3 Types of Project Manager Interviews

All right, so now you might be saying, okay, Helena, even if I do get that interview, how am I going to get an offer when there are so many other quote unquote more qualified candidates out there, right? Who has ever had that? Like, oh, you're not qualified enough. You know, who has ever felt that before? Type yes in the chat box if that has ever happened to you before, right? So here's something else I want you to know though. Now, Have you ever gone into an interview and fumbled on your words or felt super nervous? You couldn't sleep the night before and you're just tossing and turning in bed or left the interview super deflated, right? So here's what you need to do so that you no longer have to worry about those things again. And we're going to deep dive now into the interview psychology and ways that you may not have thought of before. So the first thing you need to keep in mind is that there's usually 3 to 5 rounds of interview to get hired as a project manager. And yes, it is possible that you walk in, half an hour interview with a recruiter, walk out with a job letter. That's totally possible, but it is rare that that happens. And this is because the company is taking on a lot of risk to have you in the company. They have to pay you, and then they have to train you as well to get you on board. They have to make a lot of upfront investment in you when they take you on board. So before they're ready to make that investment, they really want to make sure that it's a mutually good fit. Like, are you really— they want to know, like, are you really passionate about this role? And do you have the skills required in order to get this done? So it's kind of like dating. Like, you don't just go out on a date with a girl or the guy, and then on the first date, you know, you're like, Let's get married, right? Although that can happen, it's just very, very, very rare.

And I would also add too that guys, listen, if you understand that their goal is an ROI on their investment, doesn't it make sense that you would have to highlight your past achievements in ways that speak to their desired end result? What kind of revenue increases were there? What percentages of efficiencies were corrected? What percentage of, I mean, just think of numbers like that. Numbers make our resumes look way better. And if we go in there talking the end result to them, they're already in their head going, man, like, this would be a good investment, right, into this person so that we can get them worked up and trained up.

Right, right, right. I mean, if you're going into any private company, I can tell you they only care about 2 things. That's it, just 2 things. One, how do I make more money? Or 2, how do I decrease cost. I know that kind of sounds very cold, but it's the reality, right?

Mm-hmm.

And if you can prove to that CEO or to that hiring manager how you can help them do one of those things and better than anyone else, you're basically guaranteed to have a job, right? Like you might be saying, you want to be able to speak in the language that they're speaking in. What they care about is how can you help me make more money or save me cost, one of those two things. But what a lot of candidates are thinking is like, oh, you know, I need more degrees. I need like 15 years of experience. I should have gone to like an Ivy League school kind of thing, right? So you're thinking about like, you know, those checkmarks, whereas the hiring manager is thinking about, okay, how is this person going to help me accomplish the business objectives that I'm trying to meet? So that's kind of like the disconnect between the candidate mindset and the interviewer mindset. So if you can speak in the language of the interviewer, you can increase your chances of getting the job. Does that make sense? Let me know in the comments below if that makes sense, okay? So, all right, so yeah, even though there's 3 to 5 rounds of interviews to get hired, don't let that scare you, right? Don't let that scare you, because we're gonna let, right now, deep dive into what to expect for these different 3 to 5 rounds of interviews that you may see. And every company's a little bit different, everyone kind of has their own processes, so some might be 3 rounds, some might be even 7 rounds, but generally it's between 3 to 5 rounds get hired as a PM. This makes sense because the company is investing like $100,000 to have you there, so they definitely want to make sure they have the right person in the right role to get the work done. In general, there's 3 different types of interviews that you will see: behavioral interviews, technical interviews, and home assignments. You can have multiple rounds of these different types of interviews as well, but all interviews can kind of be categorized into these 3 different categories: behavioral, technical, and home assignments, right? So now let's talk about what to expect in each of these different types of interviews.

Remember yesterday, guys, when I got really excited about the stuff that we were going to talk about? This is where you need to start paying attention. I know we talked about the resume differences, the bad, the good, how to really put out a bullet versus regular random general information to really making it quantifiable. stuff that you can share with a potential employer. But here, this is really cool stuff in the interview because I think a resume, okay, some of you guys can be like, okay, I can definitely change my resume to be more quantifiable, measurable, uh, with results like that so that it speaks to a desired end result of the employer.

