Project manager interview questions that explore the most important competencies or behaviors a project manager needs to be effective in the project manager job.
In addition to the project manager interview questions that assess your technical skills and experience you will be asked interview questions that explore your soft skills. These are the behaviors identified as necessary for survival and success as a project manager in today's tumultuous business environment.
The focus is on behavioral-based interview questions as they are used more and more in assessing suitability for a project manager job. The behavioral interview and how to answer behavioral questions is explained thoroughly at The Behavioral Interview Guide.
Go through these project manager interview questions and answer guidelines to help prepare for success in your project manager job search.
Give me an example of how you used your leadership skills to help your project team meet a difficult challenge.
An effective project manager needs to lead though setting goals and using the right methods to guide and influence the project team towards goal attainment. Good leaders enable team members to feel they have a real stake in the project and encourage them to participate in problem-solving and decision-making.
When answering project manager interview questions about leadership show how you understand the need to communicate and consult but are also aware that lots of talking and procrastination achieves nothing without deciding and taking action.
Effective project managers lead by example and are open and honest about the challenges they face. They recognize the important of collective team effort in achieving the desired results. They are able to identify and use the strengths of each team member and allocate roles and responsibilities accordingly.
This empowers team members to respond to the challenges that arise. Those that excel as project managers keep the project team motivated to give of their best to meet these challenges. They understand the appropriate management style to use with each team member at the different stages of team development. They know how to best utilize the competencies of the team and each team member to deal with challenges and problems.
Describe a time when your communication and interpersonal skills helped in dealing with difficult clients or team members.
After leadership, the ability to communicate effectively with people at all levels is regarded as the second most important project manager skill. Good project management requires clear communication about objectives, roles, responsibilities, performance, expectations and feedback. The project manager should be able to effectively influence and persuade clients and the team to ensure success. Explicit guidelines and expectations should be communicated to accomplish results.
When answering this question it is important to show how you are able to adapt your style of communication to the person you are dealing with. Empathy, understanding and self-awareness all play a role in doing this. The ability to communicate with different individuals on various levels with diverse project interests is important for successful project management. Every project team and every project is different, you must be able to adjust your style to their needs.
Included in communication skills is the ability to be enthusiastic about the shared goals and vision. Enthusiastic project managers are committed to their goals and express this through optimistic and confident communication.
Be aware of your communication style during the interview including your body language and other non-verbal signals.
Give an example of a win-win situation you negotiated
In all projects there are a number of stakeholders who all see their concerns and issues as the most important. Effective project management means responding by finding the best solutions that address the issues without compromising the other stakeholders or the overall project.
In your answer show how you are able to communicate essential information and workable alternatives in a way that gains acceptance. Your ability to understand the position of the other person and to focus on solutions rather than problems is key to effective negotiation on a project.
What was the most stressful aspect of your last project and how did you deal with it?
Very few projects stay on schedule, under budget and with no major problems. The ability to handle stressful situations is key to successful project management. Limited resources and time, changing demands and new circumstances all result in stress on the project manager.
Show how you are able to stay calm under pressure and plan to reduce stress focusing on aspects such as your people management, technology management, risk management and expectation management.
Tell me about a situation during a recent project when you had to adapt and manage change
Show that you can adjust effectively to meet changing demands and tasks. An effective project manager can quickly assess a new situation and adapt to it. The change management process is critical to the success of a project.
Each change needs to be properly defined, considered and approved before it is implemented. Focus on developing a plan for change that addresses change on both a process level and on a people level. Careful and well thought-out preparation of the stakeholders for change and the ability to overcome resistance are key to successful change management. Your answer should emphasize your ability to plan properly and thoroughly for change.
Prepare for project manager interview questions that explore these five essential competencies and show yourself to be a smart and effective project manager in your job interview.
Review the technical project manager interview questions that explore your experience on managing projects.
Useful interview questions and answers that explore your management style can be viewed here.
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During the project management interview you will be asked interview questions that focus on your training and experience with the successful delivery of different projects.
You can also expect behavioral or competency-based questions that explore essential project manager skills such as team building and team management, planning and organizing, negotiation, problem-solving, leadership and adaptability.
Lets start with the likely project management interview questions that explore your experience on project delivery.
Tell us about your experience in managing different projects and how this can contribute to our position.
