95 management interview questions
1. What experience do you have in setting budgets? 2. What factors are crucial within an organization and must be present for you to wor...
http://managerinterviewquestions.blogspot.com/2013/03/95-management-interview-questions.html
1. What experience do you have in setting budgets?
2. What factors are crucial within an organization and must be present for you to work most effectively?
3. What has been the most difficult decision you have had to make as a manager?
4. What has been the most significant achievement in your career so far? What makes it significant?
5. What information do you need before making a decision?
6. What interests you most about this position?
7. What is one thing that you have had difficulty over coming in your career, and how did you do that?
8. What is some of the most useful criticism you’ve ever received? Why?
9. What is the difference between being a leader and being a manager? Which do you prefer to be?
10. What is your definition of failure?
11. What is your definition of success?
12. What is your philosophy about management?
13. What major challenges and problems did you face? How did you handle them?
14. What methods have you used to evaluate employee’s job performance?
15. What methods have you used to prioritize work assignments?
16. What process do you use to establish key performance objectives for your area of responsibility?
17. What signs do you look for to identify excellence? Incompetence?
18. What stresses you most as a manager? What strategies do you have for dealing with this?
19. What systems have you developed and implemented to improve operating efficiency in your department?
20. What techniques do you use to motivate your team? Give an example of situation where you have done this successfully.
21. What was the most difficult management decision you’ve ever had to make?
22. What was your biggest accomplishment / failure in this position?
23. What were your responsibilities at your current (or last) positions?
24. What were your starting and final levels of compensation?
25. What will success look like for you this year? Why is that important? How hard will it be to get there?
26. What’s a common misconception some people have about you?
27. What’s an example of a goal you didn’t meet? How come? How did you respond to that?
28. When delegating a recent assignment, describe how you showed your confidence in the person’s ability to do the job?
29. Which term best describes you as a manager – a micromanager or a macromanager? Why does this approach work best for you?
30. Who are your best people? What are you doing to retain them?
31. Who was your best manager and who was the worst?
32. An important element for effective team working is for the team to share a vision and goals. How do you try to achieve this with teams that you lead?
33. As a manager or supervisor, one of your jobs is to provide direction and leadership for a work unit. Describe how you have accomplished this in the past.
34. Describe a problem you recently experienced with an employee who reported to you, how did you solve it?
35. Describe a situation where you have had to introduce significant change into the team or organization. How did you approach this?
36. Describe a situation where you have had to manage people who disliked each other and where this had an impact on the work of the team. How did you manage this? What was the outcome?
37. Describe a situation where your technical competence has been an important factor in achieving results.
38. Describe a time when you have had to work on projects that had competing deadlines. How did you prioritize? What was the outcome?
39. Describe a time where you have had to deal with a staff member who was resentful or hostile towards you. How did you handle this? What was the outcome?
40. Describe a time you had to provide training or coaching to different staff members on the same tasks.
41. Describe an important project that you have managed and explain how you managed your team to complete the project from start to finish.
42. Describe the exact responsibilities and activities over which you had oversight for these employees.
43. Describe the work environment or culture and its management style in which you have experienced the most success.
44. Describe three personal values that underpin your approach to leadership. Then for each of these provide an example of how these are applied in your work.
45. Describe what you do to develop your people.
Source: http://interviewquestionsandanswers.biz/95-management-interview-questions-and-answers/
1. Teamwork interview questions:
Now onto the more generic skills, such as your ability to work in a team. No matter how big or small the team is, the hiring manager will want to know that you can develop a strong working relationship with them, as this is essential for productivity and achieving company goals. You may be asked something like the below in order to test if you are a strong team player:
Question: Give an example of team leading in past employment
Answer: You should summarise the task and nature of the group but focus primarily upon your role as team leader. List the personal qualities you possess which made you ideal for leading this team and how you achieved success. Conclude your answer by giving examples of the lessons you learnt while leading this team.
Related posts:
+ Free ebook 82 secrets to win every job interviews
+ Free ebook 395 interview questions with answers
2. Communications skills interview questions:
Your ability to communicate effectively and influence others to act in support of your own and team goals will be examined. An ability to adapt your communication methods depending on situations and individuals is important here.
