international

3. Decide how to reach that labour market

– Choose recruitment methods

4. Plan and execute recruitment campaign

5. Evaluate success, keep records

Detail on these steps follows.

FIVE STEPS TO RECRUITING EFFECTIVELY

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1. KNOW THE JOB

It is essential to know a lot about the job for which you are recruiting so that you can craft persuasive and accurate recruiting communications, work out where qualified people are likely to be found, and know what to assess after they apply. You need a current job analysis which lists duties, working conditions, KSAAs needed, etc. so that you can clearly communicate to candidates what the job is about and what kind of person you are seeking. The job analysis is also essential for organisation members involved in selection, so that they can assess candidates on truly needed KSAAs.

You also need to think about the inducements or employee value proposition that the company has to offer to the right candidates. Why should they consider coming to work for your firm? Do you have a strong employer brand around a unique culture and purpose, excellent training and mentoring, desirable location, growth potential, competitive pay, and/or benefits of the type particularly valued by the type of person you want to attract? Recall that PWC is doing research to understand Millennials so they can offer an attractive workplace to this type of employee. Think about why you have or would accept a job, and what a company could reasonably do to attract you.

Read the article by Johnson entitled Brand Your Company. What is an employer brand, and why and how could you create one? Read the article by Weirick entitled The Perfect Interview. This piece describes how to be sure the employer brand is communicated and reinforced throughout the recruitment and selection processes.

We will look at some examples of employer branding in class.

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The two choices are the internal labour market – people who already work for the firm in some other capacity or location, or the external labour market – people who don’t work for the firm. Some companies pride themselves on growing their own talent and offering their employees opportunities to move up, so prefer to recruit from within whenever possible. This is also usually less expensive, faster, and you are less likely to be fooled and end up with a bad hire. Training time, effort needed to learn the culture and time to build networks of relationships in the firm are also less for internal candidates. As discussed in class, a good succession planning system helps assure a healthy internal labour market.

If you are hiring for entry level roles, you’ll probably have to go to the external labour market. Likewise, to support growth, you’ll have to do a fair bit hiring from outside the firm (though not for every role). If you need skills not available in the firm, clearly you’ll need to go outside. Read more about the internal vs external labour market choice in the article by Krell entitled Look Outside or Seek Within? As you read, make a list of the factors that would drive you towards internal versus external sources for filling a vacant position.

If looking in the external labour market, specify geographically where you will look – local, state, national, or international. This decision is driven by where the type and number of people you need can be found. You’ll choose the smallest/most local labour market that will serve your needs, as it’s faster and cheaper than mounting a wider search. You’ll also be likely to look locally if you don’t plan to subsidise moving expenses. However, for special or higher level skills, or if you need more people than the local market can provide, you’ll need to choose a larger or different labour market.

Which labour market?

2. DECIDE WHICH LABOUR MARKET TO TARGET

Which labour market would you target for the following jobs, and why?

• Short order cook for a café in Surfer’s Paradise

• Professor of Entrepreneurship for Bond University

• Manager of a new Aldi grocery store in Townsville, Qld

• Social worker for a government agency in Grafton, NSW

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Which labour market would you target, and why?

• Short order cook for a café in Surfer’s Paradise – You’d look locally on the Gold Coast. You won’t be paying relocation costs, and there are quite likely to be plenty of cooks available locally. If someone wants to commute from Brisbane, that’s fine, but you wouldn’t go out of your way to tap the Brisbane market.

• Professor of Entrepreneurship for Bond University – These guys are scarce and highly sought after. While you’d look nationwide, you would absolutely also look worldwide (especially in the US and Europe).

• Manager of an Aldi grocery store in Townsville, Qld – Probably this job would be filled internally by someone who manages an Aldi elsewhere, or who is an assistant Aldi store manager either in Townsville or another city. If there are no qualified internal candidates, one could look locally, though the number of people with grocery store management experience in Townsville (area population about 200,000) isn’t likely to be large. Expanding the external search to nationwide (via a job board or search firm) could work.

