Project Interview Questions

Project Interview Questions

1. Project skills interview questions

• Tell us about a successful project in which you participated and how you contributed to the success of that project.

• You are given the assignment of project manager and the team members have already been identified. To increase the effectiveness of your project team, what steps will you take?

• Do you understand milestones, interdependencies? Resource allocation?

• Do you know what Project Software the new company uses and is there training for it?

• What is EVM? how will you use it in managing projects?

• What is a project? and what is program?

• What are project selection methods?

• When you are assigned a project, what steps do you take to complete the project?

• As you begin your assignment as a project manager, you quickly realize that the corporate sponsor for the project no longer supports the project. What will you do?

• Your three month project is about to exceed the projected budget after the first month. What steps will you take to address the potential cost overrun?

• Companies have historically looked at technical skills, but more and more business managers are realizing that not have “people” skills tend to cripple projects.

• How many projects you handled in the past? Deadlines met? On time/ within budget? Obstacles you had to overcome?

• Which document will you refer for future decisions?

• How will you define scope?

• Do you inspect or plan for quality ?

• What is the output of scope definition process?

• What is quality management?

• What did you like about the project and dislike about the project?

• What did you learn from the project?

• What are two common but major obstacles for a project like this? What would you do in the face of these obstacles to keep your team on schedule?

• What is project charter? What are the elements in a project charter?

• What experience have you had in project management?

• Name five signs that indicate your project may fail.

• Tell us about a project in which you participated and your role in that project.

• Describe what you did in a difficult project environment to get the job done on time and on budget.

• What actions are required for successful executive sponsorship of a project?

• How did you get your last project?

• What were your specific responsibilities?

• In this field (the field you are interviewing for), what are three critically important things you must do well as a project manager in order for the project to succeed?

• What metrics would you expect to use to determine the on-going success of your project?

• What distinguishes a project from routine operations?

• What are the three constraints on a project?

• What are the five control components of a project?

• What qualifications are required to be an effective project manager?

• Your project is beginning to exceed budget and to fall behind schedule due to almost daily user change orders and increasing conflicts in user requirements. How will you address the user issues?

• You’ve encountered a delay on an early phase of your project. What actions can you take to counter the delay? Which actions will have the most effect on the result?

• What are the necessary steps to successful project management?

• How do you plan for a project?

• What is important to consider when planning a (your type of project)?

• What are things that you have found to be low priority when planning for (your type of project)?
• You have been assigned as the project manager for a team comprised of new employees just out of college and “entry-level” consulting staff. What steps can you take to insure that the project is completed against a very tight time deadline?

• What is a “project milestone”?

• What is “project float”?

• What methods have you used for estimation?

• How would you start a project?

• If you were to deliver a project to a customer, and timely delivery depended upon a sub-supplier, how would you manage the supplier? What contractual agreements would you put in place?

• Which tool would you use to define, manage and control projects?

• What is risk management and how will you plan risk response?

• What are outputs of project closure?

• What are the methods used for project estimation?

2. Leadership interview questions

• Tell me how you would react to a situation where there was more than one way to accomplish the same task, and there were very strong feelings by others on each position.

• Consider that you are in a diverse environment, out of your comfort zone. How would you rate your situational leadership style?

• Give me an example of your leadership involvement where teamwork played an important role.

• How do you handle non-productive team members?

• How do you motivate team members who are burned out, or bored?

• How do you handle team members who come to you with their personal problems?

• What are your career goals? How do you see this job affecting your goals?

• Explain how you operate interdepartmentally.

3. Judgment interview questions

• What would you do if you found out that a contractor was in a conflict of interest situation?

• If I were to contact your former employee, what would he say about your decision-making abilities?

• Give me an example of a win-win situation you have negotiated.
• Tell me about your verbal and written communication ability. How well do you represent yourself to others? What makes you think so?

• Give me an example of a stressful situation you have been in. How well did you handle it? If you had to do it over again, would you do it differently? How do you deal with stress, pressure, and unreasonable demands?

• Tell me about a tough decision you had to make?

4. Experience interview questions

• Describe what you did at your work place yesterday.

• How would you solve the following technical problem? (Describe a typical scenario that could occur in the new position.)

• What strengths did you bring to your last position?

• Describe how those contributions impacted results?

5. Competency interview questions

• Tell me about special projects or training you have had that would be relevant to this job.

• What are some things that you would not like your job to include?

• What are your current work plans? Why are you thinking about leaving your present job?

• Describe an ideal job for you.

• Why are you interested in this position?

• Describe what you think it would be like to do this job every day.

• What do you believe qualifies you for this position?

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