Interviews. Arrange an interview with a business professional you hope to learn about. Ask at least 12 questions. Submit a write-up that includes the person’s name and title; bullet points of at least 4 things you learned; and each of your questions and each of their answers. 3 interviews, 10 points per interview. Place in your portfolio.
Your questions only pertain to the person’s professional career and whatever they choose to divulge personally. Among your questions, you must specifically ask:
1. What keeps you up at night?
2. If your budget increased by 10% what would you do? Decreased by 10%?
3. Describe a difficult ethical dilemma you have encountered.
4. What traits do you look for in people at various stages of their careers?
Other questions to consider (but not required);
What is your elevator speech?
What are the major opportunities you see? What are major constraints?
What is the expected IRR of projects within this division? How/why is this different from other divisions?
What form and type of approval do you need to initiate new projects?
What qualitative and quantitative measures do you use to evaluate individual performance?
How have internal expectations changed post Great Recession?
How important is internal culture to organizational goals, and how is this culture maintained?
How do you incentivize innovation and learning?
How is risk-taking balanced with capital preservation?
How does a person keep an eye on emerging disruptive competitors?
Have you ever experienced a loss of employment? How did you handle it?
What are your goals for the remainder of your career?
Have you considered starting your own business? Why/why not?
What advice do you have?