You have been applying for the project manager roles, and you get a call to come and give an interview. Isn’t it good news? But as soon as you mark the date on your calendar, you start getting a jittery feeling about it. You start panicking, thinking What question will be asked? How should I prepare? Will I be able to answer confidently?
All these questions will pop into your mind, but relax, we are here to help you tackle the tough but important questions that will highlight your skills and make you fit for the project manager position.
In this blog, we’ve gathered the top 20 project manager interview questions and answers to assist you in excelling at your upcoming interview. Covering crucial areas like strategic thinking and problem-solving skills, we address the fundamental qualities hiring managers commonly look for in project management candidates. Join us as we explore these key questions, arming you with the expertise to make a lasting impression and triumph in your project manager interview questions.
Top 20 Project Manager Interview Questions And Answers
Here are the top 20 project manager interview questions and answers you are likely to face during your interview as a project manager. Get inspired by these questions and answers and prepare your own stories based on your experience.
Q.1 Tell us something about the kind of projects that you have worked on in your past organizations
Ans: In my role as a project manager at ABC Consulting, I manage various long-term design projects for residential and commercial buildings, each with budgets of up to USD 100K. I work closely with the internal team as well as the clients, making sure that everyone is on the same page in terms of timelines and expectations.
In my previous project management role for a professional services firm, I worked very closely with a team of SMEs possessing cross-functional skills. This gave me experience on how to manage the pressure of huge projects, the clients, and coordinating with cross-functional teams. I’d be happy to put that experience to good use working with your organization and increase your project success rate.
Q.2 Can you walk us through the specific project that you worked on, and what your role and stakeholders were?
Ans: One of the main projects I have worked on was a commercial building design project that had a budget of USD 100K. I was given the responsibility to plan, schedule, and harmonize with engineers, architects, contractors, and clients for a smooth implementation of work. My major project stakeholders were clients, internal designers, and the independent vendors. This project guided me to make my skills stronger in communication, managing risk, and stakeholders. And given a chance, I can always learn and try my best to do more.
Q.3 Tell us something about three challenges that you faced in your project life cycle for the project mentioned above
Ans: I have not seen the BEST project in my career without any challenges. For me top 3 challenges that I found in my best projects were:
- Stakeholder engagement at the right level, at the right time, and with the right impact.
- The biggest problem was that the same team worked on multiple projects, so they needed to balance their effort and make sure that they were available when needed based on the project’s demands. It became more difficult when members were on scheduled leave and took emergency leave that was not indicated on the calendar.
- Pressure on timelines from all directions on the delivery as per timelines, even at the cost of 100% overleveling of resources.
Q.4 Let’s turn to interaction with partners and their roles on different projects. Other agencies don’t report to you, and yet you have to lead them. How do you manage that interaction?
Ans:
- Stakeholder engagement and management are the only responses here. First of all, identifying the right kind of stakeholders and their engagement at various levels when needed is important.
- Training the partners in the project technologies is an essential component of the success of the partner relationship
- Trust, confidence, and building relationships beyond the transaction levels are other important success factors, so that in case you need a resource immediately the next day
- This is also a test of the project manager’s leadership ability and negotiation tactics with the partners.
Q.5 Are you aware of your organization’s vision and mission, and how is your project aligned with them
Ans: Yes, I am very much aware of the mission and vision of my organization. We focus more on providing high-quality, viable design solutions that add value to the clients. I make sure that my projects line up with the quality standards, matching with client’s expectations, and managing resources well. Every project that I have managed till now has contributed to the organization’s success, building trust and better connections with our clients.
Q.6 What does the “people first” philosophy look like in your daily work?
Ans: It starts with putting attention on the person. For example, I look for subtleties in personality and preferences. I might have a creative professional on the project who knows how to prioritize and doesn’t want to be micromanaged. Alternatively, you might have a person who cannot prioritize saving his or her life. In that case, the person needs constant attention to be successful. A high level of EQ [emotional intelligence] for the project team you’re working with is important. The ability to observe and adjust as a project manager also comes in handy here.
Q.7 What is the best approach of yours towards leadership
Ans: Honestly, there is no single best approach. It’s always “situational-based”
My starting point is that I listen to everyone involved in the project. Next, I try to understand where each person is coming from. As I have moved up in my organization, my success comes from listening and helping the people I work with. I also start from a place of trust. The people in this industry tend to overdramatize problems or get overly sensitive to disagreements. Our primary goal is to assist the client. Let’s remember this, especially when we have disagreements about processes or methods. If you know what you’re doing, you need to trust your teammates to get their work done and trust their ideas.
