Hans RobbersSenior Director| SalesforceVlissingen, Netherlands
Andy
My top 3:
- With which activities will you spent 80% of your time in the project?
- Which added value do you offer to the project/business/customer?
- Which of your project management skills need development?
A couple of bonus questions:
- Do understand the business of the company?
- Which style of management do you prefer?
- Based on the previous questions an answer on a certain situation occurring in a project
Sorry 3 became 6 and I pick the relevant ones based on the chit chat in the first 5 minutes of the interview.
good luck Hans Saving Changes...
STEVE ROLLINSChief Project Strategist| ALLPMO Network Inc Fort Mill, Sc, United States
My top three are:
1. Why should we hire you?
2. How will you help us?
3. How do you manage project team behavior?
Bonus Three are:
1. How do you prevent and detect project fraud?
2. How do you manage project delivery week-week?
3. Why should a resource want to be on your team?
Interesting and some tough interview questions - some answers will be obvious from the job description requirements for the job. Would you hire someone that answered all your questions with wit and confidence? Will they be fit for purpose based on the answers they give.
Here is one more question to put forward ' What is your definition of Lifecycle control?' and how would you measure it?
A good project manager should have a mix of soft and hard skills so focus on questions to allow candidates to address their strengths in these areas. Also, consider your culture, organizational PM maturity and the necessary skillset the candidate can bring to the PMO or organization that owns and drives the projects.
These are some questions I've been asked in past interviews:
What is your experience managing multiple projects, what are the challenges and how do you manage your time to address the challenges?
You have a project that is late in meeting its milestone dates and in completing major deliverables. What do you do to improve the performance of your team, meet your milestone dates and get the project back on schedule?
You have been assigned an IT project with a hard deadline, provided a few resources and were given a limited budget with not enough money to purchase the infrastructure required to implement the project. What would you do first and what would you tell the sponsor of the project to advise on the status of your project assignment?
All the best,
~Naomi Saving Changes...
Syed Rehan BaaqriSenior Enterprise Portfolio Manager| PepsiCOMckinney, Tx, United States
I recommend the following:-
1. How do you record Risks before the project and how do you plan to mitigate them.
2. How does critical path/network diagram can be associated with the project objectives.
3. What leadership skills are essentially required for a project manager.
4. What is the most general reward power you can use on a project. Saving Changes...
First list down the responsibilities for the project manager job opening. Based on that arrive at your top 3 questions.
Best Regards,
Vivekanandan M Saving Changes...
Syed Rehan BaaqriSenior Enterprise Portfolio Manager| PepsiCOMckinney, Tx, United States
Well Vivek...by the original question from the post...we assumed that we have the responsibilities already design and what would be the specific questions going to be asked during the face to face interview session :) Saving Changes...
> Well Vivek...by the original question from the post...we assumed
> that we have the responsibilities already design and what would
> be the specific questions going to be asked during the face to face
> interview session :)
Assuming that you will be looking out for PMP certified guys or guys with project management experience, they will be able to answer the all the standard questions that you are planning to ask. As Naomi has mentioned you should try to understand what challenging situations he faced and how he overcame that. You need to understand the candidates experience in handling complex projects and difficult situations.
if a PM has never encountered a difficult situation, then really speaking, he does not have the experience, as he has never solved any challenging problem. Then you will not be anle to select such people, because if there are any difficult situation in your project, definitely he will not be able to address it.
Let me know your thoughts.
Best Regards,
Vivekanandan M Saving Changes...
Syed Rehan BaaqriSenior Enterprise Portfolio Manager| PepsiCOMckinney, Tx, United States
Vivek, On the International Project Management day on 2nd November, i met a high official from IBM who shared a success story with me that, they were assigned a Financial application deployment project on a enterprise level and as a test case, they hired a project manager from their IT Division. The project turned out to be a big success for them and infact grabbed more business for them. Now for a pure IT Manager finance has always been a big mountain to climb :). Untill and unless you put people in critical situations you cannot evaluate prior to their output...what say you! :) Saving Changes...
In one of my interviews I was asked this question: "Have you been a part of a project which actually failed? ".
I found this question the most interesting and complete, because if you were a part of a project which was failing you pretty much would have tried everything possible to get the project on track. You would have questioned everything in that project and actually it would have been one of the best learning experience. Experience is definitely mightier than the certifications or knowledge about project management. If you probe more on that project you will pretty much know more about the Project managers capability. Saving Changes...
