Project Management Interview Questions

“TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF...” (Have something short and sweet here. There is a large group of interviewers that like to challenge (ahem, torture) you by starting with this open-ended question.)

“WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN DOING since your last job?” (If you’ve been out of work more than a month, be ready for this question. Hint: “Watching the History Channel” is a bad answer.)

"WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR in a new job?” (This should work with your answer to the similar question, "What interests you about this company?” Both answers can be used to express your goals and show the homework you’ve done on the job.)

“I see you worked at Acme, Inc. for 5 years. WHAT TYPES OF PROJECTS did you manage?” (Prepare example projects from your past that you can speak to in moderate detail for this question. Your projects are your portfolio.)

“WHY DID YOU LEAVE Acme, Inc.?” (Just the facts and move on. Shoot no arrows, raise no eyebrows. They are figuring out if they want to work with you and/or if you are a criminal.)

“WHAT WAS YOUR GREATEST PROJECT ACHIEVEMENT?” (This would be a good place to focus on something that helped the company bottom line. Leave off your cool “Glee Club” accomplishments.)

“Tell me about a PROJECT THAT FAILED.” (If they asked the “achievement” question above, you can be sure that this one is coming next.)

“WHAT WAS THE TYPICAL SIZE AND BUDGET of your projects? How did you manage budgets?” (Make sure you have high, low and average examples. Estimate based on resource and other costs if you don’t have exact numbers.)

“WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU WOULD DO when assigned a new project?” (I’ve gotten this question, to my surprise, many times. While it may depend on the project, it’s best to cite something specific from your methodology of choice.)

“What SPECIFIC STEPS AND TECHNOLOGIES did you use on a typical project?” (This is a drill-down question customized to the job requirement details. If ITIL was mentioned in the reqs, for example, be ready to speak some ITIL detail here!)

“TELL ME WHY YOU'D BE A GREAT FIT for this position.” (This can be asked a number of ways, but the gist of it is this... why are you a match for not only the job, but with the company and clients with whom you'll be working.)

“WHAT QUESTIONS DO YOU HAVE for us?” (I usually have a LOT of questions. However, I’m learning to trim what I ask to the time left and how glassed-over interviewer’s eyes may be. If you earn a second interview, you can ask questions later.)

Surprisingly, some common questions I expected like “What is your greatest weakness?” have not been asked. Also, I have rarely been asked about any jobs prior my last two. I may be yearning to talk about my Peace Corps experience... but they don’t have time, or don’t care!

How would you manage conflict or a tough sponsor is a common one I have been asked.

Often conflict on a project is posed as an example... either a "tough sponsor" as you noted, or a problematic team member or project that is behind schedule and/or over budget. An applicant should definitely be prepared to answer how he/she would deal with any of these issues.

• Tell me about the main milestones of a project you have done.

what are the most important things you have to take care about in a project and why

Tell me about a lesson learned from a failed project

Describe to me ,in depth, a Project that failed and how so?

If you were given the project of building a house from scratch, what would be your thought process and how you would define its life-cycle?

yes, the "failed project" one has come up, and it can be tough. Best to have at least 2 examples (one big, one small) ready to go for that one. Seems to often be followed by, "What did you learn from that experience?" or "What would you have changed to save the project?"

I haven't been given the "build a house" or "build a car" analogy type question, yet. I did once work with a developer who complained about people wanting to buy shiny wheels for the car before building the frame, though. Usually, with some colorful expletives thrown in!

what were the challenges (failures, bad team member or delivery slippages ) during the project pahse and what did you do to mitigate them? also, sometimes I am asked - what you could have done differently ? --- both of these hint towards some talking about Risk and Stakeholder management.

• Personally I find using "case interviews" as a very effective tool for evaluating project managers. I usually use a specific problem for specific business with specific objective. Then I ask the candidates to try to structure the solution / make a plan and describe what resources/expertese they need to get the project done -- It allows me to judge how they think about a problem, how would they structure a solution, do they know when they have to rely on someone elses help - kind of simulates the real world that they will be thrown in... (Hint: to use Chris's example buying the shiny wheels before you build the frame is what ocassionally happens in a case... ) You can also see what priorities people have in their mind (e.g. Had someone building a airport in New York whose primary concern was land regulation.. before need, before cost, before possibility to do it from an engineering perspective, before location availability.. guess what? He was working for the government! I did not even need to look at his resume... ) I also ask very specific question such as "How would you go about X... e.g. picking the location for that airport...?" It allows me to judge whether the person can switch between big picture and the details.. which is important for a project manager who deals with all levels of stakeholders.

• Personally, I like your way of giving an case example to solve, as opposed to asking the candidate to cite one from their past. A couple weeks ago I was asked to "provide an example of specific information I had on a project, that I chose to hold back from the team or management, and how that affected the project outcome." Now, I'm prepared with many examples and projects, but in a multi-person interview, to try and come up with an actual real example for something as specific as that stumped me for (more than) a few seconds, and my answer was less than exceptional.