• Social worker for a state government agency in Grafton, NSW – A job like this would probably be posted internally on a the agency’s state-wide employment site first in case someone else in the agency wished to apply for a transfer. Failing that, one might try looking externally in Grafton first (population 20,000) and the surrounding commutable region (Coffs Harbour, population 75,000). I actually saw this job advertised in the Gold Coast Bulletin. It’s a three hour drive so clearly not commutable. My guess is that they looked within the agency and locally first without success, then decided to expand the search to larger population centres in the hope of attracting someone to relocate.

Sometimes a labour market can be very highly targeted. For instance, a few years ago the boat building companies in the Gold Coast Marine Precinct were having great difficulty recruiting the skilled people they needed in trades such as welding, fiberglassing, cabinet making, and upholstery. These trades were in short supply in Southeast Queensland. Rather than just expanding their labour market generally, they capitalised on an opportunity to go precisely where plenty of people with the needed skills were about to become unemployed. Specifically, two auto plants were shutting down in Adelaide. They sent a recruiting delegation to Adelaide and returned with nearly 100 tradies and their families. Several years ago the city of Seattle was having a hard time hiring for its police force. They had 125 vacant positions and couldn’t find enough local candidates who met their requirements. Once they decided to expand their recruitment activities from local to nationwide, they were able to fill their needs. They also found that they had an additional inducement that was relevant to this expanded labour market – the opportunity to live in a city regarded as hip and desirable.

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5 STEPS TO RECRUITING EFFECTIVELY, CON’T

3. DECIDE HOW TO REACH THE CHOSEN LABOUR MARKET. Once you know where you are looking, you can think about how best to reach potential job candidates in that market. We will talk about a number of recruitment methods later in this document. You may choose to use more than one method at a time.

4. PLAN AND EXECUTE THE RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN. Plan the campaign in terms of when it will begin, using the methods chosen above and data from past campaigns (below). Develop the needed materials (ads, selection criteria, web content, etc.) Execute the campaign.

5. KEEP RECORDS, EVALUATE SUCCESS, APPLY WHAT YOU LEARN TO THE NEXT RECRUITMENT CAMPAIGN. There are a number of types of information that should be kept in connection with any recruiting effort to inform future recruitment campaigns. You might have seen a question on an application asking “how did you hear about this job opening?” Companies want to know which of the several methods they may have used actually brought in the most candidates, or attracted the best candidates, so they can re-use the best methods and stop using less effective ones. In addition to the total number of candidates per method, companies calculate the yield ratio (applicants per hire) from each source or recruitment method to find out which sources produce a high frequency of candidates good enough to get and accept an offer. If they have data on how well employees are performing, companies can assess which method(s) brought in the best performing candidates, or those least likely to quit within a year. This is called source quality. For instance, companies who recruit at universities should compare the quality of candidates in different degrees at different universities and stop visiting universities which do not produce good graduates in a particular area. Companies should also calculate time to fill, or how long it takes on average from when they start looking to fill a role until the new hire is on the job. This helps them work out when to begin recruiting. For instance, how long before the opening of a new store should you start looking for staff? When we hire a new professor from overseas to teach at Bond, it can take 8 -16 months from starting the search until someone has moved here with a suitable visa. On the other hand, a sign in the window of a shop may produce a new shop clerk who can start in a week. Normally, employed individuals should give at least a couple of weeks notice to their current employer before leaving, which increases the delay before they are in a new role. Finally, companies should calculate cost per hire. Some methods, such as executive search firms, can be quite expensive. However, small differences in cost per hire are probably irrelevant over the lifespan of a good employee. When planning the next recruitment effort, use the information above to decide when to start, what methods to use, and whether several methods might be needed to attract enough good candidates for the number of openings.

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INTERNAL RECRUITMENT METHODS

The next few slides discuss a subset of recruiting methods. Others will be explored in more depth in class. All are important. We begin with a consideration of internal recruitment methods.

Internal Recruitment Methods

1. Internal Job Posting. Enterprise agreements or awards may require that most jobs are first advertised internally, to provide advancement opportunities to current employees. Whether or not it is required, it’s good practice to give your own employees a chance if you think there are likely to be qualified internal candidates. Most companies have an HR intranet site on which jobs are posted and employees invited to express interest in moving from their current job to another open job anywhere within the firm. This may be a either a lateral transfer or a promotion.

