Delivery Man

This question is dear to me, as I have a background in anthropology and could probably tell you way more information than you’d ever care to hear about early tribal bands. What is the purpose of asking strange job interview questions like this in a job interview? Hunters can be seen as focused short-term thinkers who excel at a single task. Gatherers are multi-taskers who have to focus on the big picture while taking care of a wide variety of tasks. Depending on the type of position you are looking for, you would want to choose one over the other.

The candidate should talk about why they are interested in taking a position as a paper delivery person and what skills they have to do the job well. The candidate should reference qualities listed in the job description, including the ability to work flexible hours, their ability to be on time, and their attention to detail.

It will show you their priorities and whether they have actually thought about what a project manager does. It will also demonstrate whether they are a good cultural fit for your team. If you have a strong focus on process and they think the most important thing is to be flexible and adapt processes as you go, then you probably won’t get on.

It will show you what’s important to them at work: green credentials, career progression, work/life balance, working for a big brand etc. It will also tell you if they are actively job hunting or whether they saw your ad and couldn’t resist (either is fine).

They want to know how you set estimates about the cost of something and about the deliverables. Will you be able to manage the ROI of the products being built by the team. You’ll have to maintain the scope, schedule, and budget in the Agile world.

You’ll be asked this to have a better understanding of your work strategy. Tell them how you set priorities for your work, you make schedules to coordinate the tasks, or use real-life examples to better explain how you set priorities. Make sure your strategy makes you look smart to handle projects and use your team’s strength for your advantage.

I am sure there is a reason that a multinational investment banking firm is wondering about pizza. This is one of the strange job interview questions that would stump most interviewees. This question would be hard to answer for the average person who may not have a grasp on the number of pizzas sold, the sizes, and what was eaten or thrown away, and most importantly, why they are talking about pizza.

The candidate may use this time to break the ice with the hiring manager to show them part of their personality and what kind of person they are away from their work. The candidate may use their sense of humor to respond to this question, or talk about their other interests outside of work that make them an interesting person for the job.

This will show you how they value their career and whether they see themselves progressing in a PM role. Ask them why they chose that rating.

There is a solid deadline whenever a project comes up. The interviewer would want to know how you will manage your team effectively to make sure it meets all the deadlines. There is always a need for the project manager to communicate each person in the team how they have to hold their weight in completing the project. It is expected from a project manager to work together to finish a project within the designated deadline.

It’s worth probing the technical skills of candidates. Can they talk knowledgably about fishbone diagrams, De Bono’s thinking hats, role play? Branch out to talk about the last project issue they resolved with creative thinking.

The three agile frameworks are:-

☛ Kanban

☛ Test-driven development

☛ Feature driven development

It can demonstrate their awareness of PMI Code of Ethics and even if they aren’t aware of that, their general approach to work. You can also use it to open up an interesting discussion and allow you to judge how they will fit into your business culture.

It is helpful to know the difference between Agile and Scrum for an Agile interview. Agile is a broad spectrum, the framework of approaches that encourage “just-in-time” production. It is used in project management while Scrum is just a form of the Agile that describes the process more concisely. Agile is a practice whereas scrum is a procedure to carry on this practice. Agile is the broader umbrella where Scrum falls under.

The interviewer expects you to have a knowledge about the project management industry. Start with the challenges and solutions as well. Some can be from your past experience as a project manager like increasing project complexity, continued skilled resource scarcity, increasing pace of change, lack of stakeholder management, meeting the customer’s requirements, and so on.

This gives you an indication of how they do their job. Someone who spends all day at the PC may suit your environment, or you might be looking for a project manager who gets out and visits clients most days of the week. Remember that they might be prepared to do something other than what they do now, so if you hear something that doesn’t fit with the post you are recruiting for, don’t rule them out before exploring this further.

This will help you work out if they are happy to be honest and tell you about a time that something went wrong. This shows their capacity to learn from mistakes and how they deal with information overload. Delegating work packages is key to project work and you’ll want to hire someone who understands that.