Mm-hmm.

But then here's when it, when you're really tested, right? When you have to actually present yourself in an interview. Nowadays, a lot of these interviews may even take place online. I truly believe that that's where we're going so that we can see and speak with people online. Because guess what? If we're going to have to communicate through technology, technology like this, all of a sudden it's going to become more important to understand that you and I can communicate over technology like this. So this is really good. Please focus here because this is really important, I think.

Yeah, so those 3 types of interviews that I just mentioned— the behavioral, the technical, and the home assignments— could be conducted over the phone, in person, or in a group setting. But now with COVID probably most of them are done online. or over the phone, right?

Yeah.

So the first type you might see is the behavioral interview. This is usually the first round of interview that you will get, and this is usually with the recruiter and not with the hiring manager right now. So it's just the HR person within the company or the recruiter that the company has employed to help them find a great candidate for them, right? So the behavioral interviews are conducted just to see if you are a good cultural fit for the company. The recruiter or the person in HR really don't know the specifics of project management to be able to ask really detailed technical questions. So this is just to see if they'd like you, essentially. In layman's terms, they're just trying to see if they like you, right? And if they'd like to work with you. So some examples of questions that you may get include, tell me about yourself. What's your biggest weakness? Why do you want to work for us? And then in technical interviews, this is where they want to test you on your actual project management skills. So they will give you a lot of situations just to see how you will react to them. And because they weren't there when you were actually managing your projects in the past, so they're asking these scenario-based questions to see, to ask you to describe what you have done in your past and to see if you would be a great fit. this position, if you actually have the technical skills required to manage remote teams. Some examples of questions that you may get include like, tell me about a time when you managed a failed project. What was your biggest lesson learned from that? Or how do you manage stakeholders with conflicting requirements? Or how do you deal with an underperforming team member? So usually they give you a project scenario, project not going well. As we all know, projects We wish it was just smooth sailing from A to B, but there's a lot of hiccups in between. So they're going to give you scenarios of those hiccups and ask you how do you deal with them. So those are the technical interviews, and they're usually with the project sponsor or the hiring manager within the company. And then lastly is the home assignments. And for those people who were here for day 2, you would have heard about home assignments when we were describing The other side of the table when we're talking about hiring for your project team. Now, home— and then this is about you getting hired, so it goes both ways. So a lot of companies, especially remote companies, are giving these home assignments before they hire you. So essentially they give you a short assignment that you have to complete within 24 to 72 hours, and these are just basically designed to show them if you have the project management knowledge needed in order to do a great job on the job. Some examples of home assignments is they may give you a scenario, they may give you a couple points, and they will ask you to calculate the critical path. Or maybe they give you a list of activities and they ask you to create a project schedule for them. Or maybe they give you some assumptions and you had to make a make-or-buy decision for the project. A lot of times what you have to keep in mind is that these home assignments are pretty vague, and they keep it vague for a reason because they want to see how you would respond in real-life situations when there is a lot of ambiguity going on. So be prepared that towards the end of your interview process, you will be given this home assignment, particularly for remote positions. A lot of these remote companies are test-driving the project managers before they give you the actual job. These home assignments could be all over the place. There's tons of topics that they could cover, and it's usually pretty short. It's usually unpaid, and you have between 1 day to 3 days to complete it. Here are some tips for answering interview questions. The thing is that the toughest interview questions always seem like they're asking for one thing, but they're actually asking for another thing. So what you need to do is you actually need to find the questions behind the question. So when you have an open-ended question, you have to ask yourself, why are they really asking me this? And once you figure out what they're trying to ask you, then try to respond in plain English as much as possible and avoid jargons. So let me give you an example. Now, every guy in this room knows when a girl asks them, do I look fat in this dress? They're not actually asking you if you look fat or not. What they're really asking you is, do you still love me? Can I still feel secure in this room?

What they're really asking you is, how lovely do I really look still? Like, you have to start talking about how lovely they still look, right?

