Recruitment & Selection

Group Assignment – Behavioral Interview

You are to create a 12 to 15-question behavioural interview for a college professor using the
following steps.
Students may be asked to present the extent of their work in class. Presentations will not be
graded, only the written submissions (unless otherwise noted).
Submit this document electronically via SLATE email before next class. Also note, as per School
of Business guidelines, an assignment that is turned in late without approval by the instructor
will receive a penalty of 10% per day. After three academic days any assignment not handed in
will not be accepted. Please include your names and student numbers on this document.

STUDENT NAMES: STUDENT NUMBERS:

Step 1

Each member of your group is a subject matter expert (SME). Using the Critical Incident Technique (CIT),
you will generate behaviourally-focused descriptions of work activities based on examples of effective
and ineffective work behaviours, known as critical incidents, related to superior or inferior performance.

Your group must identify examples of past professors who demonstrated excellent job performance. For
each example, please describe: 1) the details leading up to the example; 2) describe what the professor
did (e.g., actions) that made his/her job performance excellent; and 3) describe the results or outcomes
of the professor’s actions.

The following is an example of a restaurant server demonstrating excellent job performance. 1) A diner
complained about her food; 2) The server apologized and asked the diner the nature of the problem and
gave the diner choices that included a) being given another plate of the same dish, b) an opportunity to
order another menu item, c) give a gift certificate to the diner if she no longer wishes to continue
dinner; 3) the diner was grateful to the server and gave that server an excellent service rating.

Step 2

Your group must identify examples of past professors who demonstrated very poor job performance.
For each example, please describe: 1) the details leading up to the example; 2) describe what the
professor did (e.g., actions) that made his/her job performance very poor; and 3) describe the results or
outcomes of the professor’s actions.

The following is an example of a restaurant server demonstrating very poor job performance. 1) A diner
complained about her food; 2) The server took the food away from the diner and proceeded to serve
the diner as if nothing happened; 3) the diner complained to the restaurant manager about the server.

Step 3

List the examples you have created in in steps 2 and 3 in the space below, read through the examples
and remove any that are redundant.

Step 4

In the space below, create questions using examples of situations that a professor may encounter on-
the-job. Make sure that the questions you choose are strategically tied to the job description that you
created for Assignment 1.

Step 5

For each question you must create a 5-point Likert rating scale with “1” representing a poor rating and
“5” representing an excellent rating. The following are examples of words that have been used in such
scales: 1) Strongly Agree, Agree, Undecided, Disagree, Strongly Disagree; 2) Excellent, Above Average,
Average, Below Average, Very Poor; 3) Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor, Very Poor; 4) Almost Always, Often,
Sometimes, Seldom, Never.
 Each numerical rating must also be accompanied by a description of an answer that is appropriate for
that rating. These descriptions are used by interviewers when scoring the actual answers of
interviewees.

The following is an example of a question and rating scale:

Question: Tell me about a time you received a report about a unionized employee being in violation of a
work place rule and were asked to address it. How did you go about dealing with this situation?
Candidate’s
Answer (written
by interviewer):

Rating (Circle the Examples of Answers Interviewer Comments

Candidate’s score
below based on
their answer)
5 – Excellent Verify that the workplace rule actually exists; investigate the incident in
accordance with the collective agreement; if necessary, administer
discipline according to progressive discipline principles
4 – Very Good Discuss issue with employee and union representative to get
employee’s side of the story and, if necessary, issue discipline without
using progressive discipline principles
3 – Satisfactory Discuss issue with employee and union representative to get
employee’s side of the story and warn him/her against violating the
workplace rule again
2 – Unsatisfactory Take employee aside without investigating incident and warn him/her
against violating the workplace rule again
1 – Poor Ignore the report