If you are interviewing for a Project Manager position, you may want to read this post. Below are some likely job interview questions for a Project Manager job. The methods we used to develop these questions are the same ones we used as corporate HR in developing job interview questions for hiring managers. We have developed these questions by analyzing the core competencies or skills, job ad requirements and so forth.

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5 Project Manager Job Interview Questions

Describe the largest and most complex project (>$1 M budget and has > 5 direct reports) you have managed from start to finish? How did you get the group to work towards a common goal?

Building rapport is sometimes a very challenging thing to do. Give an example of a time when you were able to build rapport with an individual group member, even when the situation was a difficult one?

Describe your experience in using standard desktop applications and specifically your experience in using software packages such as MS Project. How you you rate your skill level?

Describe a specific time when you feel your communication and interpersonal skills really paid off for you in dealing with difficult clients or team members?

Describe your presentation experience that you made on a large project. Who were the various audiences, what was the size of the audience and how did the audience dictate your presentation style? What was the end result?

More About These Questions

The interview questions in this post assess the essential soft skills for this particular job through its core functions. We focus on the soft skills because we have found that most candidates handle the questions designed to assess their technical proficiency very well only to stumble with the questions designed to assess their soft skills. For example, when we ask a programmer to explain what a certain set of code means or how best to handle a coding issue, most often their answer is a good one. Now when we ask the same candidate to “describe a time when you did not get along well with a co-worker and how you handled it” to assess their interpersonal skills, 9 times out of 10 they stumble. We see the same thing over and over again whether we are hiring for an accountant, teacher, and so on. Most candidates can handle questions designed to assess their technical competencies much much better than questions designed to assess their soft skills

Why does soft skills matter? Because 9 times out of 10 applicants are bypassed due to their soft skills. We hear this all the time when we debrief with the hiring manager to get their feedback on the applicant. Sometimes, the hiring managers will directly state that the applicant lacked the soft skills but more often it will be phrased as “no connection with the applicant”, or “didn’t get a good feel about the applicant” or “don’t think the applicant would fit in well” and so on.

In addition to focusing on the soft skills we have incorporated behavioral based interview questions. We focus on behavioral based interview questions because they are very prevalent in the HR industry. Behavioral questions focus on assessing past behavior by asking you to provide an example or describe a situation that has happened in the past and what you did. So because of the reasons stated and others beyond the scope of this post, you will likely be asked these questions in your next job interview.

How to Answer

So what is the interviewer looking for? Your response really depends on exactly the type of interview question asked. While interviewing skills as a hiring manager or job applicant can be quite an in depth topic and beyond the scope of this post, we have provided a quick lesson on how you can improve your interview skills. We have chosen to briefly cover the behavioral question because this is where we see most people struggle.

To ensure that you provide good answers consistently we advise that you follow a structured approach when responding to behavioral type questions. Two effective techniques to use are “STAR” (situation, task, action, result) and “PAR” (problem, action, result). These techniques are very similar to one another, so for illustrative purposes, we will discuss the STAR method.

To use the STAR technique, simply describe each element in your interview answer. So with the star technique, begin by describing the situation. Here you want to quickly give context to the interviewer (where, when, etc). Next clearly describe your task, that is what were you tasked to do in this situation. Now it is time to describe the steps or action you took to complete your task. Lastly, describe the results that you achieved. Sounds simple right? Well it is simple, but the secret is to practice responding following this structure. By following structure, you will ensure that you provide complete answers and do not omit vital pieces of information.

The Questions Are In Your Resume

Remember that another good source of job interview questions is your resume. Hiring managers will ask you questions based on your resume. For some people it’s hard to recall what you did last week, let alone what you did at work a few years ago. So it pays to review your resume before you go to your job interview.

For more see our online job interview and resume writing courses. So until our next post, we wish you much luck and success in your career search.

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