Project Manager Interview Questions
About the role
Project managers are generally responsible for planning, organising, and directing projects on behalf of their organisation. Their job is to ensure projects are complemented on time, on budget, and to the necessary standard. Project manager roles require people skills to manage both stakeholders and team members as well as organisational and problem-solving skills.
Project manager responsibilities
- Planing project ideas and strategy
- Creating and leading the team
- Monitoring the progress of projects to ensure they meet deadlines
- Problem-solving any issues that may arise
- Managing project budgets
- Ensuring stakeholder satisfaction
- Evaluating and reporting on project performance
What skills should you be looking for?
After a few months of project execution, your main contact from the client’s side has changed. The project is ending in three weeks... what risks would you consider? What would you do to ensure a successful wrap-up of this project?
What are the 3 key metrics you would use to measure the success of a technology solution and its implementation?
Please outline why you prioritised these metrics, how you would measure these metrics, and what steps would you take to address any ongoing project issues highlighted by monitoring the metrics.
You have been working on an important project with several other colleagues for the past few weeks. The deadline is getting close. Due to an unexpectedly busy period, none of the team members have been able to complete their tasks for the project. Its become clear that due to existing workloads, the project is not on course to meet its deadline. How would you proceed?
Imagine you have just started in the role and now must become competent in using – and eventually the team expert in - a new piece of technology. There is an expert in the team you can learn from, but they are often busy with meetings and can't get much time from them
What approach do you take to building your competence and becoming the in-team expert?
You're working on a project with a junior colleague. They’ve been tasked with putting together background research and analysis to support the project, but have now missed two deadlines for turning this in, meaning the project deadline is at risk of being missed.
What do you do?
What are structured interview questions?
Structured questions (or work samples) are highly predictive, job-specific questions designed to simulate parts of a job.
Structured work sample questions are the most predictive form of assessment you can use. Why? Because they directly test for skills by asking candidates to think as if they were already in the job.
.svg)
Diversity
Testing for skills instead of just experience makes interviews a more inclusive process. 60%+ of candidates hired through our process would've been missed using CVs/traditional interviews - most of whom are from underrepresented groups.
Accuracy
By simulating tasks that would realistically occur in the role, you can see how candidates would think and work should they get the job.What could be more predictive than having candidates do small parts of the job before actually getting it?
Candidate experience
Candidates genuinely enjoy being given a chance to showcase their ability - this is why we have a 9/10 average candidate experience rating (including unsuccessful candidates).
Decide on the skills you’re looking for
Choose 6-8 core skills required for success in the role. These can be a mix of hard, technical skills as well as soft skills and general working characteristics.You could also include one or two of your organisation's most relevant values.
Think of scenarios that would test these skills
Next, come up with either everyday tasks or rarer, more challenging scenarios that would test some of these skills. They can be day-to-day duties, bigger projects or specific dilemmas that a candidate may realistically face. Should they get the job.
Pose scenarios hypothetically to create your questions
Instead of your typical ‘tell me a time when’ questions, ask candidates what they would do if faced with a given scenario.It's not that experience doesn't have any value… it's just more predictive to test directly for skills, without making assumptions based on background.
Give yourself scoring criteria
Want to make more data-driven hiring decisions? Score candidates against set criteria.We’d recommend starting out with a simple 1-5 star scale and a few bullet points noting what a good, mediocre and bad answer might include.
Use review panels
Having team members join your interviews will result in fairer, more accurate scores.Three is the magic number - you’ll start seeing diminishing return after that