I agree there. So the same thing is going for interviews here, right? Sometimes an interview is asking for one thing, but they're really asking for another.

If you don't mind me sharing an example, one that I really like and I use a lot when we're hiring is, tell us about a scenario where you had some sort of disruption, something going not so well between you and your managing supervisor or superior, and let us know how you handled that. Right now, it's not just about like, oh, you know, when you, By the way, if you sit and you think about something first before you speak, that speaks volumes, right? So just think, say, let me think about that for a moment. And then start thinking about scenarios. Start thinking, why did they ask that? So they want to see how you reacted in a scenario, because if that's going to play out in our, in our space here at this location, at this company, we want to know how you would handle something, right? And so even if you went crazy, but you've learned from your mistake based on that, on that in that scenario, whatever, whatever it is that you think of, that's what they're really wanting to figure out. How do you react? Are you quick to impulsive to get angry? Are you quick to say something?

Yeah.

Are you slow to react? Right. How quick are you? Are you methodical in your way of approaching a problem or do you dismiss it completely for being irrelevant or unworthy of your time and effort and sweat, blood, and tears? These things they're really interested in, right? And so you want to sit there for a minute and think about This when you answer that.

Right, and just to add on to that, to give you a concrete interview example here, let's say the interviewer asks you, why do you want to work here? What they're really trying to ask you is, are you really here for the right reasons, and are you really here because you want to make this project a success, or are you just here because you want a paycheck?

Oh my God, that's such a good one too, Helena, because the idea is that you value something, they value the position for a reason, but it's not what you might think immediately in your head. It's not, why do you want to work here? The real question is, what do you value about this opportunity? Why is this opportunity so important to you that you want to take it on? It's not ever— the answer to that question, by the way, should never be because I want to make more money. Okay. Or because I want to make— or because it pays well.

Right.

Never say that because immediately you are pegged as someone who's going to look at the clock immediately as soon as they're out of the door, right? In a remote project manager world, you no longer can do that. So it's all about your— how you are passionate about progress, about bringing a project to fruition, seeing that what they're hiring you for. It's like, okay, well, if you want to know why I want to work here, I'd like to know first more a lot about what projects you plan to give me because I take pride in my, my work, in the steps that I take to complete sprints or the steps that I take to complete these projects. But if I don't know the project scopes, if I don't know what those projects, what kind of projects are those, right? If you're going to go to an IT industry or software development company, then obviously that's, that's, that's what you're going to be doing. You're going to be managing software development.

Mm-hmm.

And in that case, you're going to speak to that desired end result. So how would, Why do you want to work here? Oh my God, the opportunity to develop teams, put together teams together to work harmoniously, to develop softwares that you guys are putting out. And I already know about some of them. This was great. That was great. You see how that's different than just going something like, well, because I really enjoy working with teams and because I'd like to put them together to solve problems.

No.

No, like that's a given, guys. Start talking about them. Let them— it's almost like if you go on a date, Like we were talking about earlier, right? You almost want to go fully prepared. You just don't want to go in there and say, hey, can I take you home? I mean, that's going to get you in trouble, right? I don't know where we're coming up with these dating analogies.

