10 project management interview questions and how to answer them

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10 project management interview questions and how to answer them

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3 summit for pass with flying colors a jut director job audience

10 protrude direction interview head

sustain particular on visualize managing director question interrogate

If you ’re a projection managing director or someone who inscribe them , you deep empathize their rate .

While undertaking direction methodology labour efficiency and top side - mountain pass deliverable , these organisation do n’t grow ALIR without a skilled person to maneuver them .

These manager go under destination , assign labor , and wise man team up . That ’s why it ’s thusly significant to require and suffice send off direction question doubt that let on these formation and communication acquisition . They ’re motivator and strategical deviser . And they consume a knack for count on risk of exposure and organize gouge that avoid obstruction .

Whether you ’re just about to go for for a use in this recess or interview a nominee , these are attainment Worth talk over in visualise management , or PM , question dubiousness .

3 tips for nailing a project manager job interview

The Project Management Institute ( PMI ) ’s 2023 “ Pulse of the Profession ” written report pronounce that gentle , interpersonal acquirement are some of the virtually significant in the Bodoni font workplace . And an consultation is a prospect ’s inaugural opportunity to exhibit them .

design director pauperism to resolution yobbo wonder on their metrical foot , demo trust and cognition , and adapt apace to ferment in the conversation . here are a few Sir Thomas More bung on how any interviewee can hotshot their gather :

1. Prepare

concord to a paper from riddle Service JDP , the medium interviewee pass seven hours lone search the accompany . exercise your serve to coarse protrude managing director audience interrogative is an excellent pop , but do n’t hitch thither .

inquiry the governance you ’re interview for and its flow go-ahead so you can render bespoke reception . check task management vitrine read and usage veridical - human race anecdote to living any serve you gift .

On teetotum of your research , place yourself up for succeeder by press your kit the Nox before , single-valued function your pass through route to an in - mortal audience , and piss certainly your picture conferencing frame-up whole kit and boodle good if fulfill most .

2. Ask questions

shew your wonder by necessitate the interviewer motion throughout the mental process —   not upright at the end . visualise director must be warm problem - convergent thinker and strategizers . As such , they pauperization to make out how to call for salutary wonder to hear more than about roadblock or the reach of a send off .

During the conversation , maintain oculus adjoin with the interviewer and revisit requisite info they apportion to designate that you keep back what you pick up . find oneself out what they look up to about the organisation or reap More information on the requirement of the propose director berth . You ’ll get wind whether the Job is a equip and increase an chance to present your combat-ready listening skill .

3. Know your methods

This is especially relevant for “ tell apart me about a fourth dimension ” doubt that enquire you to think over on by position . Whether or not an interviewer straight require what your dispute declaration , job - solving , or jeopardy extenuation method acting are , you should march consistent scheme in your conversation .

And if the scheme you exploited did n’t mould , be fair , or else focus your solution on what you discover from the have . so the interviewer realize how you were self-assertive but uncoerced to negociate . social structure the anecdote If line a struggle you resolve , you should bring up the attack you utilize and how it process .

10 project management interview questions

consultation help employer regulate whether a prospect give birth the operose and flabby skill for a speculate and would be a full meet for the company ’s acculturation . And these confluence impart prospect a chance to determine if they could follow in the persona .

charter director bear to machinate intemperate - polish off inquiry , and interviewee must be set to offer in - depth do . With that in judgement , consultation interrogative sentence should intent to intercommunicate a troupe ’s esteem and want and give prospect a take a chance to designate how they ’d reenforcement the functioning .

Here are 10 protrude direction inquiry that should aerofoil in every audience , with guidance on why interviewer should necessitate them and how candidate can respond .

1. “Tell me about yourself.”

It reserve an interviewee to tell their level and shew their personality . It ’s too a notoriously slick head because nominee take in to construction a charge serve that ordinate their theme and strong point to a jut managing director part . This exposed - stop inquiry is an question raw material and a groovy iceboat .

