Academic Coordinator

► What do you think, would you be willing to travel for work?

► How did you handle meeting a tight deadline?

► What have you been doing since your last job?

► What parts of your education do you see as relevant to this position?

► What is the difference between a good position and an excellent one?

► Your greatest weakness in school or at work?

► Tell me about your strengths.

► Tell us about the last time you had to negotiate with someone.

► Would you rather write a report or give it verbally?

► What are your salary requirements.

Don't feel too much pressure as you have been asked many strict questions that you are unable to answer well. Find out about which type of interview it is, how many interviewers and candidates there are, it is a formal interview or informal one.

The best strategy for effectively answering these tough Academic Coordinator interview questions is to prepare for it.

► What three character traits would your friends use to describe you?

► Describe a time you were faced with stresses which tested your skills.

► What major challenges and problems did you face?

► What do you think this position involves.

► What's most important to you in a new position?

Try to answer Academic Coordinator interview questions completely. Illustrate your examples with experiences from previous jobs, internships, activities, team involvements and community services.

A successful interviewee should give examples of past experiences when these skills came to use.

A project manager has to take into consideration several disagreements. They can be between employees, between the superior and the employees, or even the client and the employees.

If you reply that you have never had any disagreements, the interviewer will wonder whether you were really a project manager for your skills or simply because you are a people pleaser.

Make sure that you come up with at least one incident where employees and superiors had differences in thought and you were instrumental in changing the scenario.

If, for example, you have worked in a development company, an obvious example is working closely with the development team to define goals, coordinate resources, solve conflicts, and minimize risks. Project coordinators direct resources and are thus connected to resource managers and the procurement. They work to satisfy quality, deadlines, and budget limitations, and might also work closely with specialists like quality engineers.

As an experienced professional, you are bound to have a portfolio, and this is the right time to share such a portfolio with the interviewer. Make sure that the portfolio you share is authentic as your previous portfolio will decide whether the interviewer will be interested in you or not.

Even if you think there is no one single skill that is the most important, name just one.

The interviewer simply wants to see how you think and express yourself. So be short and to the point. An example of one important skill for a project coordinator is multi-tasking, being able to juggle many tasks simultaneously. Or you can talk about teamwork since a coordinator must be able to cooperate with many teams at once and ensure coordinated action between them.

With these many questions, the interviewer will also like to know whether you created the project business plan and were kept in the loop about the financial aspects of the project. The interviewer would also like to know whether you were the one who monitors the budget/incomes of the project, like - costs, income, gross profit and net profit etc.

Busy, complex, involved with cross company teams and many levels of the organization management, its affiliates, and customers, all at once. Do not hesitate to say that because of the breadth of your field of work, a typical day is characterized by uncertainty and surprise. This requires quick and creative thinking, flexibility, tolerance, adaptability, and formidable multi-tasking skills.

Apart from the portfolio, everyone has some project or aspect of their jobs that they hold close to their heart. This is the time to inform the interviewer about what your favorite project was and why. Of course, you have to make sure that you do not go on a ramble and genuinely discuss some of your favorite projects.

Since a project manager can be responsible for the supply chain management and procurement, you would also be asked questions about the same - in a bid to know whether you have handled these tasks.

A coordinator typically produces feasibility studies for project ideas. He then plans project progress: sub targets and tasks, goals, milestones, etc. Personnel planning means distributing responsibilities between the assigned employees in the most effective way.

No job is without its disappointments. The disappointments can be anything, from an employee who left for personal reasons or the project that you did not bag because of the financials involved.

Make sure that you provide a quick and factual answer for this question.

These and other questions are randomly asked for the interview of the position of a project manager.

A project manager has to liaise with other departments in the company, like the procurement, the R&D, as well as the Logistics department. Other than that, the project manager may also have to interact with customers and company's parters. Sometimes, the project manager may also be responsible for the invoicing and financial issues of his projects. Do you have that project management experience?

Rarely is an inexperienced person taken in as a project manager. Any project manager would have at least two or three years of experience either as an employee or as a project manager. Therefore, this is one of the basic questions asked. Make sure that you give a brief and concise answer to this question, without going too much into the details. Also, make sure that everything you say as an answer to this question is factual.

This is a tough one. What they are asking for is some thoughts on what you have seen and heard about the way they do things that make you want to work for them. The emphasis in the question is on the word 'here'. So, to answer this question you need to know a lot about the university and the department. Look at the person specification for the job. If they are obviously looking for someone who is a good teacher rather than an international researcher, answer this question by prioritising teaching.

Simply describe your experience in detail. For instance, how you've directed and monitored the requirements and progress of short term IT projects with limited personnel. You can also elaborate on how you've ensured that products and services answered your client's specifications within the allocated resources and framework.

'I look forward to having the opportunity to fully contributing to the life of the department. I have a special interest in the area of admissions/ exams/head of year etc'. I had some experience in this role at my last institution and realised that I have the skills necessary to do it well [name them] and actually implemented changes to their policy on x. However, I realise the need for flexibility here and would happily take on the challenge of any administration role that would suit my level of expertise

Other than that, the questions may also contain information about which business management tools, like SAP, ERP, BANN, etc have you worked with.