Bond has such a site which is only visible to employees. On this internal website site, employees can get the full position description, , see the selection criteria, and find out how to apply. There is another site for jobs being advertised externally, though internal candidates can also usually apply for these as well.

2. Manager Nomination. Managers may be asked to nominate individuals who may be qualified for an open position elsewhere in the company, especially for higher level roles.

3. HRIS Search. Another way to find suitable internal candidates is to search the company’s human resource information system for individuals with the required backgrounds, skills, and preferences. In large companies this is particularly useful, as the best person may be in another division or location.

4. Consult Succession Plans. The reason organisations have succession plans for important jobs is to facilitate early thinking on who may be qualified to move into a job should it become available, and to assure that development plans are in place to build the skills needed for higher level jobs. If an open position appears in a succession plan, there should already be one or more likely candidates identified.

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ACTIVE AND PASSIVE JOB SEEKERS

Only a small proportion of the workforce is actively seeking a

new job at any one point in time. These active job seekers

put their resumes on job boards, search job boards and

newspapers for job ads, network with their friends and social

media connections about job opportunities, and visit

company homepages seeking opportunities. Slightly less

active seekers may skim ads from time to time but are not

working as hard at finding new opportunities. Standard

recruitment advertising and the greatest share of recruitment

expenditures are aimed at this relatively small group of

unemployed or disaffected employees who are most actively

trying to leave their current employer. These may not be the

people you want to hire!

Another share of the workforce is simply not interested in moving no matter what, so needn’t concern recruiters except insofar as they may be able to refer someone else if asked.

However, there is often a large share of the workforce who are passive job seekers. They are not reading ads, sending out resumes, or trying to leave their employer, but if someone approaches them with the right opportunity, they will consider it. These people often make the best employees. They are gainfully and happily employed but might be receptive to the opportunity for an interesting job challenge, the next step in their career ladder, or relocation to a company in a more desired location or industry.

Passive job seekers are not generally reached by advertising. They may be accessed by employee referral programs in which current employees pass on information about openings and encourage their friends to apply, and/or via professional social media platforms like LinkedIn that facilitate networking between employees of different firms. Firms who can leverage their employees’ networks can gain access to potentially excellent future employees. In addition, firms may conduct web searches to locate likely candidates and approach them directly, or employ a search firm to do this.

An example is a search we recently conducted for an academic role in Bond Business School. Advertising did not produce any candidates we found suitable. We subsequently asked academic contacts to refer colleagues who might be a good fit, and also searched the websites of 8 top universities to locate high performing faculty members in the field who currently held the rank just below the level of our appointment, on the assumption that a promotion would be attractive. We then contacted these individuals personally to tell them about our opportunity.

There are many external recruiting methods to choose from.

Consider using a range of methods to target both active and

passive job seekers.

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EXTERNAL RECRUITMENT METHODS

External recruitment methods include the following (and more).

• Newspaper ads, radio or TV ads, billboards, sign in the window

• University campus recruiting

• Public or private employment agencies or executive search firms

• Advertising on job boards, searching job board resume databases

• Company’s own careers website

• Social media

• Employee (and other) referral

• Job fairs

How did you find your last job?

How will you go about seeking a professional job after

graduation?

Job Fair

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EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES

Public Employment Agencies. Most governments provide employment services for the unemployed in an effort to get them back into paid work and off welfare. It is free for employers to list jobs with public job service agencies. While some good candidates may be found via public job service agencies, there are also quite a few clients who are not really interested in working or who are long-term unemployed because they lack basic work skills.

There are three kinds of agencies an employer might use to

locate candidates for open positions.

Recruitment Agencies

Private Employment

Agencies

Executive search or “head

hunting” for higher level jobs

Contingent search for

lower to mid level jobs

Public Employment

Agencies

JobActive Australia

Private Employment Agencies. Private employment agencies charge employers to locate candidates for low to mid level jobs like chef, secretary, supervisor, or nurse. They are paid only if there is a successful hire, so sometimes they are called contingent search firms. Fees often range from 9-19% of annual salary. They don’t decide whom to hire, of course, but they provide any other services the organisation may request, including helping with job descriptions, preparing and placing recruitment advertising, preparing a slate of candidates, applicant testing, and reference and background checking.