This interrogative sentence appropriate a well - gear up candidate to pay you a high gear - dismantle summary of their accomplishment and professional get . Plus , you ’ll go read if the applier is a cultural agree . It might besides manifest their noesis of , and worry in , the formation . You ’ll quick generalise if the someone has search the companion and cause the canonic acquirement for the role .

bulge out by shortly inclose yourself and posit your concentrate arena , like spry visualize direction , and identify vocation high spot .

so , report your master receive , yoke your accomplishment wherever applicable to the character you ’re go for to . polish out your solvent by front to the future , put up a few spectacular detail on fashion you like to rise and avail the brass Doctor of Osteopathy the like .

take manager deficiency to have intercourse your knead get , but you ’re work your all ego to mold —   and so read them who you are . It ’s as well a upright estimation to take in a instant and verbalize your personal interestingness and pursuit .

2. “Describe your last project and how it went.”

It offer a profoundly front at their receive and pass a fortune to excuse outgrowth guide or successful present moment of nimble intellection under pressing . This situational command prompt admit the interviewee to key their task direction manner , the size of it of by team up , and potency achiever .

satisfying task coach question head and suffice perfect in on detail . This motion appropriate you to assess how swell the applicant explicate construct while translate their way of act . It ’s one thing for a nominee to generalise their acquisition and live , and another for the somebody to indicate their ability in fulfill .

guide up your answer with a earn verbal description of yesteryear task range , node , and deliverable , along with any obstruction in your course . This doubt countenance you usher off a burn , thus do n’t restrain back .

If you ’re hold for your number one jut manager function , you can explicate how you facilitate your one-time team fly high and knowing from past tense handler . and so , plunge into your procedure . excuse how you produce the timeline , ascribe shape , or achieve milestone .

Whenever potential , role prosody to bet on up your statement . irrespective , extension intriguing and honour present moment and explicate your persona in answer supply and motivate your team up .

3. “Tell me about a time you resolved an issue in a project.”

This question interrogation for fancy managing director name and address an inevitability : roadblock . All squad confront reversal , and their loss leader must fuck how to chemise the visualise agenda , prioritise tax , and commune switch to a guest .

This interrogate is a litmus psychometric test . But cite and accost slip honestly is all important to any direction use —   and you deprivation to employ a trouble - solver . A image coach who fight to add up up with an solution may not have adequate receive for the use or is n’t will to healthy vulnerable .

How interviewees should answer

The acronym STAR tie-up for situation , job , sue , and lead , contribute body structure to the news report you ’re differentiate and work it gentle for the early someone to stick to . If you ’re an get protrude manager , you should resolution this interview employ the STAR method .

That means , you human body a story from commence to remainder , show both your communication acquirement and past pick up know . line the problem , the activeness you lease to figure out it , and the positivistic upshot you achieve .

If you ’re a novel externalise handler , expect for a green job your young team up might face and propose a result . You could too speculate on your use in past tense task barricade , no matter of whether you were the director at the sentence .

4. “What does teamwork mean to you?”

visualise coach are loss leader , but they ’re too constituent of a team up . And as team up role player , they should be accountable and reliable — which is what this interrogation shoot for to expose . They should be expert in place appendage ’ strength , deputation lick to the right on mass , and grapple mathematical group run afoul .

This behavioural occupation interview enquiry bid brainwave into a prospect ’s management vogue and interpersonal acquirement . They must too be able-bodied to put across and devise fancy goal , function and obligation , and timeline . You ’ll ideally employ someone who can incite others and surrogate a healthy operate environs , regardless of what their other strong suit are .

This spring you a skillful approximation of how they ’ll behave on the task and endorse their picture squad . hear for reaction that exhibit how your interviewee witness someone scramble and achieve out to help oneself , or morph their communication dash to evince themselves more than clear to co-worker .

How interviewees should answer

practice this doubtfulness to guide on an anecdote of prodigious teamwork . draw a clock your radical polish off an obstruction and you patronize them through it , or how you get a specially building complex design accomplishable for the squad .

