An interesting article posted on Yahoo discusses the classic dilemma of the employer, best summarized in the title of the Harvard Business Review paper referenced in the article: "Fool vs. Jerk: Whom Would You Hire?". The article highlights recent efforts by many companies, despite a serious need for new hires, to focus on weeding out potential employees that would end up clashing with the corporate culture through, dare I say, authentic assessment practices. My position on the best way to hire candidates is clear, but this is one of the first instances I've seen of companies attempting to insert more of their actual business practices into the hiring process, instead of more nonsense. A few highlights from the article:

The 1,900-person company is divided into 18- to 20-person teams. One
team is so close, the whole group shows up to help when one member
moves house, Napier said. Job interviews at the San Antonio-based company last all day, as interviewers try to rub away fake pleasantness.

"They're here for nine or ten hours," Napier said. "We're very
cordial about it. We're not aggressive, but we haven't met a human
being yet who has the stamina to BS us all day."

If you can pull it off, I love the idea of the full day interview, and I couldn't agree more that you need to give someone a chance to let their guard down so you can see what they will be like on a day to day basis.

In the mating dance of job interviews, employers traditionally put
their best feet forward, too, trumpeting their wonderful benefits
packages while leaving out the bit about working late, eating cold
pizza.

Not Lindblad. It sends job applicants a DVD showing not one, but two
shots of a crew member cleaning toilets. A dishwasher talks about
washing 5,000 dishes in one day. "Be prepared to work your butt off,"
another says.

"It's meant to scare you off," company founder Sven Lindblad said.

It does. After watching the DVD and hearing an unvarnished
description of life onboard a Lindblad ship, the majority of applicants
drop out, Thompson said.

It's hard to give prospective hires a clear sense of what the job is like day to day, and putting out a DVD is a great way to say "we work really hard and aren't afraid to tell you that" I'm sure the people that stick around are really committed.

KaBoom [a non-profit that builds playgrounds] sends prospective project managers to one of its four-day
playground building trips, with the actual build on the last day
involving 200 to 300 volunteers, many of whom have questions for KaBoom
staff.

"If they're not easily approached, or they're easily stressed —
this is the way we find out and they find out if it's not going to
work," he said.

Hammond wouldn't say what percentage of applicants drop out,
but he did say project managers' tenure has increased since they
started sending them on the trips four years ago, from one year's
tenure to between two-and-a-half and three years.

Changing the average employment term from one year to between 2.5 and 3 years saves what, $100K a year in spin-up and adminstrative costs? Not to mention the effect is has on morale. Employers so often fail to consider the real costs of turnover, and the true sources, and a mismatch between employer and employee expectations is so often the cause. That's why authenticity is so valuable: not only does it allow you to more truly evaluate a perspective hire's capabilities, but it gives them a chance to find out what it is they are signing up for.