Question: Provide an example of how you explained a technical concept to a client or co-worker lacking your technical expertise.
How to Answer: Competency based interview questions are meant to determine how well you communicate with others, including your ability to simplify difficult concept. The customer service question about negative feedback is meant to determine whether or not you’re capable of dealing with customer comments that aren’t all that positive in a courteous, constructive manner. With a few of your examples, briefly discuss what you learned from those interactions.
3. Decision making interview questions:
Decision making is a skill that requires the ability to process information and filter this information to ensure you produce a sound and valid decision. You should be able to provide examples of situations where this skill has been tested. Use examples where an obvious answer is not immediately apparent.
Question: Can you tell me about a time when you consulted others when making important project decisions?
How to Answer: You’ll notice that interviewers tend to want specific examples to illustrate your abilities. It’s not unusual for questions to be fairly complex in nature, often involving multiple, related parts. Don’t get overwhelmed. Instead, answer questions one point at at time by providing relevant, easy to digest examples. If you forget the rest of the question, politely ask the interviewer to repeat it.
4. Drive for results interview questions:
This competency assesses your personal motivation and how you approach challenges.
Question: What is your biggest achievement?
Answer: Ideally, use a work-related example to illustrate your key career achievement. Highlight exactly why you consider it important, with details of the role you played. If your biggest achievement in life is related to your personal life, use commercial references such as budget slashing, determination, commitment and team work to communicate all the associated positive aspects.
5. Planning and organizaing interview question:
Auestion: Give me an example of a time when you had to plan a project or a large piece of work.
Tips for Successful Answers:
+ Demonstrate how you have worked in a structured and methodical way.
+ Show real detail about the steps you have taken to plan.
+ Explain how you have amended or flexed the original plans you’d made.
+ Talk about how you built pre-emptive solutions to potential problems
6. Customer focus interview question:
Your ability to understand and believe in the importance of customer focus will be tested here. You must display a competency for understanding the difference between internal and external customers.
Question: What about important clients, or complex or sensitive customer relationships?
Answer: If you can show that through your customer service orientation you saved the company from losing something of value (a big client, $X amount of revenue, 20 man hours a week) then you will really demonstrate your customer focus. Or did you save the company a political, organizational, or image problem? Write it out. What was the situation? What action did you take? How did you communicate to your teammates and how did you communicate with the customer? What was the result? … I hope this gets you thinking.
7. Leadership interview questions:
Leadership is a competency employers look for in candidates who are applying for jobs that require them to lead, motivate and/or develop other people, usually team leader and management positions
Question: Describe a time you took a leadership position when you did not have the title of a leader.
Answer: In this question, take an example from a situation where you were in a group and took responsibility to delegate to achieve goals. Show how you gained from the other members to follow your lead and the result of your leadership.
For instance, in college, we were put into groups of four to complete a marketing project. We had to prepare a 15-page paper and 10-minute presentation on a new product. We want to introduce that outside the U.S. I took the initiative among the group to lead a discussion on how we should split up the work when we meet throughout the semester and deadlines for each person’s part of the work. Because I was the one to take the lead the discussion and had a plan in mind, I gained the buy in of the other members quickly. I took everyone’s e-mail address and created a group email to help us all keep track of our progress and so we could help each other outside of class and our meetings. By the end of the semester, my group achieved a 95% on our project.
7. Conflict resolution skill interview questions:
Conflict resolution skills and the ability to disagree with others professionally and politely are necessary for successful contribution in organizations. If every employee employer hire is willing to engage in conflict resolution, more new ideas and better approaches to solving problems will take place in your organization.
Question: Give an example of a time you handled conflict in the workplace
Answer: Your interviewer will assess your adaptability and gauge the constructiveness of your approach towards conflict, tension and differences of opinion. Your example(s) should highlight the importance of your role in resolving these issues.
8. Creative skills interview questions:
Question: Give me an example of your creativity?
