It's April and business is growing. Since you started managing the dessert bar and coffee shop in Pinehaven Port, you've extended the weekend hours twice and several times had to ask your three servers to work overtime. What will the summer be like? Even more to the point, what will the summer weekends be like, with tourists and summer residents swelling the population at regular intervals until October?

 

You need more staff. The owner trusts your judgement (he should; he's your brother) and told you to hire as many servers as you think you need for the upcoming busy season.

 

You made the mistake of posting an ad on national and local online job boards and got far too many résumés, even after the posting services did a first cut for keywords. After what seemed like hours of scanning quickly through the "maybe" pile, you narrowed it down to 10 people to interview in your search for one more full time and two new weekend servers.

 

You want to make sure the applicants really want a job until October, though. You don't want someone who really wants a permanent job and will quit as soon as one appears, sending you back to the haystack of résumés. By the same token, you don't want to hire someone for the weekend slot who will leave at the first sign of full-time hours elsewhere. You need interview questions that will allow you to make an apples-to-apples comparison of the candidates, show you whether they'd be a good fit with your customer group, and indicate whether they'd stay in the job they were hired to fill.

 

Question 1 -Make a set of interview questions for a series of 45-minute interviews.

 

2. Pitching the environmental network
At a conference for environmental technicians last week, one of the speakers described a social networking community set up in his local area. Anyone working in the field - from municipal public works staff to employees of environmental engineering firms and environmental educators and students - can join. Members share information, ask for solutions to problems, arrange face-to-face events and job hunt.

The speaker described some initial resistance. At first, employers saw the network as a time-wasting threat. Although people new to the environmental field were enthusiastic about the career and professional development opportunities it offered, most experienced practitioners weren't as keen. They feared they'd become the overworked resources for everyone else, without gaining any benefits themselves. After a few months, though, the network was thriving. It boosted members' job performance, and had proven itself to all stakeholders.

You can see the possibilities for your own part of the province, and want to build some strong momentum within your own company before you approach local municipalities, other environmental firms in the city and area schools for support. It's not money the network needs from them; although sponsorship of social or professional development events might be nice. The real need is endorsement for the network as a legitimate work activity, and recognition for the time members spend on it.

You talked your company's public relations team, which organizes the quarterly all-hands meeting, into squeezing five minutes into the agenda for you to make your pitch. In that brief time, you hope to convince the environmental employees in the group to embrace the network so it gets off to a robust start. For the support staff and managers in the crowd, you can portray your company as a leader in promoting professional collaboration in the environmental field. Janine, one of your colleagues, agreed to share the presentation stage so you don't give the appearance of being a completely lone voice.

Now you need to plan the five-minute presentation.

1. Outline the presentation, including how you and Janine will share the delivery.

          2. Outline the visuals you'll create to accompany your presentation