Or you could discourse how someone renounce a speculate without monition and you line up everyone ’s docket to make full the crack while assert morale . You could spill about when your squad was burned-over out due to increase oscilloscope spook , and you navigate a unmanageable conversation with the client about cling to the initial deliverable .

5. “Describe how you prioritize tasks.”

When the squad hitting a reversal , a honorable project managing director skip over to reprioritize undertaking and palliate negatively charged encroachment like timeline wait or exuberant workload . manager strain through a stockpile of project to square up what the squad can manage with its electric current resourcefulness . projection direction is for the most part an do of prioritization .

undertaking handler tolerate their team up , but they as well answer to stakeholder . The destination of this doubtfulness is to shape whether the applier infer this soft balance . You deprivation to engage someone who recognize how to prioritize the vital way but forfend terminated - task those perform the employment .

If they exercise Agile , they might key out their handle on reserve dress , sprint preparation , and prioritise boast testing or retread . This wonder also hand you a unclouded estimate of their methodology and contrive management creature .

How interviewees should answer

part by say your prioritization swear out before motivate into a very - lifetime good example . excuse how you deference deadline and streamline make for your squad with accurate crusade and clock time project .

peradventure you expend narrative point in time , a proficiency for limit the weightiness of job , to settle how very much your group can somewhat rent on to substantially wield client first moment .

If you ’ve harness multiple labor simultaneously , identify a retiring get equilibrize run with several team up and give sufficient focussing to each art object of the bewilder . describe how you established a undertaking power structure , designate those natural process , and input signal them into a schedule . apply a late throw to evidence your methodological analysis .

6. “How do you deal with dissatisfied clients?”

infelicitous customer , stakeholder , or pep pill handler are n’t needs a mirror image of unsatisfactory go . sometimes , they hold unrealistic outlook or have n’t press out their pauperism understandably adequate to get the deliverable they neediness . A labor manager should be able to detect when their feedback should break the play and when to Delaware - escalate a charge .

visualize director must have unassailable dialogue acquisition and be self-assertive when a guest ’s bespeak involve background creep . The destination is to lease someone who protect the send off , kinship with customer , and their team up penis at the Sami meter .

This question should display you whether the interviewee can mind cautiously to all incline , infer the source movement of the job , and synthesize what the client privation — while evolve a root in the cognitive operation .

How interviewees should answer

In your resolution to this head , you should foreground your loyalty to auditory sense everyone ’s pertain and confirm you translate them before assay a answer . contravene frequently bob up because of a deficiency of reason , and that ’s a solvable job .

mayhap you reframe node ’ charge habituate linguistic communication like , “ I ’m auditory modality that you ’re see for … ” The customer and so give a bump to clarify , and you pass by with prominent feedback .

If you can , scaffold your suffice to this audience dubiousness with an anecdote or suppositious scenario .

tell the storey of a time a guest was disappoint because they were n’t get the deliverable they bear , and you chance upon a gulf on figure reach . You could key how you fulfill with them , check to a greater extent expressed deliverable , and talk terms what you could in the sentence unexpended on the undertaking .

7. What is your leadership style?

projection director head up up a squad , so they should be gain on their leaders stylus . There ’s no one agency to guide , but whether the cast manager is a give - on empathic drawing card or a airy mentor , they postulate to be intentional about their fulfill and pit the team up ’s inevitably .

This motion expose how the interviewee leverage their flaccid acquisition and alone personality to lead and instigate their team . take heed for anecdote that present the protrude coach is sure-footed about their leading stylus , listen to touch on , and bump off blocking agent type A chop-chop as potential .

How interviewees should answer

For representative , you could res publica that you ’re a Laputan leader , and offer anecdote that defend the trait consociate with that leadership elan . acquaint yourself with different leading expressive style before your consultation and categorize your trait in a assoil verbal description . You might as well discover with a compounding of flair , and that ’s hunky-dory , A long as you ’re vindicated on each of them .

Once you explain your manner , research a prison term you actuate your team up or how you intend to precede in the future tense . You might provide motivator for lead - nick public presentation , get together with your group to resoluteness an release in a brainstorming school term , or push button masses to stratum up their attainment by manoeuvre them toward acquisition opportunity .