Answer sample:
One of my key creative accomplishments occurred in my current job, when I had to increase market share for a new product without increasing our existing marketing budget. I kicked off with some internal brainstorming on how to maximize the use of our resources and be more creative in the way we market. I worked with our two interns, both of whom were creative writing majors, on creating a blog for our website, plus Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages for the company’s new product. I tasked the interns with managing the pages, and the three of us came up with relevant content for each social page. The ultimate aim was to create a community of fans and buzz around the new product.
Through product teasers on Twitter, the timely answering of questions on Facebook, and brief video tutorials on Instagram, we grew a fan base of 2,500 people in just three months. When the product was released, first day sales exceeded all expectations, and sales continued on a steady incline for the rest of the year. A lot of the success was attributed to the online fan base we developed, where positive word-of-mouth spurred an influx of customers to purchase the product through the trackable online sales page we created in-house with our design and dev teams.
9. Time management interview questions:
Question: Explain a time when you were not able to meet a deadline?
Answer: Use an example were you where not able to meet a deadline due to outside factors. For instance, there was a big project that my team was working on, and I had split up the work among some members and myself. During that time, one member of the team had to leave due to their spouse getting a position in another city. He left at a critical time, and I had to re-assign his duties to someone else. I make the new person work to speed with the progression of the project and due to this, was not able to complete it on time. We were still able to complete the project a few days after the deadline even with the change in the team member.
10. Problem solving interview questions:
The old adage goes that managers want people who come to them with solutions, not problems, and for me, I couldn’t agree more. The employees who can rise to a challenge and think of innovative ways to solve a problem are the ones who go on to achieve great things both for themselves and the business. Taking this into account, your manager may ask something like:
Question: Give an example of a challenge you faced in the workplace, and how you overcame it
Answer: If you are entering the workplace direct from school, college or university, this question will be geared towards your academic experiences.
Provide a great example of a task that involved using as many skills and abilities as possible. An ideal answer to this question enables you to demonstrate your ability to work in a team, display leadership skills and handle pressure.
2. What factors are crucial within an organization and must be present for you to work most effectively?
3. What has been the most difficult decision you have had to make as a manager?
4. What has been the most significant achievement in your career so far? What makes it significant?
5. What information do you need before making a decision?
6. What interests you most about this position?
7. What is one thing that you have had difficulty over coming in your career, and how did you do that?
8. What is some of the most useful criticism you’ve ever received? Why?
9. What is the difference between being a leader and being a manager? Which do you prefer to be?
10. What is your definition of failure?
11. What is your definition of success?
12. What is your philosophy about management?
13. What major challenges and problems did you face? How did you handle them?
14. What methods have you used to evaluate employee’s job performance?
15. What methods have you used to prioritize work assignments?
16. What process do you use to establish key performance objectives for your area of responsibility?
17. What signs do you look for to identify excellence? Incompetence?
18. What stresses you most as a manager? What strategies do you have for dealing with this?
19. What systems have you developed and implemented to improve operating efficiency in your department?
20. What techniques do you use to motivate your team? Give an example of situation where you have done this successfully.
21. What was the most difficult management decision you’ve ever had to make?
22. What was your biggest accomplishment / failure in this position?
23. What were your responsibilities at your current (or last) positions?
24. What were your starting and final levels of compensation?
25. What will success look like for you this year? Why is that important? How hard will it be to get there?
26. What’s a common misconception some people have about you?
27. What’s an example of a goal you didn’t meet? How come? How did you respond to that?
28. When delegating a recent assignment, describe how you showed your confidence in the person’s ability to do the job?
29. Which term best describes you as a manager – a micromanager or a macromanager? Why does this approach work best for you?
30. Who are your best people? What are you doing to retain them?
31. Who was your best manager and who was the worst?
32. An important element for effective team working is for the team to share a vision and goals. How do you try to achieve this with teams that you lead?
33. As a manager or supervisor, one of your jobs is to provide direction and leadership for a work unit. Describe how you have accomplished this in the past.
34. Describe a problem you recently experienced with an employee who reported to you, how did you solve it?
35. Describe a situation where you have had to introduce significant change into the team or organization. How did you approach this?
