| For your next writing project, I’d like you to write out a dialog between two people: an interviewer (der Chef / die Chefin) and a job applicant (der Bewerber / die Bewerberin). You’ll need to decide what kind of job is under consideration, and you’ll need to write out a few questions as well as answers. The answers should, of course, be slightly longer than the questions, but they don’t have to go into tremendous amounts of detail. |
| I encourage you to have fun with this assignment, but within reason. The goal is to practice a lot of the job-related vocabulary that we’ve been learning and to be able to express professional discussions in German. Thus, please do stick at least somewhat to a ‘traditional’ job interview and don’t go totally off the deep end with humor. That said, feel free to inject humorous responses when appropriate -- I don’t want to stifle your creativity altogether! In the end, I’d suggest that if you want to make things light-hearted, that you keep the questions fairly straightforward and let the answers contain the creativity. And as always, you certainly don’t need to be humorous at all -- a straightforward interview is also perfectly appropriate. |
| To help you out in getting started, I’ve listed below a few common interview questions that you may want to use. You’ll need to come up with answers to some of these questions, or to invent your own questions and answer those as well. Remember that it’s a good idea for the applicant to ask at least one or two questions of their own, so try to include a bit of inquisitiveness on the applicant’s part. And please remember that interviewers and applicants will be using the formal “Sie” address, not “du”. |
| Fragen von dem Chef: |
| • Wie ist Ihre Persönlichkeit? Welche Eigenschaften (=characteristics) haben Sie? |
| • Wofür interessieren Sie sich? Was sind Ihre Hobbys und Interessen? |
| • Was sind Ihre Stärken (=strengths)? Was sind Ihre Schwächen (=weaknesses)? |
| • Sind Sie für diese Stelle qualifiziert? Was sind Ihre Qualifizierungen? |
| • Was bringen Sie zu unserer Firma? |
| • Warum wollen Sie bei unserer Firma arbeiten? |
| • Wo sehen Sie sich in 10 Jahren? |
| • Wo haben Sie früher gearbeitet? Wofür waren Sie verantwortlich (=responsible)? |
| • Beschreiben Sie eine Situation, in der Sie eine schwere Entscheidung (=decision) gemacht haben. |
| |
| Fragen von dem Bewerber: |
| • Warum ist diese Stelle frei? |
| • Wann werde ich von Ihnen hören? |
| • Gibt es gute Aufstiegsmöglichkeiten (=advancement opportunities)? |
| You’ll probably want to refer to our vocabulary list for additional vocabulary, and it wouldn’t hurt to look back over the Absprungtext (about job interviews) on p. 381 in the textbook. Since I can’t really predict what kind of answers you’ll come up with, I don’t have a list of additional vocabulary you may need, but as always, please do consult a dictionary and/or talk to me if there are particular words or phrases that you’re having difficulty with. |
| As far as grammar points go, this writing project is quite wide open. You will probably be using the present tense in your questions and answers, though you may wish to ask about past events and experiences using the past tense. You should, if appropriate, include adjectives and be aware of adjective endings, but much of the phrasing will depend on what you ask and answer, so whatever choices you make, please make sure to double-check your sentences for grammatical (and spelling!) accuracy. |
| Format and Length: Like the previous assignments, I would prefer that this be typed: please DOUBLE-SPACE your paragraph so that I have room for corrections. It should be approximately 100 words in length (that’s about 18 sentences, depending on how complex your sentences are). As always, feel free to write more than that if you want to, although there’s no extra credit for longer work. |
| Grading criteria: clearly, vocabulary and phrasing is very important to this assignment, so try to use what we’ve learned, along with any additional things you look up. If you do look something up, be sure to double-check its meaning by cross-referencing it (look the German word back up to see if it really does match what you want). As stated above, grammatical emphases will vary according to what you choose to focus on, but rest assured that grammar will be graded, so do be sure to proofread for both grammatical and spelling errors. |
| Viel Glück und viel Spass! |