The purpose of this assignment is to give you an opportunity to demonstrate your ability to define and analyze soft skills as they pertain to employability and career advancement, differentiate between different types of written and unwritten rules in the workplace, and describe appropriate workplace behaviours within those frameworks.

How to Proceed

1. Refer to Navigating the Interview: A Guide for Candidates for this assignment.
2. Next, read through the scenario below and watch the candidate interview.
3. NOTE: Navigating the Interview: A Guide for Candidates explicitly outlines on a number of unwritten rules in the workplace (e.g., companies want to know what specific skills you bring; companies want to build diverse teams; the onus is usually put on the candidate to demonstrate the value of their intercultural skills in an interview, etc.) You may not include this content in your analysis.
4. After watching the video, draft a reflective analysis. Be sure to:
   1. Include a brief summary of the technical and soft skills required for the role;
   2. Identify and describe three soft skills in which the interviewee demonstrates competence. Identify the skill, describe the associated behaviour (e.g., language choice, body language, other visual cues), and provide a short analysis of why these soft skills are particularly relevant to this role and to opportunities for advancement at Aquam;
   3. Identify and describe two unwritten rules that the candidate breaks and why;
   4. Include at least one personal observation and lesson learned that you can apply to your own future workplace experiences.

Scenario

Aquam is a fictional Canadian company with offices in Canada, Europe, China and the Middle East. The company is hiring a project manager, a senior role in the organization, who will directly lead large projects and supervise and mentor diverse entry level engineers. The successful candidate will also coordinate projects with staff across multiple departments, perform engineering analyses and design work, develop reports and presentations, meet financial performance goals on assigned projects, assist with market development locally and internationally, and handle multinational client relations.

James Brooke is an experienced candidate, who believes he is the right person for the role. Watch a video of his interview here: Interview 3 James Brooke: Navigating the Interview.

References

Center for Intercultural Education. (2014). Navigating the Interview: A Guide for Candidates. Edmonton, AB: NorQuest College.

NorQuestVids. (2016, August 12). Interview 3 James Brooke. Navigating the Interview [Youtube video]. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/9MO_nh8WqCM