Demystifying the Interview

Bob Weinstein is a journalist who covers technology, project management, the workplace and career development.

  Career Development  

Are you prepared for you next job interview? If you said yes, you're lying to yourself. The truth is, it's impossible to be totally prepared for an interview. So don't go nuts trying.

But it certainly helps if you know what types of questions to expect by reducing the anxiety level a bit. The following story discusses the four broad interview categories an IT project manager can expect. They are: straightforward, hard or tricky, stumper and generic.

1. Straightforward Questions

Most straightforward questions revolve around critical problems IT PMs must solve on the job. For example:

• On your last job, how many times did you have a service interruption in your company's e-mail system?
• Do you run Microsoft Exchange Server?
• What is your plan for off-site tape storage and hosting mirrored sites to preserve company information in case of destruction?
• How do you keep applications (i.e. financial, engineering, HR, etc.) running and supported?
• How important is budget management and how much experience do you have? Please provide examples.

2. Tricky and Hard Questions

There is no escaping tough question such as:

• As an IT manager, how would you run your department? Provide examples.
• What systems would you set up? Provide examples.
• What is your philosophy as a PM?
• How do you see your role?…

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