PM Network - December 2014

“Qualified applicants will still have relevant experiences to draw upon from college courses, prior work experience, internships, volunteer and personal life experience. While they may not have the depth of experience of more tested project managers, the best applicants will be able to provide examples of activities that show they have the skills and traits required for the job.

I prefer asking behavioral questions that help the interviewer assess how the applicant will deal with situations that are common in a project manager’s life. For example, ‘Tell me about a time when you had to get others to get work done for you without having direct authority’ or ‘Tell me about a time that you had to manage multiple competing priorities—how did you handle that?’ Even students with little direct project management experience should be able to relay valuable information about how they would handle these situations.”

—Sue Kaiden, manager, career development community of practice, Association for Talent Development, Alexandria, Virginia, USA

“As I interview young, inexperienced talent, I’m assessing whether they have the potential to be a great project manager, if they are teachable, have a fire in their belly and if they are someone whom my team, colleagues, partners and I would be comfortable working with.

Questions about experience, albeit nonwork-related for inexperienced applicants, are still relevant because they help interviewers gain some perspective on what skills, capabilities and behaviors the applicant brings to the table. However, experience questions are not the end all, be all. I like to ask, ‘Tell me about an experience when you led a team towards a common goal.

What did you enjoy most about the experience? What was challenging about the experience?’”

—Lynn Batara, director, enterprise project management office, Franklin Templeton Investments, San Mateo, California, USA

“The best interviewers encourage people to tell their stories so they can explore the person’s style, problem-solving approaches, resilience, teamwork, leadership and the like. These stories don’t necessarily need a work context if they’re relevant and revealing.

The two questions that our team uses often are, ‘How can we set you up to succeed?’ and ‘From what you’ve observed of me, where do you think our friction points might be if we were working together?’ In addition, I put quite a bit of store on reversing the situation and asking the person to interview me for the position of his or her manager/coach.

It’s amazing how insightful this can be. And it’s great to debrief with them—both their answers and an action debrief during the interview to assess how they and you are doing.”

—Graham Winter, founder and executive director, Think One Team International, Melbourne, Australia

“Have an open discussion with the candidate about how they have handled their personal projects, like school assignments and volunteer activities, and get them to share their experience on their successes or failures. This will help to assess the candidate’s ability to handle any project as a leader and a team member. I like to ask, ‘What motivates you— working indoors, outdoors, working from home, working in an office with teams, working alone?’ You need to ensure you get the right person for the right job. As an example, once I employed a talented young project team member who enjoyed working from home and working at night.