Currently I am in recruitment process to my PMO team. I have 1 candidate who did good impression on 1st interview meeting and so now he got to the 2nd stage.
During the 2nd stage meeting on-site I wanted to give him task-solving situation so that I could see how would be manage a given situation.
I was just to describe 1 or 2 project situations which I would like to see how this potential PM would deal with, however, maybe you already have some inspiring/usable examples?
Thank you in advance for proposals Saving Changes...
You can find hundreds of behavioral/situational interview questions with a quick google search. If you want something more meaningful, reflect on recent project challenges and create questions around them. Maybe someone in your company solved a problem on a project, or there was a failure that you've since been able to understand and know how to prevent in the future. Without explaining what was done at your company, describe the problem and ask the candidate the steps he would take to resolve it. would the candidate take the same approach as your company, or maybe a different approach that might be more or less successful? Saving Changes...
Why not give the candidate a scope definition exercise where you and other interviewers would act as senior stakeholders and he has to facilitate the process?
Kiron
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1 reply by Lukasz Pawelec
Nov 30, 2021 11:40 AM
Lukasz Pawelec
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Hi Kiron,
May you say a few more words, maybe give an example of "a scope definition exercise"?
You may define an exercise where the candidate selects the appropriate type of PMO between Supportive, Controlling, Directive, according to the specific needs of the dependency or enterprise. Saving Changes...
Rama K GoberuProgram Manager| Appfire TechnologiesHyderabad, India
You may give a fictitious scenario with a project having a fixed cost, fixed timeline, required skill sets and a set of resources with their respective skills sets and their cost/billing details and ask the candidate to draw out a detailed project plan on how they'd plan the project. Perhaps give them their favorite PM tool to do so on a computer.
Ask him/her to show examples of important PM concepts like Critical Path, Lead/Lag, WBS, Earned Value Analysis in their solution. You may also grill them on what-if scenarios, scope changes, risk management techniques, assumptions & constraints they used, etc.
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1 reply by Lukasz Pawelec
Nov 30, 2021 11:45 AM
Lukasz Pawelec
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Hi Rama,
In the meantime I got one study case, and I am as well preparing one from my experience so for sure I would ask the candidate to get into such fictitious role - but just need to make my mind which scenario/study case to propose
Saving Changes...
Thomas WalentaGlobal Project Economy ExpertHackenheim, Germany
Lukasz, it depends on what you want to test.
Could be technical process application (as you might seem to look for) or leadership competencies (trust building, will power, active listening, conflict handling etc) or you have identified a gap in your current team's temperaments you need to fill (do you need a risk taker, a negotiator, a bean counter, an artist or what?).
Remember the saying that we hire for skills and fire for attitudes.
Thomas
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1 reply by Lukasz Pawelec
Nov 30, 2021 11:42 AM
Lukasz Pawelec
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Hi Thomas,
This saying "a scope definition exercise" is key to me - my current personal belief is that one can learn new competence, however, when it comes to attitude/mentality it usually do not change
Why not give the candidate a scope definition exercise where you and other interviewers would act as senior stakeholders and he has to facilitate the process?
Kiron
Hi Kiron,
May you say a few more words, maybe give an example of "a scope definition exercise"?
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1 reply by Kiron Bondale
Nov 30, 2021 1:15 PM
Kiron Bondale
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Sure - present the candidate with a project canvas or charter for a typical project they'd be responsible for managing and see how they'd do with facilitating a further decomposition or definition of the project scope.
This could be done with story mapping or a more traditional WBS...
Could be technical process application (as you might seem to look for) or leadership competencies (trust building, will power, active listening, conflict handling etc) or you have identified a gap in your current team's temperaments you need to fill (do you need a risk taker, a negotiator, a bean counter, an artist or what?).
Remember the saying that we hire for skills and fire for attitudes.
Thomas
Hi Thomas,
This saying "a scope definition exercise" is key to me - my current personal belief is that one can learn new competence, however, when it comes to attitude/mentality it usually do not change Saving Changes...
You may give a fictitious scenario with a project having a fixed cost, fixed timeline, required skill sets and a set of resources with their respective skills sets and their cost/billing details and ask the candidate to draw out a detailed project plan on how they'd plan the project. Perhaps give them their favorite PM tool to do so on a computer.
Ask him/her to show examples of important PM concepts like Critical Path, Lead/Lag, WBS, Earned Value Analysis in their solution. You may also grill them on what-if scenarios, scope changes, risk management techniques, assumptions & constraints they used, etc.
Hi Rama,
In the meantime I got one study case, and I am as well preparing one from my experience so for sure I would ask the candidate to get into such fictitious role - but just need to make my mind which scenario/study case to propose Saving Changes...
May you say a few more words, maybe give an example of "a scope definition exercise"?
Sure - present the candidate with a project canvas or charter for a typical project they'd be responsible for managing and see how they'd do with facilitating a further decomposition or definition of the project scope.
This could be done with story mapping or a more traditional WBS...
Another angle is for them to describe a time in their own career history where they passed that test.
Those types of situational questions are generally targeted to highlight specific priorities like ethics, technical problem solving, dealing with difficult stakeholders, etc. I could describe any number of theoretical fantasy situations where I saved the world, so long as they never have to actually work. That would make me a convincing story teller, not an amazing PM or engineer.
Instead, ask the question in the form of:
1) Describe a time when you were faced with this difficulty.
2) How did you handle the situation?
3) What was the outcome?
Now, either they are telling you about how they have demonstrated the critical abilities you need, or they are outright lying.
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1 reply by Lukasz Pawelec
Dec 01, 2021 3:19 AM
Lukasz Pawelec
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Thank you Keith for this another perspective
Actually the candidate already described to me the biggest challenge as she took over 5 projects (medium/small) size on applications and she was successful to finalize these projects.
She explains the overall project team size was ~30 members, and 2 projects were in progress when she took over and the other 3 she started from the beginning
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