Question
This is for Project Managers. Can you give me a few interview questions that are pertinent to the Product Manager or Project Manager role? I’m not interviewing for the role as an applicant but I’m interviewing the applicants, so I was looking for specific questions one would ask them.
Answer
Seeing you’re asking the question here I assume this is an IT project manager. Questions will be about your qualities for the skills, responsibility, knowledge, and experience.
Topic:
- Problem-solving
- Time, ressource and budget management
- Tracking the progress, set priority, overall planning, deadline
- Documentation, reports, and communication
- Negotiation and adaptability
- Quality assurance
- ISO, Agile
They may provide some scenarios and ask you how you will deal with the case. They may ask you to explain one of the complex cases you had and how you solve it. Which tool do you use, do you know the business type, your previous experience vs what they need. The questions around them could be worded similarly to the following:
Note: You don’t need to use my suggestions exactly you can be creative with the questions.
Time, resource, and budget management
Give an example of how you estimate time, budget, and resources needed for project completion?
Documentation, reports, and communication
What are 3 key factors to successful project management?
Negotiation and adaptability
A manager asks you to change a key component of a project (for example add a function to a program that was not previously included), what would your response be and how would you address the added requirement?
Problem-solving
You are brought in to manage a project that is behind schedule, what are the first few steps you will need to perform to determine why the project is behind?
Or
A project you are managing is falling behind due to a lack of resources, how do you handle this issue?
Quality assurance
What are some examples of how you would ensure the project (insert example if needed) is getting completed property?
ISO, Agile
For anyone who has already worked in the IT or even just project management field the person being interviewed should be able to define both terms.
To address the other items on the list be sure to ask what Project Management tools and application software that the person has familiarity with.
I usually would look to see if they are ITIL certified also as a plus as it shows they understand how IT works from a process perspective (not all Project Manager bother with ITIL but it does help even if they only have a cursory understanding).
