Top 3 interview questions for hiring a project manager

Of course, there are too many significant things a successful project manager must pay attention to them. However, as per my experience, the following issues do matter the most from my perspective:
1- A good PM must be proactive and should try to eliminate negative things before they happen rather than fixing them.
2- Does he/she put's the project interest at the top and work for it or not?, for example, a good PM must not be distracted by interests of stakeholders or personal relations or gaining personal benefits.
3- Communication with/managing people(stakeholders). See, modern project management is about managing people mostly and we all know that this is one of the hardest management fields (managing people). managing cost, time, risks...etc can be managed, there are enormous tools to help with that, But people, this is the challenge. I STRONGLY BELIEVE that a successful project manager must be able to wear different hats with each different type of people.

I would ask questions revolving around things like judgement/problem solving, time management and leadership/communication. There are so many areas PMs have to do well. Their resumes show hard skills and type of project experience, but in order to find a successful candidate you need to make sure they can shine in areas that a resume doesn't capture.

In my opinion asking for them to respond to real life examples will tell you a great deal about how they will perform as a PM. Preferably choose a project you've worked on or give them a hypothetical scenario rather than asking them to describe "a time when" because you run the risk of a response that has been rehearsed. The candidates own experience is a valuable part of the interview of course, but I like questions that take them out of their own box and allow me to get a feel for how they may do in new situations and projects.

A couple ideas:
1. Give them example of competing priorities (use ones that may come up in the role you are trying to fill), then ask the interviewee to describe their process (or the factors) they would use to determine which item needed to be addressed first and why

2. You are asked to step in and take over a project where the team has been in place for months and is very knowledgeable, you have limited knowledge of the project and have just been given the overview of what is needed. What is the first thing you do, and how do you establish credibility with your team and stakeholders?

Kiron is referring to this discussion:
https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussi...anagement-post-

There are other good discussions on this topic:
https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussi...n-an-interview-
https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussi...iew-Questions--
https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussi...ement-position-
https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussi...ion-suggestions
https://www.projectmanagement.com/discussi...on-for-PM-role-

And that's just the preliminary search. You can go look for additional ones.

Urban -

Take a look about 10 questions down in this group and you'll see the answers we provided to a virtually identical question from Joseph Pangan a couple of days back...

Kiron