How To Ace Your Interview

When it comes time to face the interview panel, preparation is key.

While you can't preempt what your interviewer will ask you, you can be pretty sure the questions will be framed around three key areas.

Firstly, the interviewer will want to explore your people skills. Project management is held together by the relationships you have with stakeholders. Different stakeholders will have different agendas and incentives. This is a recipe for conflict, and questions around how you will deal with this conflict will be a part of the interview process.

Your technical knowledge will also be explored. There will be questions relating to your experience and how you have approached projects previously.

Finally, you will be asked questions about specific situations. The aim here is to examine your approach. Use examples and reflect on previous projects you have been involved with.

"Preparation is the cornerstone of success in project management interviews. It showcases not only your knowledge and skills but also your commitment to excellence."

- Alexandra Hayes

Below are 11 questions that serve as a starting point for your upcoming interview.

1. Tell me about yourself

For some, this can be the hardest question of all. It can be daunting to talk about yourself in glowing terms. However, this is the time for you to shine, so don’t be shy.

Think of yourself as a product that you are trying to sell to someone.

One effective way to approach this question is to frame it in the present, the past and the future.

Firstly, talk about what you are doing now, what your role is, and exactly what that entails.

Secondly, discuss past experiences and how they align with the role you are applying for.

Finally, discuss what roles you would like to be involved in the future and how the direction of your career may look.

2. What do you believe is the most important thing a project manager does?

This question examines your experience as a project manager. You can touch on what you spend the most time doing and what some of your key responsibilities are.

This is a great opportunity to discuss the importance of communication in project management.

Two levels of communication are crucial in complex projects. First is the internal communication within the project team. It's important that the team works together as one cohesive unit.

“Communication is the grout that holds all the moving parts of the project together.” - Dr. David Arthur

Secondly, communication with stakeholders is crucial from project initiation to project close.

If stakeholders aren’t being communicated with, then a vacuum occurs. Stakeholders will fill that vacuum with assumptions that are usually incorrect! This can be a project killer.

3. Tell us about something that went wrong in a project that you were managing

No matter how well a project's planning was, it is inevitable that something will go wrong.

The interviewer will want to know how you dealt with this. This is to understand how you deal with things that do not go to plan and how you arrive at solutions.

You should provide examples.

You should also discuss dealing with these unforeseen challenges and how you incorporated change processes in your project.

A sensible way to approach this is to use the STAR method:

1. Situation – describe the situation and why it happened. Why did it go wrong?

2. Task – what were the identified tasks that rectified the situation?

3. Action – then explain what you did and how you did it

4. Result—describe the outcome and the success of the task and action. Describe what you learned from the experience and what controls might be introduced to prevent the situation from happening again.

4. How would you create an environment of performance?

How well you lead a project team is crucial to how successful the project will be.

Communication within the team may be an important strategy for you to discuss with your interviewers.

Describe how you run your meetings, are they held weekly, do you conduct daily stand-up meetings? Also, how do the internal communication processes look? What systems do you use? This can range from Microsoft Teams to Slack or other means.

You may also want to discuss reward and recognition. This can be a bit of a minefield, but touching on some low-cost ways to recognize good work may be worth discussing.

Even mentioning the value of praise to team members can be valuable.

5. What has been your most successful project?

This is an opportunity to demonstrate the strategies you used to create a successful project. Use the STAR method again to give a brief outline of what made this project special.

This is not a time to be modest. Discuss why this project was a success. What is under budget, on time or within scope? Or was it all three?

Demonstrating the success of the project and why it was so important is powerful.

"Sharing a successful project experience in an interview not only illustrates your technical proficiency but also underscores your strategic thinking and problem-solving capabilities under pressure." - Kate Boxhall

You may want to align the success of the project outcomes with the strategic objectives of the organization. For example, a Health Department's objective may be providing affordable health care to rural communities. Managing the successful delivery of a rural hospital provides outcomes that are aligned with the Health Department’s objectives.  

6. How would you describe a project plan?

With this question, the interviewer aims to gauge your knowledge of project management concepts, particularly the three constraints of time, budget, and scope.

You may also want to discuss stakeholders, risk, tasks, and milestones, as well as the importance of getting the right team members.

Stakeholder engagement is often a pain point in projects, so talking about the best method for communicating with them can be beneficial.

7. What project management methods do you use?

This is an opportunity to discuss different project methodologies like Agile and Waterfall. You want to demonstrate that you are comfortable with many project methodologies and combining them with the organization's built-up learning.

8. How do you deal with scope creep?

Scope creep happens when uncontrolled changes to the planned scope of a project occur without proper control or management.

By allowing scope creep to enter the project there is pressure on the budget and deadline.

Telling your interviewers that you are comfortable with the relationship between scope, time, cost and quality of the project can be powerful. Identifying ways to prevent scope creep will add to your perceived value.

9. How do you navigate team conflict?

Projects have significant constraints placed upon them. This could be a tight budget or a demanding schedule.

These constraints can bring their own set of pressures, which can morph into team conflict.

There are a myriad of reasons why conflict appears in the team. It is part of the project manager’s role to use their soft skills to quell negative conflict. When answering this question, it is usually best to use an example.

10. What project management tools do you use?

This is your opportunity to let the interviewer know what tools you are familiar with.

You should research what the organization uses and see if you have been using similar tools.

Common project management tools include RACI charts, Microsoft Project, Jira, Trello, and Moday.com. You may want to discuss these tools, their advantages, and how the organization can benefit from using them.

11. Describe your last project

This is an opportunity to talk about your most recent project challenges and how you overcame them. You can highlight the lessons learned and what you will start, stop, and continue in future projects.

You will also want to talk about your successes within the project, whether that was bringing the project under budget, within schedule, or within scope.

I hope this helps you in your quest to continue your journey in the field of project management.

Good luck with your job interview!

Need to spruce up your PM IQ before your next job interview? Check out OPEN, our free online project management learning library.

This article was originally published on The Project Pulse - subscribe for more great content all about projects.