"MANAGER INTERVIEW" ASSIGNMENT
Chapter : Management By Thomas S. Bateman,Scott A. Snell,Rob Konopaske
Goals of the assignment: To expose students to real-life applications of the management topics that we covered (Chapters 1-5). To practice business language and improve written communication skills.
Required interview questions:
(1) Can you describe a week at work? What activities/tasks do you regularly engage in? (Chapter 1)
(2) How is being a manager different from being an employee? What are some of the things that changed when you became a manager?
(3) In your opinion, how should an effective manager manage employees? What kind of a managerial approach do you follow? Can you give examples? (Chapter 2)
(4) Does any external factor (such as competitors, economy, laws, regulations, customer demographics, social trends, etc.) affect your plans and management? How so? (Chapter 3)
(5) Do you ever face ethical challenges as a manager? How do you handle them? (Chapter 4)
(6) As a manager you make many decisions every day. How do you make decisions? Do you make plans and think through every alternative before you make decisions? Or do you also listen to your intuition while making decisions? (Chapter 5)
(7) Can you tell me about your strategic planning process? Do you identify and follow a particular strategy? (Chapter 5)
You can ask additional or follow-up questions as well. After the interview, organize the answers and prepare a 4- to 5-page report that consists of the following sections and headers:
Manager's Name - Title - Organization
Job Description & Responsibilities
Changes Experienced After Becoming a Manager
Managerial Approach: (Manager's response here)
Analysis and recommendations: (Your analysis here)
Environmental Factors Affecting Management Practice
Analysis and recommendations
Ethical Challenges and Handling Methods
Analysis and recommendations
Managerial Decision Making Methods
Analysis and recommendations
Strategic Planning Tasks & Process
Analysis and recommendations
Lessons Learned
Under the header "analysis and recommendations," analyze the manager's answer using the class concepts and models we learned in class. Do the manager's answers overlap or contradict with what we learnt in our classes? How so? Explain. Make recommendations for the manager.
Under "Lessons learned," report the lessons you learned in this interview that you can use in your own career. Give specific examples of how you will use these lessons in your career (at school, work, sports club, etc.).