Professional Interview 2016

1 COM 325

OBJECTIVES Upon completion of this learning opportunity, you will possess the skills necessary to:

1. Design an in-depth interview complete with interview guide, question sequence, and question list.

2. Explain the interview process from a first-hand experience as an interviewer. 3. Apply the different interviewing techniques covered in class materials.

LEARNING OPPORTUNITY For this learning opportunity, you are going to be an interviewer. The subject matter is your choice as well as are the individuals you will interview. Select a subject about which you would like to gain more information. The subject could be about a future career, a social problem/issue, or a political/economic question. The topic should be important to you and be worthy of investigation and your time investment.

1. Do some research to become familiar with the topic and the persons available to you who will be the authorities on this subject.

2. Select two people for interviewing. If those individuals can represent opposing views on the topic, so much the better for you. I encourage you to stray away from interviewing relatives, friends, significant others, etc as they will not result in a true interviewing situation.

3. Develop in-depth interviews that will probe for the information you seek. Each interview should not be less than 15 minutes in length – though you do need to be reasonable about the maximum as you are asking someone to give up time out of their day.

4. You make take notes or record the interview. It is up to you and the person you interview which method you employ.

5. You will prepare a report to be submitted via Blackboard. The report will contain the following:

a. Identification of the topic and the reasons you selected it. Be specific in identifying your goals.

b. Reasons for selection of the two interviewees, including their qualifications as authorities. Be specific in justifying your choices.

c. List of the questions used in each interview and a brief discussion of your strategies in developing these particular interview schedules.

a. Please Note: I do NOT need you to submit an interview schedule with all of your interviewee responses. For this, I just need the schedule you created.

d. A summary of your results. a. Not only should you address the information learned

during the interviews specifically, but discuss the interview process and the interviewees and a few of their answers. Be thorough in your analysis of the new

Professional Interview 2016

2 COM 325

knowledge learned as well as the differences in each interview.

Each interviewee will be asked to complete a survey online (link will be provided) after the interview has concluded. So be sure you select individuals who are willing to complete this final step. It is critical for my assessment of your skills application. I will need their e-mail to send them the survey link!

EVALUATION:

This learning opportunity will be graded based on how thoroughly you follow the above stated directions, your final write-up analyzing the interview process in the shoes of an interviewer, an explanation of the new insight gained about your topic, and how creative you are with the overall assignment.

If needed, detailed feedback will be provided on your submitted documents through Microsoft Track Changes feature. Please contact me as soon as possible if you are unfamiliar with this tool. If detailed feedback is not needed, a few comments may be given in the appropriate area in Blackboard's gradebook.