A realistic job preview (RJP) shows candidates the hard parts of a job alongside the good ones before they accept it, so people who would not cope opt out early instead of quitting in the first few months. It is not employer branding, which sells the company, and it is not the job description, which lists duties without saying what they feel like.

Where the idea comes from, and how well it works

Organisational psychologist John Wanous popularised the term. His 1973 paper in the Journal of Applied Psychology reported a field experiment at a telephone company with 80 newly hired operators, comparing a realistic preview of the job with the usual upbeat one. Later reviews pooled many such studies. Premack and Wanous (1985) looked at 21 experiments and found RJPs lowered inflated expectations and were linked to higher commitment, satisfaction and job survival. Phillips (1998) covered 40 studies and found RJPs related to lower turnover and better performance, but the effects were small. Earnest, Allen and Landis (2011) concluded that the main mechanism is that candidates see the employer as more honest.

So the honest summary is: RJPs reduce early attrition, modestly. They are cheap and worth doing, but they will not fix a job that is genuinely badly designed or underpaid.

What it looks like in Indian roles

• BPO and contact centres: night shifts on US or UK hours, rotational week-offs, monitored calls, handle-time targets and difficult callers. Let walk-in candidates sit with an agent on the floor or hear a sample call before the offer.
• Field sales: daily travel on a two-wheeler in summer heat, monthly targets, collections follow-up. A half-day shadowing a current executive says more than any presentation.
• Plants and warehouses: rotating shifts, standing for long hours, safety rules. A shop-floor walk during the interview day does the job.

Use a current employee, not the recruiter, to deliver it, and give it before offer acceptance. Expect a few more candidates to drop out at offer stage; that is the point.

Frequently asked questions

Won’t an RJP put off good candidates?

Some will self-select out, and most of them would probably have left in the first quarter anyway. Strong candidates generally respond well to frankness, because it signals the rest of what they were told is true.

How do we know if ours is working?

Compare 90-day and six-month attrition for hiring batches that got the preview against batches that did not, keeping role and location the same. Also watch the offer-to-join ratio, which may dip slightly.

Is a paid trial day the same thing?

No. A trial day is an assessment of the candidate. An RJP is information for the candidate, though a well-run trial day often does both.

Early exits show up quickly in the numbers; track them with the attrition rate calculator and read our guide on employee attrition.