It is important to structure your interview answer because this is a multi-layered and fairly complex question. Start by explaining how you will answer the question. This keeps your answer on track and to the point.
"I will begin by giving you a short description of my last three projects. I will then detail the skills and abilities I developed as a result of each project and then demonstrate the value of these skills to this position."
You can then go on to provide a brief but concise summary of each project.
"I was the project manager for the XYZ project and this involved ..."
Then describe the skills you acquired during the project.
"I encountered a number of difficulties on this project that required an innovative approach. I used group problem solving sessions as one of these approaches. This worked well because it helped each team member to clarify their particular project role and responsibility and we were able to develop plans and realistic schedules that the whole project team contributed to ..."
Demonstrate how these skills will benefit the position and company.
"Projects now are faced with tighter budgets and fewer resources. This approach maximizes the available resources and keeps everyone focused and motivated for the duration of the project..."
Describe how you recently managed a diverse project team towards a common goal
Focus on your ability to delegate in a fair and practical way, how you clearly defined project roles and responsibilities, kept personality clashes and conflict to a minimum and monitored and fed back to the project team. Outline your management style and why it worked.
Describe the most complex project you have managed from start to finish
Provide a comprehensive answer remembering to explain the project as you would to a client and not to somebody who has been involved in the project.
The more complex a project the more formal processes and techniques are needed to effectively manage the work. Explain the purpose, value and implementation of the most critical aspects of the project including managing the project work plan, the project schedule, the project risks, the project issues and closing the project.
Be enthusiastic about your accomplishments and specify how your experience will benefit the company. Point out where you made a difference on the project in terms of expenditure, quality, efficiency, customer satisfaction and business and organizational success.
Standard Project Management Interview Questions:
How do you determine realistic schedules for the project?
Explain your methods for resource allocation.
How do you manage suppliers?
How do you inform all the stakeholders of the progress of the project on a regular basis?
How do you monitor risks to the project and mitigate them?
What tools do you use to monitor and control projects?
What project management methodologies are you most familiar with?
What project software have you used?
What change management processes have you used to ensure that change is introduced properly?
What are the practices you follow for closing a project and meeting the conditions required to establish closure?
What specific training have you had that would be relevant to this project manager job?
Answer your interview questions in a calm and assertive tone. Take time to gather your thoughts before answering, it is a key project manager skill to be able to process the facts before responding!
Most project management candidates handle the questions designed to evaluate their technical proficiency well but tend to slip up on the project management interview questions that explore the behaviors or competencies required for a project manager position.
Behaviors or competencies are important because over 80 percent of candidates lose the job offer due to their inability to demonstrate the required project manager behaviors.
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These project management interview questions explore your relevant experience and skills for the project manager job. The questions look at your understanding and approach to key project management responsibilities.
What are the necessary steps to successful project management?
What is your understanding and experience of the project manager role? Include aspects such as setting clear project objectives, building the project requirements, managing project cost, time, quality and scope. Refer in you answer to the specific steps you took to successfully manage and close a recent project.
What are the priorities to consider when planning a (your field) project?
Refer again to a recent project and outline your most important considerations in the planning stage. Time, scope and budget are the usual constraints to consider, but how did you allocate and integrate all the necessary inputs to meet the project objectives and plan for risk?
The more in-detail the planning the greater the chances of project success. Highlight how each activity that is expected during the course of the project gets due attention.
In your experience what are the warning signs that your project may fail?
All project managers have had this experience. How did you pick up the warning signal (your monitoring and control processes and systems) and how did you manage it (corrective actions and implementing changes)?
Warning signals can include constantly changing specifications, lack of interest from executive management, incompetence on the project team, changes in the business environment and inadequate resources.
A project manager has to understand the uniqueness of each project and keep checking the project's contours against what they have learned on previous projects.
What are the most important considerations when recruiting and building an effective project team?
When answering this project manager interview question highlight how you not only consider the necessary experience and technical skills but look at critical roles and responsibilities and the dynamics between team members. How will the person fit in with organizational beliefs and goals? How will the person relate to the stakeholder group? A clear understanding of what is expected of each project member is essential.
Describe some innovative ways you have improved effectiveness on recent projects.
Solutions and improvements need to be found through the generation of ideas and alternatives in a creative, out-of the-box manner. Show your willingness to be creative and inventive with both the initiation of a new project and the components of an existing project.