Well, interviewing is a lot like dating, so it makes sense. So during the interview, try to make it as much of a conversation as you can as well, because a lot of times, like I used to be a consultant and Some of you might have heard, it's called the airport test, right? So if you were stuck with this person at the airport for 3 hours and your flight was delayed, will I enjoy my time with this person, or would I be trying to get away from him or her, right? And during the interview, the interviewer is silently asking himself or herself the same question as well. Do I enjoy working with this person? And if you're just making it like a monologue, like they ask you a question and you respond to that question, then They're not like— you're not bonding as much, right? So during the interview, try to make it as much of a conversation as possible. And getting the job offer is about making people feel good when they are around you. So here's some— so as you are having this discussion with the interviewer, you have to see at what points, what problems are they having in their project and how can you Help them solve it. So here are some questions that you can ask, right? You know, what's your long-term vision for this team or this department? What makes this vision so important to the organization? What are some of the biggest challenges preventing you from achieving that vision? And one of the first things I could do when I join the team, you know, when the team is ready, is try insert your solutions to solve this problem. Would that sound like a reasonable plan? to you, right? So it shows that you have a genuine interest in this company, that you're not just there to be like, okay, I'm just here to answer questions. You're thinking about the bigger picture of the organization, how you can contribute to it, how you can help them solve their organizational goals. And you're thinking, as you're asking these questions, you're understanding that you're listening to them, and then you're coming up with solutions to help them solve the problem. Because people aren't hiring for the sake of hiring. They're hiring because they have some sort of pain point, some sort of thing within their organization that's not going well, and your job when you're going in there is to figure out what that pain point is and solve it for them. In that way, you almost have to think of yourself like a doctor. A doctor seeing a patient, they're not just going to go, okay, take some Advil. The doctor is going to ask them, okay, what are your symptoms? I'm sneezing, I'm coughing, and whatever, and the doctor is going to listen to their chest and then give them the proper medication. And it's sort of the same thing here. You want to go in like this company put out that job posting for a reason. They have some sort of pain point, and your job is to find out what that pain point is and help them solve it. So as much as possible, try to make the conversation a dialogue, trying to figure out what they need and then how you can help them solve it as well. Okay. All right. And then, yeah.

Sorry, I was going to say that one of the things that I think is important to understand, guys, is that when you're interviewing someone— and again, maybe we're just hitting, we're just kind of going over, I want to drive this deeply into the conversation here that we are having, Helena— is that you really want to make sure that when you go there, they don't care about you. You are just another person Who may take a position. They care about solving the problem your position solves for them. I don't want this headache. Someone in this organization has way too much work right now, and they need you to take work off their shoulders. So remember that when someone's asking you, why do you think you're a good fit for this company? I am diligent at taking on projects, solving problems. I want to get in there. I want to get my hands dirty. I come with the Like, especially if you, if you're not PMP certified, but if you have the experience, you can use that to your advantage because you can say, I did this for this company and resulted in that. I did this for this company, managed this, put this team together, was able to accomplish these percentages. See how that's different? Do you see now how that's different than just going in and for the sake of answering questions, you just answer their questions?

Yeah.

This is one thing that I like to do too. Sometimes we have an application process process where we ask questions and you're— we let them answer in paragraphs or sentences, however they want to answer. We ask them some of these interview questions and they answer all of them. Guess which ones we're more likely to pay attention to? The ones that actually used more characters to answer those questions because they're going deeper, they're more methodical, they're thinking more about what they're going to say. If they just say like, you know, oh, I would just use the agile methodologies to, uh, you know, manage this project, like that is not going to be enough. It's someone who really thoroughly thinks more critically about, well, for that particular project, if this is what you're trying to solve, this is how I would start. This is what the, you know, what it would look like to put a team together. These are the tools we use, and this is how we would try to come out with the outcome. Do you see how that's different when you're pinpointing a specific problem?

Right.

Remember that you're there to take something off their shoulders because you are coming in as a hero, as a savior to help them. Now remember this, When they feel like you can— they need you more than you need them, you've got a job. But when they— when that relationship starts switching, when they feel like you need them more than they need you, you're probably needing to start to look for another job. So remember that you're there to solve a problem. You're there to take problems off their shoulders. That's what you're there for. And if you can speak to that desired end result in your interview, guess what? You're looking much prettier than everyone else who's come by.

Yeah, yeah. And when you can think in this way, make this shift in your thinking from just, I'm there to answer questions, rather than, I'm there to diagnose the problem that this company is having and helping them solve that problem, what the manager is going to think is, wow, this girl and guy gets it. And I know it's something that Tony said it might be a little harsh a bit earlier, which is that, you know, they don't care about you. But unfortunately, that's kind of the reality. It's just that, you know, they care about themselves and they care about what value do you bring to that company, right? So because they don't know you, they don't know who you are, so you haven't really, you know, earned their trust at this point yet. And then that's why you had to go in and really show them what you can bring to the table. And here's something else. And here's something else that you may not have realized as well, and that's that hiring managers are extremely busy. Okay, you may have realized that, but I'm getting to a point here. So hiring you is just another thing on their to-do list that they're trying to cross off.