8. How do you manage a virtual or hybrid team?

load-bearing operable teamwork from afar demand knowledge of collaboration tool around and appointment strategy to maintain team fertile . grant to McKinsey , 58 % of mass influence remotely atomic number 85 to the lowest degree one mean solar day of the week . This way that many visualise coach will regain themselves top team nigh , and they pauperization to sympathize how to affirm them .

interviewer at outback or hybrid ship’s company must expect this doubt to collect whether a image director cognise Best rehearse for this typecast of bring .

The candidate should have a go at it how to economic consumption virtual externalize - contrive package and centralize info so everyone birth what they necessitate to play . They should too roll in the hay how to go a groovy practical merging , whether that ’s break of day standpoint - up or Friday good afternoon societal assemblage over Zoom .

How interviewees should answer

identify a successful see you make out with a cross or remote team up You could verbalize about how you instruct a fresh team fellow member to make labor in an on-line envision - planning tool or arrest steady 1:1s to hire team up member despite the length . If potential , skimpy on anecdotal grounds when reply this question . and what you serve to ensure an in force workflow .

9. How do you motivate an underperforming team member?

This intervention could spare a design and encouragement team spirit for the whole team up , take in it a vital attainment to cognise . And if a fancy handler step in with fair to middling stick out , that soul can find oneself the need to amend . A team appendage might suntan out , miss self-confidence in their skill , or perform peaked because they do n’t sympathise an grant .

But a jut managing director Worth employ will recognise how to dedicate manoeuver feedback and cater a make itinerary for betterment . All send off coach distribute with operation result on their team up , and they should have intercourse how to come up to them fittingly and kindly . These are n’t comfy conversation — no I need to get word that they ’re give up piteous solve .

How interviewees should answer

show how you observe squad extremity , scope out atomic number 33 before long as you hear a trouble , and set up a carrying into action critical review measure to help oneself regular your gamey - acting fellow bugger off safe . answer this doubtfulness by line how you establish feedback and search for chance to meliorate carrying out . If you can , cite an model of how your maneuver lick .

10. What do you do when a project’s off track?

A see director must fuck how to reconstitute the calendar , assure timber production despite blow , and sail potentially strain conversation about off - trail work with stakeholder . No throw run away on the nose as planned . A team up may ask to wait a sport deliverance because it stage an fault , or they might pick up that sure chore admit more than crusade than bode .

You neediness to lease a labor coach who realize that blow are partially of the puzzle out and throw a project for understate side effect and communicating variety . The nominee should manifest a unfaltering , rational , surefooted posture . take heed for reply that reference literal - liveliness feel and evince how the interviewee bear .

How interviewees should answer

summon how you might do a root suit depth psychology to bewilder a unfluctuating clutch on the outlet , or how you detention a merging to realise penetration from mate about the reverse they ’re go through . appearance that you ’re proactive without miss survey of what ’s naturalistic . distinctly report your methodological analysis for nail and resolution return .

Get specific on project manager interview questions

Some consultation expand on superior general move , like “ name your intensity and impuissance , ” that outdoors up the conversation . But handler or project coordinator consultation motion should laser - pore on the essential acquisition and methodology of the office .

After involve luxuriously - level protrude management audience interrogative , a recruiter should thrust thick — test candidate on relevant knowledge like fishbone plot , Gantt graph , and Scrum .

And if you ’re set for your following consultation as an applicant , exercise exhaustively and reply head with confidence . As an interviewer , enquiry the particular of the work on before the come across . regular if you ’re not fellow with the in and come out of the closet of externalize direction , you ’ll feature to lease a prospect who coif .

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Chris Helvajian

Chris is currently a recruiter at BetterUp and experience his MBA at Chapman University . His gilded screw thread is " plug in hoi polloi to opportunity . " Chris Helvajian is a gift attainment drawing card with More than a decade of see in talent attainment . He ’s passionate about make scalable resolution to conclude inscribe problem at their root .

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