Over the next few months, we’re going to be doing a blogswap with CollegeRecruiter.com.  This means that while I will still continue to post several times a week, you will also be treated to the wise musings of guest career bloggers.  We’re kicking things off with a post from Susan Strayer, a career and organization development expert who blogs at Kaleidoblog.  

If you've ever wandered around Whole Foods at lunch (why, oh why is the Nashville Whole Foods not yet built??) you know that the plethora of samples can equal a free lunch.   So it makes sense: product sampling works, right?  Why not job sampling?  Check out this post (from a cool, new blog I like, Exceler8ion, about social media and online recruitment marketing).

I responded to their post on the idea of job sampling...great in theory.  But here's the thing.  While job sampling sounds cool, it reminds me of why I came to Business School in the first place--to anticipate the capitalistic response.   Meaning, making the business case that job sampling isn't a cost nightmare seems next to impossible.  Which is why I am more a proponent of On-the-Job previews or Realistic Job Previews (RJT)--videos that show a real day-in-the-life in a particular job or position.

Switching roles from capitalist to customer--I hear the masses: "If the company creates the RJT, they how do we know it is really realistic?  How do we know it isn't manipulated to avoid the downfalls of negative sides of the job?"

I think this is the real question to answer.

Thanks, Susan!