Interviewing and Performance Appraisals

The Interviewing and Performance Appraisals assignment is Week 2's largest deliverable — worth 8%, more than the week's two discussion forums combined — and it is anchored to Weekly Learning Outcomes 3 and 4 and to Chapters 3, 4, and 5 of Cascio and Aguinis. It is also the first assignment in the course that asks you to produce practitioner artifacts rather than analysis of a scenario or a case: you write real interview questions and real appraisal feedback, the way a working manager actually would. This guide restates the requirements as a checklist, breaks Part 1 and Part 2 down directive by directive, maps the requirements to the grading rubric, and closes with a structure outline and a Quick Reference table.

The Prompt, Restated

Before beginning, review Chapters 3, 4, and 5, the Currence (2021) Tear Off the Rearview Mirror article, the Hogue (2022) How Not to Be a Second-Choice Employer in 2022 article, and the Hayes (2023) Performance Appraisals in the Workplace webpage.

The assignment has two parts, each with its own set of directives.

• Part 1, Conducting Interviews — Directive 1: devise insightful interview questions that allow you to assess candidates (three questions total). Directive 2: defend the rationale for choosing the three interview questions. Directive 3: use course materials or sources you have found to support your choices and rationale.
• Part 2, Performance Appraisals — Directive 4: assess the employee performance of two people in an organization (or someone you know personally). Directive 5: summarize each individual's strengths and opportunities for improvement as they relate to a job role. Directive 6: provide meaningful feedback that could facilitate employment development.

Canvas lists the formatting requirements as a checklist, the same structure used in Week 1. Meeting every item is a floor for a passing grade, independent of the quality of the analysis.

Directive 1 asks for insightful interview questions — questions designed to assess a candidate meaningfully, not generic icebreakers. Directive 2 asks you to defend why you chose each one. Directive 3 asks you to ground that rationale in course materials or outside sources, not just personal preference.

What Makes a Question "Insightful"

Chapter 3's decision-consequence framing applies directly here: an interview question is only as good as the information it reveals about future job performance. A strong question is tied to a specific job-relevant criterion — the same criteria concepts Chapter 4 develops — rather than asking something generic that any candidate could answer the same way regardless of fit. Behavioral and situational question formats tend to outperform open-ended, hypothetical ones because they ask candidates to describe actual past behavior or reason through a job-realistic scenario, which is harder to fake convincingly than a rehearsed answer to "tell me about yourself."

Defending the Rationale — Directive 2 and 3

For each question, state explicitly what it is designed to assess and why that trait or behavior matters for the role, then cite a source that supports the choice. The Hogue (2022) article on candidate-first markets is useful here in a specific way: it argues that in a competitive hiring market, the interview process itself has to move quickly and respect the candidate's time, which is a legitimate rationale for choosing efficient, high-yield questions over a long, generic battery of questions that take longer to administer without adding proportional insight.

Part 2 shifts from the front end of employment to the middle of it: writing actual performance-appraisal feedback for two people — in an organization you know, or someone you know personally. Directive 4 is the assessment itself; Directive 5 asks you to summarize strengths and opportunities for improvement tied to the job role; Directive 6 asks you to make the feedback developmental, not just evaluative.

Grounding the Assessment in Chapter 4's Criteria Concepts

Directive 5's phrase "as they relate to a job role" is doing real work — it is asking you to apply Chapter 4's criteria framework rather than offer generic personality feedback. Anchor each strength and each opportunity for improvement to a specific, job-relevant dimension of performance, distinguishing genuine performance issues from counterproductive behaviors Chapter 4 also covers. Where possible, distinguish objective evidence (a countable output, a missed deadline, a completed certification) from subjective judgment (a supervisor's impression of attitude or collaboration) — Chapter 5's objective-versus-subjective distinction — and be explicit about which kind of evidence supports each point you make.

Making the Feedback Developmental, Not Just Evaluative — Directive 6

The Hayes (2023) Investopedia webpage on performance appraisals is useful for this directive specifically: it frames appraisal not merely as a judgment of past performance but as a tool with a developmental purpose, one of the three purposes Chapter 5 assigns to performance management systems generally. The Currence (2021) article reinforces the same point from a different angle — forward-looking coaching language, not a backward-looking scorecard recitation, is what actually changes future behavior. For each person, pair every noted opportunity for improvement with a concrete, actionable next step, not just a description of the shortfall.

A 3–4 page paper with two parts, six directives, an introduction, and a conclusion needs a deliberate section plan. The outline below maps cleanly onto the two-part structure Canvas itself uses.

1. Title page (separate page — not counted in the 3–4 page body).
2. Introduction, ending in a clear thesis statement previewing both the interview-question approach and the performance-appraisal approach the paper will take.
3. Part 1, Section A — The three interview questions, stated clearly (Directive 1).
4. Part 1, Section B — Rationale for each question, cited to course materials or outside sources (Directives 2–3).
5. Part 2, Section A — Assessment and appraisal of Person 1: strengths, opportunities for improvement, developmental feedback (Directives 4–6).
6. Part 2, Section B — Assessment and appraisal of Person 2: strengths, opportunities for improvement, developmental feedback (Directives 4–6).
7. Conclusion, restating the thesis and connecting the interviewing and appraisal halves of the paper — for instance, noting how the criteria used to hire connect to the criteria used to later evaluate performance.
8. References page (separate page — not counted in the 3–4 page body).

The assignment names five competencies it intends to practice: performance appraisals, human capital management, policies and procedures, recruiting, and coaching and counseling. Map your paper's sections to these competencies explicitly, since a rubric-aligned paper reads as a series of demonstrated skills rather than a general essay.

Before submitting, review the Interviewing and Performance Appraisals grading rubric under the Settings icon in Canvas and confirm each competency is visibly addressed, not just implied.

• Generic interview questions. "Tell me about yourself" or "What are your strengths and weaknesses" are not insightful questions in the sense Directive 1 asks for — anchor each question to a specific, job-relevant criterion.
• Rationale without a cited reason. Defending a question with "it's a good question to ask" fails Directive 2 and 3, which require course materials or outside sources supporting the choice.
• Generic appraisal feedback. "Needs to communicate better" or "is a hard worker" without job-relevant specifics does not satisfy Directive 5's "as they relate to a job role" requirement.
• Evaluative feedback with no developmental next step. Directive 6 specifically asks for feedback that facilitates employment development — pair every gap with an actionable next step.
• Only one person assessed, or two people blended together. Directive 4 requires two distinct people with separately developed feedback.
• Skipping the thesis statement. Canvas names this as a specific checklist item, not general writing advice.
• Fewer than two outside sources. The assignment requires at least 2 scholarly/credible sources beyond the course text — Currence (2021), Hogue (2022), and Hayes (2023) are efficient choices already tied to the week's topics.
• Formatting slips. Missing the title-page spacing rule, wrong page count (body must be 3–4 pages, excluding title and references), or an incomplete references page are easy, avoidable point losses.