Realistic Job Previews that Tell a Story

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Apparently no one told her the story of what to expect.

Within the academic (and applied) literature is a concept called “Realistic Job Previews (RJPs),” which Wikipedia describes as

devices used in early stages of personnel selection to provide potential applicants with information on both positive and negative aspects of the job. The employee exchange or psychological contract between employer and employee is at the heart of the RJP concept. With an RJP, the employee enters into the contract with their eyes open, aware of what the organization will provide to them (pay, hours, schedule flexibility, culture, etc.) and also with their eyes open to what will be expected from them (late hours, stress, customer interaction, high urgency, degree of physical risk, etc.).

The idea is to reduce turnover by being totally upfront with candidates so they know what they’re getting into. I’ve written before here about employers who make videos available to show what it’s like to work for their organizations, but I suspect those are presented with a rather positive spin.

But in his blog, Build a Better Box, Steve Lovelace writes about a video version of the Realistic Job Preview:

One of our large corporate clients … work[ed] with us to create a recent groundbreaking communications piece. Part “Scared Straight”, part “What to Expect When You’re Expecting”, and part positive-spin marketing, the video demonstrated some typical on-the-job scenarios, depicted through a combination of realistic re-enactments and actual employee dialog through engaging interviews. The logic behind this bold tactic was that potential new employees would get a sneak preview of things to come before they accepted the position. The employer would realize tremendous savings in quarterly training and development, and potential employees would avoid being engaged in a job with which they’d not be comfortable. It’s a win-win, and good karma would abound.

I agree. While any kind of video storytelling from employers that gives a flavor of organizational life is positive, those that tell the real story are the most valuable.

Interestingly, Eric Kramer has just reported in Kennedy Information’s Recruiting Trends that a survey by the Novations Group finds 33 percent of surveyed companies lost 25 percent of their new employees in 12 months, and 11 percent of those surveyed lost 50 percent of their new employees in the first 12 months. The number one reason, say 48 percent of respondents is unrealistic expectations of the job.

The Story of Science

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Some encouraging news in the world of using story in teaching and learning…

The Washington Post recently featured The Story of Science series of textbooks for middle-schoolers by Joy Hakim.

The Post’s Valerie Strauss reports that the series:

tells the history of science with wit, narrative depth and research, all vetted by specialists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The first book is Aristotle Leads the Way,” the second is Newton at the Center and the third is Einstein Adds a New Dimension. The series, which has drawn acclaim, chronicles not only great discoveries but also the scientists who made them. … Constance Skelton, science coordinator for Arlington County schools, said teaching science through stories rather than unconnected snippets of formulas and information is gaining popularity. “If you talk to any first-rate scientist about a particular development, you will very quickly hear a narrative, because the way good scientists think about developments in their field is in terms of stories,” science writer Timothy Ferris said. “Telling a story reminds you of how you got to your present state of knowledge,” he said, and scientists constantly test whether those steps were reliable.

Second Life, Story, and Innovation

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Claudia L’Amoureaux, education community developer for Linden Lab, the company behind Second Life, is one of the presenters at Storytelling, a Path to Innovation, an event in the Washington, DC, storytelling weekend planned for May 8-10.

In an interview with Steve Denning, L’Amoureaux discusses innovation and learning in the “metaverse,” particularly the story space of Second Life (which I’ll be writing more about in the future).

A snippet from the interview:

People are inventing new narratives that take on a life of their own, because people that they don’t know yet can come there and inhabit the space, and leave their contributions. The story evolves.

Storytelling and Dream Interpretation

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How can storytelling help you interpret your dreams? A new piece of research by Teresa DeCicco reveals a technique.

In her article, “What is the Story Telling? Examining Discovery with the Storytelling Method (TSM) and Testing with a Control Group,” in the academic journal Dreaming, DeCicco notes that her research showed a “significant relationship” between word association and “dreamer discovery” when dreamers created a story after completing word association about their dreams. “Discovery, insight, and bridging to waking-day circumstances was more likely with [the storytelling method],” DeCicco writes. She found a “significant difference between a group that interpreted a dream with [the storytelling method] and those who used the method with word association alone.”

DeCicco explains that:

Most dream interpretations are based on two guiding principles: (a) a description of the dream and (b) associations made by the dreamer on the basis of dream content… [The storytelling method] begins with these two fundamental steps and then expands on the basic principles by adding a third step to the process. The third step involves taking the associations and making a meaningful story from them. People make meaning from events based on their own lives in terms of their experiences, personality, and perceptions.

Here’s a paraphrased, brief outline of the storytelling method of dream interpretation:

1. Write down the dream in as much detail as possible upon waking.

2. Underline the most important/salient phrases in the dream.

3. Make a list of underlined words.

4. Make an association with each word or phrase on the list.

5. Take the new list of associations and make a meaningful story from these words — in the exact order they appear on the list.