Q.8 Hoping you are aware of the difference between listening and hearing: Listening is sometimes underappreciated as a skill. Let’s say you’re in a meeting with two other people: X is listening well to you, and Y is not. What are some of the differences that you observe in their behavior?
Ans: You may have many different answers for this: One of these: My style is usually to defuse a situation with a joke or with humor. If someone is not listening to me, I’ll probably call attention to it in a joking way. If the lack of listening continues, I will ask about it directly: if you have somewhere else to be, please head out, and we’ll catch up with you later. Thus, my assumption is always that a person’s behavior is not a personal insult to me.
Moreover, they probably have eight other concerns going through their mind. By taking that approach, people don’t feel attacked. Empathy is a tremendously important part of effective listening and successful project management.
It’s unlikely that X would walk into the meeting thinking, “I’m going to show ‘A’ how much I disagree with her. I’m just not going to listen to her today.” X probably has a million other concerns on her plate right now. I’ll make a bid to get her to pay attention. But if that doesn’t work out, I’ll encourage her to step out of the meeting so she can attend to her other concerns.
Q.9 How do you handle the conflict between two or more stakeholders
Ans: Having disagreements or conflicts between stakeholders is very common in project management. There are 5 important ways to handle a conflict: avoiding, smoothing, forcing, collaborating, and compromising.
It depends on the situation, on what is the best way to avoid such circumstances. For example, if a team member is sick but his work is major, a manager who is focused on deadlines may force him to continue working from home to avoid the delays. On the other hand, a manager who has values and emotional intelligence will understand the situation and will allow the person to rest and will find a temporary replacement for the work.
Q.10 What’s your approach to starting a new project in the first few days
Ans: As a PMP Certified, my way of starting a new project starts with understanding the objectives of the project, stakeholders, and what outcomes I will receive. In the first few days, I will focus on using the key project management knowledge areas like scope, risk, and timeline management to set up a strong base. I also create roles, responsibilities, and communication channels early in the project. This makes sure that the project runs smoothly and follows the project life cycle from start to finish in a proper manner.
Q.11 An interviewer asks, “Do you have any questions?” And then wait a few seconds for a response and keep moving. OR at the end of the interview, question: Do you have any questions for us?
Ans: This is another opportunity for you to clarify your thoughts and queries. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions. Upon asking this question at the end of the interview, feel free and ask about the organization, its management structure, its products and services, the department, and the business in which you are getting hired.
Q.12 How does prior experience working at organizations have an impact on project manager success in your context
Ans: Prior experience is critical. Prior experience is especially important in certain areas, such as photo and video production. The project manager may not personally know how to do each step of the production process, but they will know the steps of the process and the teams you need to interface with to get things done.
Q.13 How did you manage the projects where the teams were geographically spread and not collocated?
Ans:
- Schedule daily stand-ups
- Over-communicate
- Took advantage of technology to connect
- Made the groups of teams using corporate social media applications
- Established rules of engagement and encouraged the teams to set up their own norms
- Managing their expectations in terms of expected performance and outcomes
- Focussed on outcomes and not activities
- Ensured that the team has always been provided with the resources required
- Helped remove the obstacles, impediments, and blockers
- Encouraged remote social interactions, especially every Friday, 5-6 pm social event where participation is mandatory, and everyone has to be on video.
Q.14 Explain one situation where you had tough, demanding stakeholders and their expectations to manage
Ans: Facing a critical data center outage at 12:24 am, I responded swiftly, involving my team, but the issue persisted. After escalating within the organization, including reaching out to my manager and cross-functional leaders, the problem extended beyond our control. With customer escalations escalating, constant communication through a live conference bridge helped manage tension. The CEO intervened, and with support from a colleague in Sydney, we resolved the issue after 6 hours. Despite potential penalties, our strong relationship and past performance saved us, maintaining a positive rapport with the customer.
Q.15 What are your futuristic goals for the next 3-5 years? Where do you want to be
Ans: So in the next 3 to 5 years, my focus would be more on strategic and leadership roles in project management. I want to gain more knowledge in handling tough, multi-domain projects as a PMP-certified professional. I aim to put my share into the organizational growth, alongside guiding the upcoming project managers to build strong and better-performing teams.
Q.16 Let’s assume that there are 5 FTEs (Company’s own Full-time employees) and 10 contractors (External) on the project, and all report to their vertical manager, and you are an independent contributor on the project. How will you lead this team that doesn’t report to you directly?
Ans: This relates to the Matrix organization structure, whereby one team member can have two bosses ( One PM and another functional/vertical manager). The matrix is a complex organizational form and will not automatically work. The number of things that can go wrong is endless, but the most usual reason for the failure of the matrix results from either foot-dragging or downright sabotage on the part of functional management, and even by lower-level supervision.