Employment agencies say they can do a better, quicker job with recruitment than many companies (especially smaller ones) could do on their own, because the agency is a recruitment specialist. They know where to find people, understand the local labour market and salary trends, and already have databases of potential candidates. Further, if the firm doesn’t want competitors to know they are hiring (it may signal a strategic move), the agency can serve as an intermediary without making public which organisation is seeking what kind of employees. Agencies claim that they are actually more economical than “doing it yourself” despite their fees, because so much managerial time is saved and candidates are appointed more quickly.

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PRIVATE EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES

Are employment agencies always more efficient and economical than doing your own recruiting?

A Case Example. A friend of mine was Senior Vice President – HR at a large national homebuilding company in the US. The firm had grown rapidly by acquiring other home builders. When she was hired, there was no workforce planning and there were many unfilled jobs for construction superintendents, architects, accountants, and other roles critical to success of business. She ran forecasts showing that the company needed to hire 300-500 professionals in these occupations each year for next three years. The company had no internal recruiting expertise so had been using agencies to fill most of these positions, at a cost of 20-30% of first year salary per hire. She put a case to the CEO to hire four full time recruiters, at a salary of $75,000 each. Each one would fill 75-100 jobs per year. She placed one recruiter in each major market across the country (East Coast, Midwest, etc.). Also, she arranged for each one to specialise in a different class of jobs, e.g. architects, so they could supply expertise to the other recruiters when needed and manage the company’s liaison with the relevant profession. She calculated the cost savings to the company of employing four in-house recruiters at $300,000 vs paying a search firm for each and every hire, and it was millions of dollars annually. As the company grew faster, she went back to CEO with updated forecasts and they hired more recruiters, eventually having thirteen. So using an employment agency isn’t always better than doing recruitment yourself. However, she still used a specialised executive search firm when needed for one off senior roles.

Click on the logo to the right to read in detail about the services offered by one local recruitment agency, New Point Recruitment. Note the four kinds of packages offered to employers, prices, and the services associated with each.

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EXECUTIVE SEARCH FIRMS Executive search firms are used to find higher level managers and professionals

Executive Search Firms are also known as head hunters. They are hired by companies with vacancies for upper level professionals and managers. They are particularly expert at searching for passive candidates and pride themselves on having great networks and search skills to find the right people. They directly approach individuals thought to be well qualified and try to interest them in applying for the job.

If a head hunter calls you, tells you about a job, and asks “can you recommend anyone?” they really mean “are you interested?” so feel free to mention yourself. Or if you aren’t interested they’d be happy for you to suggest others who may fit the role.

Search firms produce a slate of candidates for the employer to assess. They may assist with assessment, salary negotiation, and relocation as well. They clearly regard the employer as their client, not the job seeker. Executive search firms are usually are paid their search fee, or retainer, whether or not there is a successful hire from among the candidates they found, hence they are also known as retained search firms. Fees can be 20-33% of total first year compensation, including bonuses, so they are quite expensive. They also can keep the identity of the hiring firm confidential until later in the search.

Some of the largest executive search firms in the world are Korn Ferry International, Egon Zehnder, and Heidrick and Struggles. All have offices in Australia. Their names are hyperlinked to their home page if case you want to investigate them further (optional).

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NETWORKING AND SOCIAL MEDIA

It’s hard to get reliable data, but suggestions are that most people get their jobs through personal contacts and networking. One source says that eighty percent of available jobs are never advertised. Instead, candidates find out about job openings via networking, proactively approaching organisations, and referrals. This is the hidden, informal job market. Personal networking has always been important in finding jobs and job candidates, but is even more impactful today. The availability of social media has accelerated the ability of both job seekers and companies to find each other and offers companies new ways to leverage their and their employees’ contacts to reach out to potential new hires.

It’s been said that the best people and the best jobs find each other in the informal labour market.

HOMEWORK ON SOCIAL MEDIA IN RECRUITMENT*

Due by midnight Monday Feb 13th. Answer the two questions below.

1. Your company is not making much use of social media for recruitment. Your boss has asked you to find out how social media can be used to locate and attract good candidates. Find and read or watch at least three useful articles and/or videos about how companies are using social media for recruitment. Prepare a summary for her, in your own words, which integrates what you have learned about how social media can be used effectively in recruitment. Include the urls of your sources in your answer.

