In this video, learn how to answer project management interview questions so that you
can confidently nail that interview. And if you need help building the right skill sets for your
project management role, I have some amazing free training for you, Five Secrets On How to Go From
Zero to Hero In Project Management. Now, if you go to the link underneath this YouTube video,
you can go and grab it from there. Hi, if you're new here, welcome. Make sure
you subscribe to the best project management and career advice coming to you every Wednesday. Now,
if you're excited as I am about these project manager interview questions, let's get to it.
What are the most important skills of a project manager and why? This question is to have an
understanding if you get the fundamentals of project management, but also if you get what goes
beyond the fundamentals of project management. It's not just about paperwork. So the best way
to answer this question is, for sure, tell them about the framework of project management, just
the high level five stages. So they understand that you get fundamentals of project management,
but more important this is about leadership. This is about how you lead people. So really
ensure that you talk about the importance of people and how it's about people that is
going to ensure the success of everything, and even give some examples of how you lead people
through those five stages of project management. Have you worked in this industry before? Now,
if you have worked in the industry that you're applying for, good for you. Go ahead. Share all
your experiences. If you haven't worked in the industry before, that's okay, don't get hung up on
this particular question. What you need to do is you need to share with them how it doesn't matter
what industry you're in, project management is project management. The fundamentals are the same.
You actually use subject matter experts in order to get the work done anyway. It's your leadership
skills that matter, not necessarily the fact that you've worked in the industry or haven't worked
in the industry. I know for my own personal experience, as a consultant, I work in so many
different industries and it doesn't matter. It's the fundamentals of my project management skills
that sells people all the time. And that's what I need you to focus on for this question.
How do you keep your team motivated? Now with this one, you want to make sure that you're
not giving examples of micro-managing nor do you want to give examples of that you don't do
anything to motivate your team. It really is about people. Project management and successful projects
are all about motivating your team members to go through from start to finish and get
everything accomplished. So start talking about how you do that in all the stages and frameworks
of project management. What do you do first? Do you bring in change management principles?
Do you set up your expectations? How do you set them up for success? How do you empower them?
So any examples you can bring in, that's going to share how do you motivate people
and as well allow for subject matter experts to be subject matter experts,
and have good framework and explain that, you allow subject matter experts to really take the
lead and you give the framework to make sure that everything is done within time, scope, and budget.
What is your leadership style? Please do not say I've never led before. Oh, no. You're a project
manager. You're applying for a project management role. It's all about leading. It's not about
pushing paper. Yes. That's part of the role a bit. You need to do all your documentations and push
them through the system, but it's about leading people. So yes, you do have a role as a leader
and you ought to have had that experience, if you ran projects in the past. Now the key here is, are
you a micromanager leader? Are you a macro manager leader? Hands-on, hands-off. This is what you run.
Explain your style. There is no right or wrong, but if you've done your research on the company,
hopefully you would have an idea as to how their culture is and how they like to lead themselves.
So ensure that you take that into account when you answer this question, but definitely yes,
you have a leadership style. Personally, stick to what you know well, and what's worked well
for you. So it's okay if maybe even if it is a little bit different than the leadership style
of the organization. The key here is you want to let them know that yes, you have led people.
What is your communication style? This is very similar to the last question. Yeah,
you do have a communication style and it's really important that you know that
because project is all about communication. You're communicating to the stakeholders.
And don't forget, stakeholders are everyone who touches the project. So this is a great
opportunity when you talk about communication to share your awesome knowledge on change management,
the awesome things that you've done in the past to really ensure
that people are very much aware of the project, its status, even how when things are going well,
not going well. How do you work that into your project to keep everybody informed? So again,
bring very clear examples of things you've done and tie it into some change management principles.
Describe the most challenging project you have worked on and how you handled it. Now,
if you say all my projects are great, I haven't had a challenge at all, then you're lying because
project management, oh my goodness. I have never had a project myself where I didn't
have a challenge in it. So it's okay to have challenging projects. This is not a bad thing.
If anything, you can even laugh when this question is presented and say, oh, my goodness, yes,
I've had challenges all the time, but here's how I handled them. And you want to show your
structure. You want to show the process you use in order to handle them. Do you have a certain
way of working when it comes to challenges? Did you set up the expectations? How do you course
correct people? So this is where your experience comes into play and you want to share that
with them. And it really is a lovely way to show the reality of all projects have challenges. It's
a question of how well do you handle them and how do you get yourself out of the challenge?
So don't forget to throw that nugget in there too, when you're sharing your stories
of what happened with the challenge, but how do you get out of it? And ultimately,
did you remain on time, scope, and budget? Don't forget to save your seat on my free training,
How To Go From Zero To Hero In Project Management. I'm telling you, it is so worthwhile. It's just
going to add to the things that you already know when you apply for your job. On that note, thank
you so much for watching this video. If you could subscribe to my channel, like this video, share
it with everyone you know, and let me know if you have any other questions that you have been asked
when it comes to project management interviews in the comments below. Until then, see you later.