Yep.

Okay, so they actually want you to succeed so then they can go back to doing their job and they don't have to interview more candidates, which could be painful for them as well because it takes a really long time. Every single candidate They come in, make sure you figure out the time that works for both of you and have the right Zoom meeting up or be in the office at the right time and meet with this candidate for an hour. And then that's an hour gone from your day. So you can maybe interview 4 or 5 people max within a day, and then that takes you an entire day away from actually doing the work of the project. And so they actually want you to succeed so that they don't have to keep interviewing for more candidates. And so that's a secret I want you to know, because I know so many of you walk into these interviews completely stressed and frustrated and extremely nervous. And when I just graduated from college, I definitely had this as well. I was interviewing for a consulting firm, and the entire night before, I just could not sleep because I was just so nervous. Looking back, I just felt like there was no need to do that because the person on the other side of the table, the interviewer, actually wants you to have the job. If they didn't want you to have the job, they wouldn't have even interviewed you to begin with. If they're interviewing you, there's something about your resume, about your skill set that really piqued their interest, right?

Mm-hmm.

So here's one more bonus point. End every interview with this question: What do you love most about working for Company X?

Right?

And the reason you want to work for this question is because it's impossible to not feel good about answering this question, and they will associate that good feeling with you because our brains work by association. So when we see something we like and then you were right there, then I'm going to associate those good feelings with you. And so when they're in a good state leaving that interview, they're going to associate that good state with you. And this is just how psychology and our brain works and remembers people as well, right? So that's a great question to end every single one of your interviews with when the interviewer asks you, do you have any more questions for me? And you can just say, Yeah, actually I do. What do you love most about working for, I don't know, Company X, ABC, or whatever, right? And then they're gonna say, oh, you know, I love that, you know, the people and whatever they say. And say, wow, that's great, right? So, okay, all right. So now let me ask you, have we solved— Tony?

Well, actually, so yeah, before, before here, I wanted to go right back to the previous slide if you don't mind.

Sorry. That's fine.

This is what I got super excited about. Like, this— there is a psychological aspect to this question, you guys. What do you love most about work? So as you're walking out, or as you're saying, well, thank you, this was a great interview, it was good to have you here, uh, you can say, well, if you don't mind, I'd like to just ask you guys, it's like, you know, no pressure, I'm just curious, what do you guys love about— if it's multiple people, if it's just one person, you can do the same thing. What do you love most about working for Xerox? What do you like most about working for IBM? What do you like most about working for the company that you're applying for? And just to get some insider, you know, some insider view of how things are within the company, I'd like to know that. These, like, again, the association of looking for positive things that they love about the company as it relates to their world, what they're doing, and doing it at the time of your interview. Leaves that positive vibe. It cannot be understated, right? The importance of a question like this. You've got to let them associate your interview to something good in their head that they immediately go to without even thinking twice about it. Okay, it is important to ask something like that because you're leaving them with those positive vibes. Those endorphins come up because they love working with a team, or the project that they're working on right now is just. by far one of the greatest things and accomplishments they've ever worked on. And you say, wow, that is amazing. I can't believe you get to do this every day.

All right.

I hope you enjoyed this masterclass on resumes, CVs, and interviews for project managers. Now, the next thing you want to do is to sign up for a free strategy call with me or my team. And on this strategy call, what we can help you do is actually take a look at your specific resume, give you some tailored advice based on your current situation, and help you get your career to that next level. Whether you're just starting out in project management or you've been in the industry for 10, 20 years, whether you're in healthcare or IT or construction or finance, I think we can offer some advice no matter what your situation may be. We can take a look at your resume and CV We can help you with the interview process. We can introduce you to recruiters, and we can also help you with the PMP journey as well. So really anything that you may need throughout your project management journey, we probably have the resources to help you out. So please sign up for a free strategy call below, and I can't wait to meet you there. Bye for now.