Reinventing the realistic job preview: A needed pivot toward equity-based language

Abstract

The activity permits students to reflect on the ways their own identities are privileged or further marginalized during the recruitment process. Students determine ways to re-create job descriptions that remove inequitable language, such as shifting from trait-based language to behavioral-based language and the inclusion of expectation-lowering procedures. The activity also results in students’ recognition of the larger problem of sex segregation and sex spillover in the creation of realistic job previews.

Courses: Organizational Communication, Training and Development, Business and Professional Communication, Intergroup Communication, Gender Communication, and Intercultural Communication.

Learning Objectives: After completing this activity, students will be able to (1) reflect on their own dispositions toward a job description, (2) determine stereotypical feminine and masculine language in a job description, (3) apply behavioral-based language to a job description, and (4) apply sex segregation and sex spillover to realistic job previews.