If there was anything that Sir Charles Taylor was, it was observant. His chocolate brown eyes took in the scowl that the woman who was older than himself (was that even possible?!) gave to the Senior Undersecretary and a smirk appeared on his ageing face. He listened attentively whilst the woman introduced herself and bowed his head in recognition at the mention of Ministry of Magic employees. Yep, he was one of those. Straightening his bow-tie as the rules were explained, he eyed each and every candidate who was sat on the stage. He'd hoped he'd get an opportunity to observe this and now he was a part of it and it gave him that all-powerful feeling that he'd left behind when he'd given up his last job in favour of more face time with actual people.

One of his eyebrows raised an infinitesimal amount at her reassurance of said candidates and the smirk pulled at the corner of his lips once more. He hoped at least one person would break under the questioning and have to bow out. They were weeding out the weak ones right?

The first candidate (Vinteren) to answer seemed extremely sure of himself and Charles respected that. His head tilted slightly as the man went on about his experiences with the graduates and aired concerns over their lack of knowledge about the rest of the world. Though he agreed, no emotion showed on his face. Today, he was impartial and just there to ask those questions that people were either too scared to ask or hadn't had their own opportunity to ask.

Once Vinteren had sat down and Carter stood up, his head straightened up. This one had something different about her. She was Law Enforcement, but not like most of the people he dealt with; they had all been so cold and calculating and angry. His eyes narrowed suspiciously at the woman until she explained her approach to the question a little more. Okay, now he was pleasantly surprised. She seemed intelligent and able to look at situations objectively. He liked her a little more than he had at the start.

The next candidate pulled a proper, full on smirk from Charles. It was his boss and he looked pretty nervous. He eyed Gavin when he explained which languages he spoke and sounded a lot like Vinteren. Hmm. That wasn't good for him. Whilst he didn't believe Gavin was the most professional man ever he didn't particularly want to see him fail. Moving in his seat he folded his hands on his lap and watched the next candidate step up.

His immediate impression of the woman was that she was confident and intelligent. One didn't just become a professor. It required dedication and the ability to put one's mind to the matter at hand. He was pleased that this woman was striving to further the graduate's knowledge and made a mental note to talk to her privately. He definitely wanted to know more about that because he was getting bored of dealing with under-educated people who could obviously do a lot better. Her comments on teamwork gained a small nod of approval from him. He liked that she'd remembered that. What he didn't like too much was that she said 'when' instead of 'if' and it seemed to him like she thought she had it 'in the bag'. His fingers interlocked as he stared at her while she made her way back to her seat.

The next candidate's shirt was way too distracting at first for Charles to pay much attention. He was sure that the man's shirt could only have been outdone in cringe-factor if it had been a Hawaiian shirt. When he was finally able to concentrate, he found that he liked what the man was saying. He seemed pretty sure of himself and it wasn't in the cocky Althea way either. A chuckle almost escaped him at the pep-talk-like speech he was giving. His eyes dropped to his hands which were set on the cards with questions on them and another smirk appeared. Okay, so it was his turn to speak now, right?

He raised his head and saw that some of the other candidates looked thoughtful and like they were mulling over the question. Okay, time to save them. Charles finally piped up. "Good evening ladies and gentleman, distinguished guests," he gave a nod to the Minister "And candidates. I am Charles Taylor from International Cooperation. I've noticed that many of you have stated your current occupations, of which some are extremely important jobs," he nodded to Gavin and Althea, acknowledging their department head jobs, "Therefore, the first question I put to those of you who've already answered your first question is: If a personal or professional situation arose at the same time as an equally important situation arose in the school, which would you deem more important to attend to first, and why?" He bowed his head to let them know they could start answering whenever they saw fit.

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Questions:

Erik Vinteren, Roxanne Carter, Gavin Higareda, Althea Schirmer, Cooper Cope:

If a personal or professional situation arose at the same time as an equally important situation arose in the school, which would you deem more important to attend to first, and why? - Asked by Charles Taylor

All other candidates:

Why do you feel you are more qualified for this position than the other candidates? We want to hear about what sets you apart from the crowd. - Asked by Cassandra Rae-Branxton