What did you learn from your last project?
Focus on technical skills and knowledge as well as "soft" skills such as people and client management. Perhaps you learned something valuable about yourself as a project manager such as your willingness to adapt to a changing environment or your ability to mentor a team member. Highlight how you are able to learn from mistakes. What would you do differently knowing what you now know about the project?
What do you consider to be the most important project manager skills in terms of people management?
Leadership skills are key to successful project management. What are the methods you have used to guide and influence the project team towards reaching objectives. Good leaders make team members feel they have a real stake in the successful completion of the project. How do you structure your team, introduce and maintain good intra-team communication and improve team motivation and satisfaction?
General Purpose
To be responsible for the overall direction, coordination, implementation, execution, control and completion of specific projects ensuring consistency with company strategy, commitments and goals.
Main Job Tasks and Responsibilities
- lead the planning and implementation of project
- facilitate the definition of project scope, goals and deliverables
- define project tasks and resource requirements
- develop full scale project plans
- assemble and coordinate project staff
- manage project budget
- manage project resource allocation
- plan and schedule project timelines
- track project deliverables using appropriate tools
- provide direction and support to project team
- quality assurance
- constantly monitor and report on progress of the project to all stakeholders
- present reports defining project progress, problems and solutions
- implement and manage project changes and interventions to achieve project outputs
- project evaluations and assessment of results
Education and Experience
- qualification in project management or equivalent
- knowledge of both theoretical and practical aspects of project management
- knowledge of project management techniques and tools
- direct work experience in project management capacity
- proven experience in people management
- proven experience in strategic planning
- proven experience in risk management
- proven experience in change management
- proficient in project management software
Key competencies
- critical thinking and problem solving skills
- planning and organizing
- decision-making
- communication skills
- influencing and leading
- delegation
- team work
- negotiation
- conflict management
- adaptability
- stress tolerance
The project manager job description is for use by both job seekers wanting to get a clear insight into this key role and by employers.
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Leadership interview questions focus on exploring and evaluating recognized leadership competencies. The questions are designed to assess whether the candidate has both leadership skills and leadership potential.
Management and leadership differ in a number of crucial ways. Management is a hands-on component of leadership - responsible for such functions as planning, organizing and controlling. Effective leadership is the ability to inspire followers to listen to and follow a vision. The ability to innovate and drive an organization or people towards new ideas and directions.
The ability to persuade and influence, demonstrate integrity, communicate and motivate, innovate and implement strategic vision, demonstrate drive and tenacity are all recognized leadership skills.
Leadership interview questions will require candidates to provide examples of how they have demonstrated these leadership competencies and are asked in the format of behavioral or competency-based interview questions.
How would your staff and colleagues describe your leadership style? Give me an example to support your answer.
The purpose of this question is to find out if the style is congruent with the organizational culture. The perceptive leader is able to adapt his or her style to fit the follower's, employee's and organizational needs.
What are the most important values and ethics you demonstrate as a leader? Give me an example of these in practice.
Integrity- being truthful and trustworthy and having conviction - is an essential leadership competency. The effective leader demonstrates values and ethics in personal behavior and integrates these values and ethics into organizational practices and activities. A good leader acts with the courage of his/her convictions. While leaders are open with their employees and model honesty, transparency and fairness, they do not violate confidences or divulge potentially harmful information.
Name some situations in which a leader may fail. Tell me about a time when you failed as a leader?
A number of factors can fall outside a leader's control such as the available skill pool in the organization, time constraints, the economic climate. If employees are lethargic and negatively orientated it can create a situation ripe for failure. In answering leadership interview questions that explore how you deal with difficult challenges focus on how you were able to analyze the setback and seek honest feedback to learn from failure. How you used the difficult situation to encourage constructive questioning of policies and practices. Show your ability to be resilient in the face of failure and to constantly work towards improvement.
What role does leadership play for a manager? How have you demonstrated this with your managers?
The leader's role is to communicate the strategic vision to management with clarity. To translate the vision into concrete direction and plans. To identify and communicate priorities, short term objectives, timelines, performance measures, clear accountabilities and performance agreements to management. To provide quality judgment and advice.
Tell me about an innovative solution you developed to a non-traditional problem.
Effective leaders promote change and innovation. Finding solutions to unique problems are facilitated by encouraging a constant information flow in all directions and emphasizing responsiveness to changing demands.