36. Describe a situation where you have had to manage people who disliked each other and where this had an impact on the work of the team. How did you manage this? What was the outcome?
37. Describe a situation where your technical competence has been an important factor in achieving results.
38. Describe a time when you have had to work on projects that had competing deadlines. How did you prioritize? What was the outcome?
39. Describe a time where you have had to deal with a staff member who was resentful or hostile towards you. How did you handle this? What was the outcome?
40. Describe a time you had to provide training or coaching to different staff members on the same tasks.
41. Describe an important project that you have managed and explain how you managed your team to complete the project from start to finish.
42. Describe the exact responsibilities and activities over which you had oversight for these employees.
43. Describe the work environment or culture and its management style in which you have experienced the most success.
44. Describe three personal values that underpin your approach to leadership. Then for each of these provide an example of how these are applied in your work.
45. Describe what you do to develop your people.
Source: http://interviewquestionsandanswers.biz/95-management-interview-questions-and-answers/
PART III: TOP 10 COMPETENCY BASED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Competency-based interview questions require interviewees to give specific examples of times in which they demonstrated particular skills or attitudes. Generally, these questions require interviewees to describe a problem or situation, the actions they took to handle the problem, and the results of the situation. Such questions allow the employer to quickly evaluate an interviewee’s mindset, and to gauge how the interviewee handles certain situations.1. Teamwork interview questions:
Now onto the more generic skills, such as your ability to work in a team. No matter how big or small the team is, the hiring manager will want to know that you can develop a strong working relationship with them, as this is essential for productivity and achieving company goals. You may be asked something like the below in order to test if you are a strong team player:
Question: Give an example of team leading in past employment
Answer: You should summarise the task and nature of the group but focus primarily upon your role as team leader. List the personal qualities you possess which made you ideal for leading this team and how you achieved success. Conclude your answer by giving examples of the lessons you learnt while leading this team.
Related posts:
+ Free ebook 82 secrets to win every job interviews
+ Free ebook 395 interview questions with answers
2. Communications skills interview questions:
Your ability to communicate effectively and influence others to act in support of your own and team goals will be examined. An ability to adapt your communication methods depending on situations and individuals is important here.
Question: Provide an example of how you explained a technical concept to a client or co-worker lacking your technical expertise.
How to Answer: Competency based interview questions are meant to determine how well you communicate with others, including your ability to simplify difficult concept. The customer service question about negative feedback is meant to determine whether or not you’re capable of dealing with customer comments that aren’t all that positive in a courteous, constructive manner. With a few of your examples, briefly discuss what you learned from those interactions.
3. Decision making interview questions:
Decision making is a skill that requires the ability to process information and filter this information to ensure you produce a sound and valid decision. You should be able to provide examples of situations where this skill has been tested. Use examples where an obvious answer is not immediately apparent.
Question: Can you tell me about a time when you consulted others when making important project decisions?
How to Answer: You’ll notice that interviewers tend to want specific examples to illustrate your abilities. It’s not unusual for questions to be fairly complex in nature, often involving multiple, related parts. Don’t get overwhelmed. Instead, answer questions one point at at time by providing relevant, easy to digest examples. If you forget the rest of the question, politely ask the interviewer to repeat it.
4. Drive for results interview questions:
This competency assesses your personal motivation and how you approach challenges.
Question: What is your biggest achievement?
Answer: Ideally, use a work-related example to illustrate your key career achievement. Highlight exactly why you consider it important, with details of the role you played. If your biggest achievement in life is related to your personal life, use commercial references such as budget slashing, determination, commitment and team work to communicate all the associated positive aspects.
5. Planning and organizaing interview question:
Auestion: Give me an example of a time when you had to plan a project or a large piece of work.
Tips for Successful Answers:
+ Demonstrate how you have worked in a structured and methodical way.
+ Show real detail about the steps you have taken to plan.
+ Explain how you have amended or flexed the original plans you’d made.
+ Talk about how you built pre-emptive solutions to potential problems
6. Customer focus interview question:
Your ability to understand and believe in the importance of customer focus will be tested here. You must display a competency for understanding the difference between internal and external customers.
