Yesterday I was diligently working my way through reviewing job applications when my boss calls out from around the corner, “Don’t you think it’s about time we had a new blog?” To which I irately yelled back, “Well if you hadn’t had me doing all this other stuff that’s not even my job, then maybe I’d have time to blog!”

It may sound like an overreaction but it had been building up for awhile and something had to give. I’ve been wearing a multitude of hats lately; I’m not sure what my job is anymore. I think it is something like account manager/recruitment specialist/social media manager/website administrator/occasional blogger – the other day something was wrong with the printer and he tried to get me to fix that too, so I could probably add technician to the list too.

Anyway, the point is I’ve been having a bit of an identity crisis and I am obviously becoming increasingly uneasy with my exponentially expanding responsibilities. It turns out I’m not alone in this; recent research by SHL found that 44% of candidates had started a new job only to find that the position included a range of tasks outside of the job description presented at the job interview. As a result the new employee tended to one of three things: accept the situation and adapt, mentally “check out” of the job or quit.

Now my situation is not so dire - in fact it’s probably a direct result of asking for “more variety” in my role - so I have chosen option 1) (grudgingly) accept and adapt. But what is the cost to businesses when they misrepresent their job or company to candidates and their new employee chooses either of the last two options? The research shows that 15% of new hires will leave before they have reached their full proficiency. The costs of hiring and training a candidate only to have them leave before you start seeing some return are obvious; but even if they don’t decide to quit but they are just going through the motions with their job, a disgruntled and unproductive employee is still a major cost to your business.

The moral of this story is the importance of managing expectations, both before and after hiring. If the reality of the role doesn’t have a chance of living up to your glowing portrayal of it, then you are setting yourself up for higher turnover rates.