Tell me about a time when the going got really tough. How did you rally the staff and build morale?
Leaders build a sense of common purpose by promoting the organizational vision both internally and externally. They develop and implement effective communication strategies within the organization. Remove barriers to collaboration. Provide clear direction on priorities. Give clear and honest feedback to inspire trust.
What methods have you used to gain commitment from your team?
Leaders gain commitment by influencing and persuading the team to set objectives and buy into the process. They establish a spirit of cooperation and cohesion for goal attainment. They take the team into the performing phase as quickly as possible. Leaders encourage debate and ideas from all stakeholders. They inspire a commitment to success and excellence by demonstrating passionate personal commitment and promote a productive culture by valuing individuals and their contributions.
All leaders have to deal with conflict situations. Describe a recent disagreement or conflict you personally had to handle.
Leadership interview questions exploring how you handle conflict are looking at your ability to understand and respect different views. Demonstrate your ability to settle dispute by focusing on solving the problem taking into consideration the personalities involved. To evaluate the viability of different dispute resolution mechanisms available. To provide support and expertise to others. To negotiate compromise.
How have you influenced employees to follow your strategic vision for the organization?
Leaders develop ownership by involving employees in the decision-making and planning process. They provide resources to facilitate employee success and empower employees by devolving authority to get things done efficiently. Effective leaders develop processes that engage employees in achieving the strategic vision.
How have you encouraged learning and development of employees?
Learning happens at every opportunity. Your answer to leadership interview questions like this should demonstrate that effective leaders develop employees by mentoring, coaching and providing performance feedback on a daily basis. Leaders act as models for their employees but the most effective leaders not only teach by example they take a personal interest in the learning of others and serve as mentors. Additionally they manage learning throughout the organization by continually focusing attention on the learning agenda and providing the resources to facilitate it. Finally leaders monitor learning by getting regular feedback.
What was the most significant change you brought about in an organization?
Leaders can recognize new opportunities and anticipate long term opportunities. They determine new business directions for the organization. They are able to create enthusiasm and acceptance of the new vision or change and use the appropriate leadership style to inspire and guide employees to embrace change.
Thinks about what the concept of leadership means to you when preparing for leadership interview questions. Look back over your experiences and select insightful examples of how you have demonstrated the competencies associated with leadership.
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Prepare for The Behavioral Interview
The Behavioral Interview is a proven and widely-used method of exploring a candidate's suitability for the position.
It goes beyond just looking at the candidate's educational and work history to determine the right fit, asking the candidate for specific examples of past behavior as they relate to the job requirements.
The behavioral interview is based on the logic that past behavior predicts future behavior.
If the job requires a person to be able to analyze and find solutions to problems the interviewer will ask the candidate to provide an example of when they previously displayed that behavior.
"Tell me about a problem you uncovered in your previous job. What steps did you take to sort it out?"
It is often difficult to think of good examples within the time constraints and stressful context of a job interview.
Know which behaviors (sometimes referred to as competencies) are required in the position by reviewing the job description and requirements.
Looking back at your past jobs, prepare good examples using the following technique:
- Describe the specific situation or task you were involved in
- Detail the action and steps you took in the situation
- Outline the results and outcome of your actions. What happened, what was accomplished, what did you learn
| Listen carefully to the questions asked and, if need be, ask for further clarification. Answer with an appropriate and specific example. Often the Interviewer will ask follow-up questions to get more information, " Tell me why you did that" "Take me through your decision process" "How did you feel about that" so it is essential to have a complete, actual example to draw on. |
Click on the list of Common Behavioral Questions & Answers above to help you frame your own examples.
Keep in mind that there are no right or wrong answers, it is an attempt to see how you behaved in a given situation. It is not possible to fabricate an example. The Interviewer's in-depth probing will quickly expose this.
Examples can be taken from any context as long as they clearly detail the required behavior.
Click on the specific job interview guides to review a list of behavioral questions relevant to each particular job with guidelines on how to prepare your best answers.
Typical management interview questions can be found at the manager interview questions and answers guide.
Use these expert behavioral job interview tips to give you the confidence that you know how to handle this type of interview.
View these Frequently Asked Behavioral or Situational Interview Questions.
Be prepared for success in the Behavioral Interview!
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