Kennedy had an impressive resume, highlighting many technical projects, development experiences in previous jobs, several student awards, and excellent school grades. However, after interviewing at a new high tech startup focused om robotics and machine learning, Kennedy was not offered the position$-$ leaving Kennedy with a great deal of disappointment.

Fortunately, though Kennedy learned the reason behind the decision from a colleague who worked at the company who disagreed with the decision. Quite simply the interviewers believed that Kennedy was not passionate enough. More specifically, they noted that Kennedy was quiet, did not provide specific information about the unique contribution made to the project listed on his resume, and did not demonstrate the level of effusiveness they often saw in promising candidates.

After hearing this information Kennedy immediately knew why there had been a disconnect. Growing up in Hong Kong family members and teachers taught Kennedy to be very modest about accomplishment but Kennedy was interviewing for a company in the United States where there are different expectation and norms for a job search Kennedy realized it was necessary to find some way to convey excitement and commitment in interviews without a complete personality change.

Kennedy thought that future job interviews might be an excellent opportunity to discuss hobbies and interests Kennedy loved to develop computer programs and build robots on the weekends during an upcoming interview at a similar company Kennedy planned to show some of these robots.

Questions

$11-12$ do you believe Kennedys action will effectively communicate passion and commitment during the upcoming interview? Why or why not? Would your answer be different if Kennedy$$s hobbies had nothing to do with the job?

$11-13$ do you agree with Kennedy's decision to do something different? Why or why not? What other actions could Kennedy take to communicate that he is passionate?

$11-14$ do you agree that demonstrating passion is a good predictor of a great job candidate worthy of being considered during the hiring process? Why or why not how important are passion and commitment compared to the predictors of a job candidates$$ success $($e$.$g$..,$ knowledge, skills, abilities, emotional intelligence, personality traits$)?$