2. How can you apply what you have learned about social media recruitment to accelerate your own job search as you approach graduation?

*Note that the homework is about Recruitment – finding, attracting, and informing candidates of your openings, NOT Selection (evaluating candidates).

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EMPLOYEE REFERRAL

Companies should cultivate networks through which to informally disseminate word about jobs they are trying to fill and encourage knowledgeable others to spread the word to likely candidates. For instance, companies may build networks with professors or former employees and ask that they refer particularly promising individuals.

A special case of networking is having an employee referral program to encourage and sometimes reward employees for referring people who they think would be good hires. After all, a company’s own employees know what kinds of people the company needs and who will fit in. To preserve their own reputation, they won’t refer candidates who they don’t think will succeed, and they are likely to provide a realistic job preview as well as informal mentoring to friends who are hired following their referral. Note that candidates referred by employees should still go through all the same selection steps (interview, testing, additional reference checks, etc.) as those who apply via other methods.

Your employees may be your best recruiters

Employee referrals are inexpensive and effective. One expert suggests that up to 70% of job vacancies may be filled through employee referral if the referral program is correctly designed and funded. Effective programs make sure that employees KNOW what job openings are available and are frequently asked to refer candidates. Employees should get feedback about their referrals (so-and-so was hired, so-and-so did not quite make the cut). It must be easy to refer and there must be a system to keep track of who has referred whom, especially if bonuses are to be paid. While not all companies pay bonuses, it’s not uncommon to offer cash for successful referrals. These may include part of the bonus upon hiring and another payment if the person is still employed and doing well after three to six months. Bonuses and publicity really make these systems work. There does need to be some budget for this, though the cost per hire is still likely to be half what it would cost to fill the role without referral.

The only drawback is that referral may not support goals to increase workforce diversity if your current employees mainly know others that are similar to themselves. For Equal Opportunity purposes, formal means of recruitment (like advertising) are also usually used.

Click the picture above to watch a video about groupon’s employee referral program.

Click the picture above to read 20 tips for an effective employee referral program.

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THE APPLICANT’S POINT OF VIEW

Before potential applicants can apply, they first need to be aware that your company exists, become interested in it as a potential employer, and find out about a job that may suit them. The company’s overall reputation, employer branding, and specific recruitment efforts are critical in these stages. If they apply and make it through the first cut, candidates need to stay interested and patient throughout the several steps in the selection process, not take a job elsewhere or lose interest before an offer is made, and ultimately decide to accept your offer.

Applicants often interpret the way they are treated in the recruitment and selection processes as proxies for the way the company will treat them later as employees. Therefore, it is important to treat applicants well and fairly. That is, respond quickly to acknowledge receipt of applications, keep candidates well informed of next step and timeline (e.g., video interviews will be conducted early next month, followed by site visits for short-listed candidates…), respond politely to their queries, assure that they speak to recruiters or hiring managers who are professional in demeanour and well informed, and try to build personal relationships with promising candidates to increase the likelihood of eventual offer acceptance. Even after the offer is accepted, a percentage of new hires change their minds and never show up to begin work. Be sure to continue to nurture the relationship during this critical time, then greet them with effective orientation and “on-boarding” on arrival.

Applicants make decisions too – about applying, sticking it out through the selection process, accepting job offers, and staying after hire

THE REALISTIC JOB PREVIEW

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During the recruitment process, it is important not to mislead candidates about the job or company. You want to establish an accurate Psychological Contract so that the candidate is not disappointed later.

Sometimes companies intentionally give candidates a Realistic Job Preview (RJP) during the recruitment process by telling them the good, the bad, and the ugly of the job. This can be done by video, work sample, brochure, or in the interview. It is done in an effort to allow candidates who wouldn’t like aspects of the job to “self-select” out and decline the offer rather than becoming costly performance problems or early turnover statistics. Those who accept the job with their eyes wide open are (slightly) less likely to quit when the going gets tough and will be more mentally prepared to cope with challenges on the job.

Optional Resources on the RJP: Click here for a brief introduction to the realistic job preview. Click the picture to the left to read more detailed advice on how and why to use RJPs, and click the picture to the right to watch a sample RJP video for the job of phlebotomist.