Things to Ask When Interviewing a Project Manager – 7 Questions to Ask A Candidate
Selecting a project manager who can do the job can be quite stressful. After all, there’s a lot riding on the success or failure of the project. Your company’s future could be dependent on the project.But what do you ask when you don’t know what a project manager does?In this article, I’m going to give you seven things to ask when interviewing a project manager. But before we start I want to clarify two things.First off, you need to define exactly what you are hoping the project manager will do for you. You also need to realistically define what skills you really need. No I’m not being redundant. You see there are two distinct groups of project managers. One is a real project manager and the other is simply a lead technician. This latter is often called a project leader in order to avoid the management label. Don’t get the two mixed up. Asking for the skills of one when you need the skills of the other is a sure way to be disappointed in your search. In a previous article in this series, I described some of the questions you need to ask before the interview is scheduled or the ad even placed in order to clarify exactly which you need.Second, a project manager is a specialist manager. He has focused on creating a team from the ground up, aiming that team at a specific problem and then directing that team to achieve that objective despite the distractions along the way. His or her focus is on the implementation of change and dealing with people under the stress of change. This is different from a resource or operational manager whose focus is on maintaining the status quo. And it requires a different set of management skills.In addition, it also requires a set of specific skills associated with the governance of a project. Finally, it requires the ability to deal with a number of different specialists in their terminology. That involves the ability to gain respect and communicate across specialties. This is different from a project leader who is expected to communicate primarily with a single discipline.Here are seven questions you should always ask a potential candidate.1. What types of project have you worked on? What size in money? What size in team? How long were they? How many stakeholders? There are a number of questions but they’re all really the same one. Do you have ten years of experience or one year repeated ten times? The more types of projects, the more varied the experience, the more likely it is that the individual will know how to react when the inevitable hits the rotary air handler.2. Would you say you’ve specialized in any particular aspect of project management? Even project management has its technicians. In very large projects some people specialize in specific parts of project management. If the answer is any particular part that may mean they are a technician. Which is fine if you’ve got a very large project. But not so fine if you’re looking for someone to run the whole project. Further questions will be needed to clarify.3. Project Management is often described as both an art and a science. What elements of Project Management would you use to illustrate each? The science of project management is most of the elements covered in the PMBoK — risk, work breakdown structure, time management, cost management, reporting and so on. The art is working with people and getting things done and understanding the balance between the various elements.4. Art or Science of Project Management. Which is more important? And why? The art is definitely more difficult and more important. After all, everything is being done by the people for the people. So being able to get the people to form a team and work towards the desired goal is more important that being able to fill out a report.5. What would you say is the most difficult part of Project Management? And why? The answer to this will give you a very clear indication of the type of manager they are. The answer should focus on people (including politics).6. What would you say is the most important part of Project Management? And why? Everything project management does is intended to get people who don’t want to work together to work together as a team. So people should be the answer. Anything else will give you an indication of the type of manager they are. One exception is risk. This answer tends to indicate the type of organization they last worked in. In that case you should explore their people skills a little deeper.7. Why do most projects fail? And what would you do to prevent it? You may get any number of responses all of which will help you to identify the type of manager you have. There are really two correct answers. The first is that the project should never have been approved in the first place. The solution proposed will give you some insight in to how the candidate deals with upper management. The second (and less correct answer from a statistical point of view) is that scope changes. The solution will give you an insight into how open the candidate is to change or how they deal with people.
The Advantages of Work at Home Employment
With the recent economic downturn, many people cannot help but search for other means to earn extra income. With the costs of commodities at a constant rise, admittedly, there is an urgent need to do a little catching up as far as spending is concerned. This much is true especially when individuals’ salaries have raise rates far slower than the rates of price increase in commodities. The good thing is that there are certain things that people can try as an extra financial resource. This is the concept behind stay at home employment.The idea of work at home employment is not very new. The concept has been around for years already. There are many people who have tried the business concept, and are satisfied with the results. As the phrase implies, business of this type are typically done at home. The possibilities of a profitable business at home are immense. Usually, it includes the assembly of particular products and rendering of certain services.Some examples of the businesses that people can run at home include; writing services, web designing, graphics designing, photo editing, online retailing, and home-based assembly of many products. Instances of writing services include typing jobs, article writing, legal and medical transcribing, writing for web blogs and many more.Individuals who can do web designs, graphical designs and photo editing can advertise their services on free advertising sites. These people can also sign up in sites for online freelancers or individual providers for free. Online retailing is similar to putting up a store online and many websites offer the opportunity to post products for free.Examples of these sites include eBay, Multiply, and many others. The home-based assembly business is simply about putting together small things to create products that are very sellable to the market. Examples of these products include CD cases, aromatic candles, beaded bracelets, fish lures, and many more,Having a job or business at home has several advantages over regular employment. For one, travel time associated with an office-based job is eliminated. This allows the person to allot that time instead, to other more important things. For instance, the time that could have been spent on travel can instead be spared on marketing the products and services online; it can even be used to spend a quality time with family. In this sense, minimal travel time increases an individuals production efficiency and thus can produce more.Secondly, working at home gives the person flexibility when it comes to time management and control. As jobs and businesses at home do not necessarily have fixed schedules, people can budget their time more and have the option whether to work at a certain time of the day or not. Thirdly, working at home saves people the inconvenience of having to deal with someone who tends to have a negative impact on productivity.The idea of work at home employment sounds very easy yet, whoever ventures into any kind of business has to organize themselves and, everything related to the business to ensure its success.