A project manager plays a critical role in achieving the goals and success criteria within a stipulated time period for a company. Initializing, planning, executing, controlling and closing a team’s work are the responsibilities of a project manager in any organization. A professional willing to pursue his or her career as a project manager must have outstanding skills to plan, process, communicate and make decisions. Since project management certified professional can contribute to 30% increase in the success rate and development of an organization, it is highly demanded across various industries such as construction, manufacturing, engineering, architecture, and real estate development. If you are a project management professional seeking career advancement, here are 10 interview question and answers you cannot afford to miss out before applying for a job:
Question: What is an important skill a project manager must have?
Answer: A skillful project manager must possess more than one skill to be successful. The various skills that are a must for a project manager include leadership skills, communication skills, and time management skills. You must be able to explain the importance of each of these skills to prove your worth for the post.
Question: How do you begin with a new project?
Answer: The interviewer’s purpose for asking this question is to test the clarity of your thoughts. You must begin a project by focusing on its successful completion. A good project manager must begin with the project by understanding what it is about and what it demands. It is important to dive deeper into the requirements of a project to achieve the goals it demands.
Question: Describe the projects you have handled recently.
Answer: This question is completely based on every project manager’s individual experiences. Being a professional, you would have come across various projects. You can list a few of your projects keeping in mind the criteria such as how recent it was, was it successful, how relevant is it to the job you are applying for. The interviewer wants to check your approach towards work with this question. Choose instances carefully so that they can put an impact on the interview. Be concise and give relevant details.
Question: Describe the steps you follow from start to completion of a project.
Answer: A successful project comprises the following steps, chronologically:
Initiating: A project must be started by understanding its nature and scope. Before moving ahead, a project manager must have knowledge of the business environment and the necessary controls that are required for the project.
Planning: The next step involved tor the completion of the project while fulfilling the limitations is to plan the time, cost and resources estimated and to manage risks during its execution. This is a crucial step, as the successful accomplishing of goals heavily depends on it.
Executing: The terms of the plan need to be executed effectively. This involves allocation, co-ordination and management of employees and other resources.
Project Documentation: Documenting everything related to the project is an important step that is sometimes missed out. It helps in maintaining the budget, scope, effectiveness and pace at which the planning is being followed.
Monitoring and Controlling: This step helps in measuring the ongoing activities, monitoring the project variables, identifying corrective actions and addressing issues and risks.
Closing: A project can be closed by settling the contracts involved or finalizing all the activities that were involved in the requirement of the project.
Question: How do you ensure your team stays on track to meet project deadlines?
Answer: You can help the team to follow the planning by:
Clearly communicating the expectations before starting to work on the task
Taking regular updates on the progress
Making yourself approachable for the team in case of any lags
Giving feedback and appreciating the team on completion of the project to motivate them further.
Question: What do you mean by Pareto analysis?
Answer: Pareto analysis is based on the rule that states that 20% of actions cause 80% results. The statistical analysis helps project managers to prioritize work. To strengthen your answer, you can use some examples where you have used Pareto analysis in your previous projects.
Question: What will you do if a customer is unsatisfied with the result of a product and does not accept it?
Answer: Business is brought to the company by customers and thus it becomes a core priority for any organization to keep its customers happy and satisfied. The interviewer through this question wants to understand the importance of customers for you. Try to explain to you communicate with the customer while performing each of the steps from starting until the closing of a project to ensure your team and customer are on the same page. Try to understand what the issues are or factors due to which the customer is not satisfied with the product and tell them how you can make the changes they expect in services or products. In case changes cannot be made, try to explain to the customer that the product meets the expectations as demanded before starting the project.
Question: How will you motivate your team members?
Answer: For team members to work effectively, a project manager must keep their morale high. You need to tell the interviewer how you will work collaboratively with the team. Your team members must be free to share their advice, ideas and suggestions for you or about the project. You need to make a collective effort by contributing instead of imposing your decisions.
Question: How will you convey bad news to your team members?
Answer: The answer to this question again varies from person to person. While conveying bad news, you need to be considerate and upfront to everyone at the same time. You must have all the facts before conveying the news and think about how it will impact the entire team.
Question: How do you set and track goals for your team?
Answer: the Setting goal is an important part of project management. This helps in motivating the team members and keeping projects on track. Give out some examples from your experience telling how you have set and tracked goals for your team. For example, you would have set a project completion goal by assigning different dates to members responsible for various parts of the project. You may have checked with your team regularly and tried to solve obstacles in meeting the deadlines.
Program management helps you to enhance your skills and knowledge by getting a certification from the Project Management Institute (PMI). No organization can survive without a project manager in the present world of tough competition between companies. The license can only be obtained after clearing the Project management professional (PMP) certification examination.
Multisoft Virtual Academy is an online training platform that offers training to working professionals and corporate companies for Project Management courses in partnership with the Project Management Institute (PMI). The learner can choose to pursue the course under the guidance of certified and highly experienced trainers or at their own pace. Click here to read more about various Project Management courses. Multisoft Virtual Academy has completed training millions of students for 600+ technical and non-technical courses conducted at www.multisoftvirtualacademy.com.
Start Date | End Date | No. of Hrs | Time (IST) | Day | |
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14 Dec 2024 | 18 Jan 2025 | 32 | 06:00 PM - 10:00 AM | Sat, Sun | |
15 Dec 2024 | 06 Jan 2025 | 32 | 06:00 PM - 10:00 AM | Sat, Sun | |
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