Business and Professional Communication Quarterly

Employers' use of behavioral description interviews has increased dramatically within the past decade. Yet the pedagogical literature geared toward helping appli cants respond to these unique interviewing questions has not kept pace. Evidence shows that behavioral description questions require respondents to tell stories and that storytelling is now critical to applicants' success in employment interviews. We present criteria by which to judge the effectiveness of applicants' stories and demonstrate how business communication instructors might use these criteria to help applicants tell better stories. Specifically, the criteria presented in this article are : To what degree is a story internally consistent? To what degree is a story con sistent with facts the listener holds to be true? To what degree is a story relevant to the question asked and the claim being made? To what degree is a story univocal? To what degree does a story provide details that support the claim being made? How does the way a story is told reflect the teller's beliefs and values?

Shared teaching, also known as team teaching, is an innovative way to balance teaching and research. Shared teaching benefits students by providing the perspec tive of two or more professors in one class. Such an approach also benefits profes sors by giving them more concentrated time for their research. A review of the lit erature on the topic and examination of two distinct shared teaching models show that shared teaching has advantages and challenges for both faculty and students and is a viable option for reallocating resources.

writing is a difficult task for most job applicants, but minority students face unique challenges as they decide what information to present to a potential employer. A minority applicant's name, address, education, work history, extra curricular activities, and choice of references may trigger unfavorable assumptions by the reader and unfairly influence the selection process. To reduce the chances of "detection" and being eliminated prematurely, some minority students Anglicize their names, use street addresses of relatives and friends in more desirable parts of town, and downplay ethnic-specific education, jobs, and affiliations. Concealing one's ethnic background, however, may be difficult and, more important, may be counterproductive. Minority students should write resumes that are accurate and accentuate the achievements that a potential employer would focus on. Business communication instructors should address concerns about discrimination in selec tion and hiring as they help all students choose the appropriate resume format and language to present their best selves.

Our research models one way in which linguistic theory can be applied to the study of business communication. Specifically, we use linguistic theory to analyze how Nike's image is created through internal and external forms of communication. We find a parallel use of positive images in communication created by both Nike and the media from the early 1980s to the late 1990s and a divergence of images when Nike is accused of labor violations. Introducing language analysis challenges busi ness students to assess carefully the structure of business communication in order to evaluate the reality behind the image.