I would need to ensure that the matrix will work by thoroughly selling the concept to top management and to all involved functional management. If everyone involved in the matrix is “a believer,” and every effort is expended to make it work, the matrix will work and will result in outstanding project accomplishment. It only takes one uncooperative disciplinary manager dragging his feet to make the whole project fail. However, active, enthusiastic, and aggressive support by top management will counteract even the most recalcitrant functional manager.
I would also ensure that we have a clear R&R (Roles and Responsibilities) defined as part of the RACI Matrix, and also build a great relationship with the team members and their respective functional managers to help my project further.
Q.17 Let’s assume you have to lead a team of 8 experienced SMEs, and out of them, 3 are more experienced than you are! How will you build trust and lead this team towards a successful outcome?
Ans: Here are my few practical tips
- Take all informal communication approaches; formal communication will not work here.
- Have a great deal of Emotional Quotient towards your colleagues
- Trust, respect, and honor their technical expertise
- Make them feel important in front of others
- Nothing works like frequent appreciation
- Make them mentors/guides to the relevant teams/sub-teams
- Provide them with the most challenging tasks; generally, they love to solve these
- Take their feedback and opinions about the other team colleagues and yourself.
- Spend time with them over breakfast/lunch in the office
- Occasionally, call them up without any agenda in the evening and have a freewheeling chat.
Q.18 What’s the approach in creating a schedule, cost, and resource estimation
Ans:
- It’s important to state realistic expectations upfront. When we did projects for clients, my view was to save money and time. Therefore, scope became the variable factor. We would always hit the budget and schedule because we had flexibility regarding scope.
- I would ask clients, “What do you want to do?” On hearing their request, I would often respond with, “I don’t think we can do all of that in the time we have. However, I think we can do the following…”
- Slowly, I learnt that if you want more scope, we can increase the time and money. We kept money and time fixed. Without that, there’s no end. Without an end, it’s difficult to make decisions. Of course, the project could end when you run out of money.
- However, that’s a problem because the project is in limbo and the client is probably unhappy with the “result.” My feeling is that you should always have something that is finished. If we get to the end and we don’t deliver what we promised, that’s on us as the project manager.
- So, follow the change control process, analyze the added scope, and re-baseline the schedule and cost estimates for accurate progress tracking.
Q.19 Assume a situation whereby the client project that you are working on has a cost overrun and a schedule underrun. How will you control the cost of the resources used in the project activities are all FTE (full-time employees with fixed salaries)
Ans: Earned Value Management (EVM) is useful to know the cost as well as the schedule performance together. For example, EVM will show that it is ahead of schedule, but it is over budget. By checking the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) and Cost Performance Index (CPI), we can see the overall health of the project.
If SPI × CPI is around 1, it means things are balanced. In such cases, we can discuss with the sponsor whether to slow down the schedule to reduce costs or finish early and save money later.
That’s how EVM helps in making smart decisions and controlling both time and cost effectively.
Q.20 Have you done your own SWOT analysis? If so, please let us know your strengths and improvement areas
Ans: Yes, I’ve done my own SWOT analysis.
Strengths: I’m organized, detail-oriented, and good at stakeholder communication. Earning PMP certification, I plan and execute projects systematically using standard project management practices.
Areas of improvement: I’m working on improving my delegation skills and learning to balance between being hands-on and empowering my team more. I also aim to enhance my data analytics and reporting skills to make project decisions even more data-driven.
Conclusion
Offering valuable insights into the top 20 project manager interview questions and answers, this blog equips you with the confidence to excel in your interview. As you navigate this process, highlight not just your technical expertise but also your strategic thinking and leadership capabilities. I wish you the best of luck in your project manager interview. May it pave the way for a prosperous and fulfilling journey in project management!
FAQS:
1. What is a project report?
A project report is a formal document that describes a project’s goals and objectives, the progress, and the results. The report is used to communicate to stakeholders, It is used to communicate to stakeholders, estimate performance, justify resources, and identify risks.
2. How to pass a project manager interview?
To pass the project manager interview questions, show that you can plan, lead, direct, and provide successful projects on time. Share your real examples of solving problems, skills, and meeting deadlines. Know basic concepts and tools of projects, and communicate well and confidently with your interviewer.
3. What are the project manager interview questions and answers?
Here are some project manager interview questions:
- Tell me about yourself and project management experience
- How do you plan to start a new project?
- How do you manage risk?
- How do you handle conflicts between your team?
- What project management tools have you used?
