This assignment provides:

1. Practice learning about a company before interviewing for a position,
2. Practice using library resources, and
3. Inspiration for potential research topics that can prove useful for future employers.

Hint:  Plagiarism is OFTEN an issue with this assignment. You can review “Examples of Common Mistakes” in the Bb assignment and try a plagiarism quiz for help with that.

Instructions:

1. Develop a list of four potential employers for which you would like to work or at least would consider working. Focus on your area of study and focus on specific locations or HR personnel to target. I encourage you to email topic group members to ensure each member chooses different employers.
2. Create a document detailing what you find about each employer. Be sure to provide:
   1. Employer Contact Information:
      • Name,
      • Address,
      • Link to home page,
      • Phone, and
      • Contact person.
      • Or, note calls and/or searches you made to find any missing information and what, if anything, you found that way.
   2. General Employer Information:  Gain as much information about the employers as possible. See this as practice in learning about a company before interviewing for a position. Try to gain a better understanding of what it is they specifically do, the company size, etc.
   3. Your interest in the employer because of this research: Make a special note of anything you find unusual about each company. This could be a product or service it provides that you did not know about.
      • Write a brief summary of the information that you found interesting.
      • Identify if your research strengthened or weakened your interest in the employer, explain why.
   4. Questions to Help You Succeed: If called for an interview, what questions would you like to ask the potential employer based on what you learned from your research? What additional questions will you use to denote a clear interest in the company? (There are tons of tips for developing questions on the Internet.)
3. Submit your document (preferably a Word document) through Blackboard
4. Once your SafeAssign Originality report is ready, check the SafeAssign report to ensure you used quotations and attributions correctly.
   • Be sure to check each highlighted area in the report’s copy of your document.
   • Content that generally used the same words as a source MUST be reworded to better paraphrase the source for your writing purposes or for appropriate quotations.
   • If you have extensive plagiarism and will need more time for correction, create a new submission that lets me know when your document will be resubmitted.
5. Once you are confident in the attribution in your document, adjust the information for an appropriate blog post, and share that with our learning community.

DEADLINE: Monday, February 14 at 2 pm Central.

REMEMBER to categorize your post with Week 4 Blog Post, tag with your career area, and upload your answers as a Text or Word document to Bb. Since students struggle to paraphrase websites with this assignment, we’ll use Bb’s SafeAssign tool to ensure your response is attributed appropriately.

Remember to review the rubric so you know exactly what kind of content will help you ace this assignment. And, be sure to cite your sources in APA Style.

Additional Tips from previous semesters:

Student Question #1: 

Hi Professor Loggins,
I just had some questions and I really would like to do better in this class than I am right now. With this employer assignment, I’m finding some information in the Forsyth library but not as much as I’d like, so I have to use some outside sources. That being said, am I supposed to be writing this like an essay, with sources and citations? Where/how should I include sources and information in this. Also, my questions for the interviewer would be the same for all 4 companies, am I supposed to be putting interview questions per each employer or can I have them grouped in an interviewer question section in my document? Thanks!

My Reply:

Please do include sources and citations. It’s not exactly an essay, but it will probably have paragraphs answering the basic questions about each company and your interest in it.

You can have the questions grouped at the bottom. But, remember that the questions should “denote a clear interest in the company.” If you ask each company the same four questions, the questions may be too generic.

Student Question #2: How long should this be?

My Reply:  There is no page requirement. It just has to address all topics with four different employers.

You can format the paper however you like. But, do keep in mind that 25-points of the rubric relate to the grammar and ease of skimming your submission to Bb and your blog post.

You can post the paper as an attachment. However, be sure to have some basic information about the companies in your post to help your discussion group in Week 5.

If anyone has additional questions, just let me know!