6. Try to bridge this story to any situation in your waking life and journal about it based on insight from the dream. As questions such as:

    • Does this story have meaning for you? Explain.
    • Does this story relate to your waking life in some way? Explain.
    • Does this story relate to any specific events in your waking life?
    • Did this analysis give you any clear insights?
    • If yes, write about that insight and how it relates to your life?

An Old Friend Advocates Storytelling in the Job Search

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Like many people, I had one of my first introductions into the world of job-hunting through Richard Bolles’ perennial bestseller, What Color is Your Parachute? My earliest memory of this influential book is when I was participating in a job club in Knoxville, TN, in the 1970s.

Something I read recently on the Web reminded me that Bolles advocates storytelling in the job search. In the 2008 edition of the annually updated book, he even relates storytelling to blogging.

The exercise he recommends is called Seven Stories. He acknowledges resistance on the part of job-seekers to writing stories, and says he believed job-hunters didn’t like to write until blogging came along. The ubiquitousness of blogging convinced Bolles that we are a writing people, so he now advises folks to think of the Seven Stories as offline blog entries.

Bolles says each story should include:

  • Your goal: what you wanted to accomplish.
  • Some kind of hurdle, obstacle, or constraint that you faced.
  • A description of what you did, step by step.
  • A description of the outcome or result.
  • Any measurable or quantifiable statement of that outcome that you can think of.

Bolles then asks job-seekers to analyze their stories for the transferable skills used in the story. At the end of the Seven Stories exercise, Bolles recommends deciding which skills are your favorites and prioritize them.

Boomer Stories

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Boomoirs is a site to collect and share the stories of baby boomers. Discovering the site — through Stephanie West Allen — was timely because my husband and I were just having a discussion about the new social-networking site for “boomers,” BoomJ, which has publicized a demographic group we’ve never heard of — Generation Jones. Here’s what BoomJ has to say about the categories of Boomers:

Baby Boomers were born 1942 to 1953; we associate their youth with Howdy Doody, Davy Crocket hats, and later, Woodstock and Vietnam War demonstrations.

Generation Jones, born 1954 to 1965, is a newer concept and name that represents the actual children of the sixties (more wide-eyed than tie-dyed); Jonesers were weaned on The Brady Bunch and Easy Bake Ovens and later were the teens of 70’s heavy metal, disco, punk and soul.

… Jonesers were originally mistakenly lumped in with Boomers simply because of shared high birth rates, but generational personalities stem from shared formative experiences, not head counts. The dramatically different formative experiences of Boomers and Jonesers created two very different generational personalities. We at Boomj.com “get” Boomers and Jonesers, the differences as well as the similarities.

I think this Generation Jones thing may be a ploy by BoomJ to get slightly younger members. I prefer to stick with the classic Boomer bracket of 1946 to 1964. The Brady Bunch was clearly after my time (insert haughty sniff here].

Anyway, here’s what Boomoirs has to say about sharing stories on its site:

You know all those stories you tell your kids about when you were growing up? Tell us, too.

When you get together with old friends, do you reminisce about the good old days? Do you out-brag each other over who attended the coolest concert, drove the hottest car, had the best haircut, or highest-stacked heels?

What was the highlight of your Baby Boomer life? Your defining moment? Your 15 minutes of fame?

Send us your stories and photos and we’ll publish them on the soon-to-be-launched Boomoirs.com. Anything from 100 words and up – a quick anecdote to a boomer memoir with a photo or two are welcome.

You can also subscribe to a weekly Boomoirs newsletter.

Tell Your Career Story!

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I’m looking for 10 people to profile on 10CareerStories.com and have a bunch of questions.

Looking for folks in these categories:

  • Teenager/high-school student planning a career
  • College student seeking career
  • New college grad
  • Twentysomething worker seeking more meaning in your career
  • MBA/grad student seeking job
  • Mid-career changer seeking a new career
  • Homemaker returning to the workforce
  • Fired/downsized worker seeking new job
  • Entrepreneur returning to the workforce
  • Baby Boomer/mature worker seeking job/career

If you fit and would like to answer the questions, please go to the questionnaire.

(http://www.quintcareers.com/career-stories-profile.html)

Thank you!

Storymaker: New Tool for Digital Storytelling

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StoryMaker describes itself as

a simple tool for creating digital stories. Using audio, pictures and text you can create storyboards, slideshows and much much more. To create your own StoryMaker file, just click on the ‘Create a new StoryMaker file’ button below and follow the instructions that follow. You will be asked to input some data and upload your audio file. You audio file can be anything from music to conversation and your images can be absolutely anything you want. Once you do this you are free to proceed to StoryMaker and let your imagination run wild! Your StoryMaker files can be created in one visit to StoryBox or can be saved and worked over several visits. Once you are happy with your work you can add your story to StoryBox to share with others.

Storytelling Art in My Backyard

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Through May 1, the Art League of Daytona Beach has an exhibit called Storytellers featuring the work of five women artists whose works share strong narrative qualities, according to curator Robin Moore, as quoted by Laura Stewart in the Daytona Beach News Journal.