I think that same question could have been presented as an example like, "Imagine your QA lead just told you about her concern regarding one of the developers... what would you do with this information?" Asked that way, which is the way you present it as a "case interview" I believe would have been just as effective as requesting a specific example from my past.

a. Do you have any experience of recovering a troubled project. What did you do, why that particular approach, etc.

b. As a people manager, which one you think is challenging and why - managing a top performer or poor performer.

c. Do you have experience in managing reward and penalty, tough SLA based project. How did you ensure SLA adherence and sustenance.

d. How do you manage attrition and knowledge retention.

e. How do you expedite delivery date and what are pitfalls in ensuring the success.

f. Your experience in managing multi-cultural team environment.

g. Your experience in adopting latest project management methodology like Lean, Agile and how does it relate to conventional project management methodologies.

h. Your experience in quality management, quality audits, metrics collection and analysis.

• I'm new to to the PM field and I am excited to say I have a phone interview coming up for a project coordinator position. Because this is a new career path I am choosing, can anyone offer any advice or suggestions for my upcoming phone interview as well as any questions employers have asked in the past when you were entering as an entry level...

- How would you establish relationship/trust and manage the resources that are based in multiple offshore locations.

- Describe examples of significant scope change / cost overrun / vendor slippage. What actions did you take? What would you have done differently?

• Tell me/us about a time that you have had to manage situation with a difficult/non-preforming resource/person and what did you do to resolve the issue.

What do yo do when faced with unreasonable requests from senior management.

How do you manage/negotiate with stakeholders who want to introduce a change but will not listen to an increase to time/budget.

- Do you have any experience of RECOVERING A TROUBLED PROJECT? What did you do, why that particular approach, etc. (I've had some version of the "troubled" project question, usually given in the form of an example, in every interview.)

- As a people manager, which one you think is challenging and why - MANAGING A POOR PERFORMER or a top performer. (I've not had this question, but I have been often asked about a "problem" team member situation. How to deal with a "top performer" is actually an interesting question!)

- Your experience in managing (and establishing relationships) in MULTI-CULTURAL TEAM ENVIRONMENT. (I've only been asked this, obviously, on those projects with offshore or remote teams for which I've applied. If there are people on the team in other places, speaking various languages, you can be sure to get this one. I hope to be able to work with multi-cultural teams, actually. Ciao!)

- Your experience in ADOPTING LATEST PM METHODOLOGY like Lean, Agile and how does it relate to conventional project management methodologies. (If this is listed in the job description, it will be asked. If you see "CSM", "Agile", or "Scrum" in the description, there is likely to be a very specific question that will test your knowledge of those methods. Same goes for Lean, Six Sigma, etc.)

- Your experience in QUALITY MANAGEMENT, QUALITY AUDITS, METRICS collection and analysis (If you are applying for a job that manages SDLC and interacts with developers and QA teams, this can be expected. I do not know if it is asked often in other industries like construction, defense, or pharma. Perhaps someone else can comment on other industries.)

- I have been asked about the "SCOPE CHANGE" and "UNREASONABLE REQUESTS from management" situations mentioned by @Tu-Ly and @Ruth but they've been posed in the form of a specific example like, "Tell us about a time when a stakeholder asked for additional functionality on a project (software) that was not part of the original scope. How did you handle that?" (Definitely prepare, as I mentioned in the initial post, a few project examples that you can cite for this type of question.)

I've not been asked the questions about SLA's, managing attrition, expediting delivery (amazingly) very often. My most recent interview included SLA discussion and metrics, but in this string I'm trying to apply 80/20 and concentrate on the questions most often asked (in my own experience.)

While I think making up a scenario a good idea, it's probably not as good (IMO) as citing an actual experience you have. Perhaps you can think of an experience from your past (from school or previous non-PM position) that contains some of the same structural elements of the question being asked of you. You don't have to be a PM to have dealt with a troublesome team member or unrealistic stakeholder requests (like when the customer asks you to make the latte non-fat, but with whole-fat cream... what is wrong with those people?) If you can think of something (anything) from your past that relates, your answer will be more authentic.

In any case, if the interviewer is asking you a "have you ever dealt with..." case example kind of question, they are not only to see if you have that specific experience in your past, but also how you would deal with it in the future. If you don't have a specific PM example and you can't come up with a analogous example as above, your last resort would be just to say, "I have not had exactly that type of situation, but if presented with that situation I would do (INSERT what you would do here!)"

In this final scenario, where you don't have any story to tell, if the job requires PMP certification I'd suggest your response follows PMBOK guidelines, same for Lean, Agile, etc... how you respond to issues goes a long way towards telling the hiring manager what kind of PM you are, and what methods you follow. If it's an Agile job and you say, "I'd pause development and have the product manager fill out a new requirements document" then you just struck out. :-)