Question: What about important clients, or complex or sensitive customer relationships?
Answer: If you can show that through your customer service orientation you saved the company from losing something of value (a big client, $X amount of revenue, 20 man hours a week) then you will really demonstrate your customer focus. Or did you save the company a political, organizational, or image problem? Write it out. What was the situation? What action did you take? How did you communicate to your teammates and how did you communicate with the customer? What was the result? … I hope this gets you thinking.
7. Leadership interview questions:
Leadership is a competency employers look for in candidates who are applying for jobs that require them to lead, motivate and/or develop other people, usually team leader and management positions
Question: Describe a time you took a leadership position when you did not have the title of a leader.
Answer: In this question, take an example from a situation where you were in a group and took responsibility to delegate to achieve goals. Show how you gained from the other members to follow your lead and the result of your leadership.
For instance, in college, we were put into groups of four to complete a marketing project. We had to prepare a 15-page paper and 10-minute presentation on a new product. We want to introduce that outside the U.S. I took the initiative among the group to lead a discussion on how we should split up the work when we meet throughout the semester and deadlines for each person’s part of the work. Because I was the one to take the lead the discussion and had a plan in mind, I gained the buy in of the other members quickly. I took everyone’s e-mail address and created a group email to help us all keep track of our progress and so we could help each other outside of class and our meetings. By the end of the semester, my group achieved a 95% on our project.
7. Conflict resolution skill interview questions:
Conflict resolution skills and the ability to disagree with others professionally and politely are necessary for successful contribution in organizations. If every employee employer hire is willing to engage in conflict resolution, more new ideas and better approaches to solving problems will take place in your organization.
Question: Give an example of a time you handled conflict in the workplace
Answer: Your interviewer will assess your adaptability and gauge the constructiveness of your approach towards conflict, tension and differences of opinion. Your example(s) should highlight the importance of your role in resolving these issues.
8. Creative skills interview questions:
Question: Give me an example of your creativity?
Answer sample:
One of my key creative accomplishments occurred in my current job, when I had to increase market share for a new product without increasing our existing marketing budget. I kicked off with some internal brainstorming on how to maximize the use of our resources and be more creative in the way we market. I worked with our two interns, both of whom were creative writing majors, on creating a blog for our website, plus Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook pages for the company’s new product. I tasked the interns with managing the pages, and the three of us came up with relevant content for each social page. The ultimate aim was to create a community of fans and buzz around the new product.
Through product teasers on Twitter, the timely answering of questions on Facebook, and brief video tutorials on Instagram, we grew a fan base of 2,500 people in just three months. When the product was released, first day sales exceeded all expectations, and sales continued on a steady incline for the rest of the year. A lot of the success was attributed to the online fan base we developed, where positive word-of-mouth spurred an influx of customers to purchase the product through the trackable online sales page we created in-house with our design and dev teams.
9. Time management interview questions:
Question: Explain a time when you were not able to meet a deadline?
Answer: Use an example were you where not able to meet a deadline due to outside factors. For instance, there was a big project that my team was working on, and I had split up the work among some members and myself. During that time, one member of the team had to leave due to their spouse getting a position in another city. He left at a critical time, and I had to re-assign his duties to someone else. I make the new person work to speed with the progression of the project and due to this, was not able to complete it on time. We were still able to complete the project a few days after the deadline even with the change in the team member.
10. Problem solving interview questions:
The old adage goes that managers want people who come to them with solutions, not problems, and for me, I couldn’t agree more. The employees who can rise to a challenge and think of innovative ways to solve a problem are the ones who go on to achieve great things both for themselves and the business. Taking this into account, your manager may ask something like:
Question: Give an example of a challenge you faced in the workplace, and how you overcame it
Answer: If you are entering the workplace direct from school, college or university, this question will be geared towards your academic experiences.
Provide a great example of a task that involved using as many skills and abilities as possible. An ideal answer to this question enables you to demonstrate your ability to work in a team, display leadership skills and handle pressure.
