One of the most common questions I get is probably the most logical: what are some things I should be considering as I’m preparing for a project management job interview when I’m coming from higher education? This is an extremely logical common question — and yet I’ve (unwittingly) gone against my own “business as usual” and instead of simply creating a blog post, I typically answer this almost exclusively via email and DM.
So let’s talk… a centralized “how to prepare for a PM job interview” post!
The Project Management Life Cycle
First things first, my advice is going to be to peel apart the project management life cycle and map your own experience to it. Remember that in the PM Life Cycle, we’re talking about five stages:
- Initiation: big-picture strategy, answering the “why are we undertaking this project” questions
- Planning: setting the stage for execution work, answering the “how are we going to get this done” questions (“who will do what by when” framework)
- Executing: Completing the “who will do what by when” framework we set out above
- Monitoring & Controlling: Ensuring that everything is going according to plan, and stepping in (as proactively as we can) when it isn’t
- Closing: Reporting out, transferring knowledge… the work of “zipping the project up”
(This is an incredibly “zoomed out” view of the PM Life Cycle, but it’s good enough to get us started. For a much more in-depth view, my Aspiring Project Manager course breaks down all of these stages into much greater detail, complete with examples from higher education work.)
So, to begin, take a close look at the above. For each stage, where can you pull examples of you having done this work? The strongest examples possible will be times that you led (not just contributed to) that work, and it resulted in meeting or exceeding the project objectives.
That said, we don’t always have strong examples of each phase! It’s totally normal and okay to have great examples from, say, executing, but to have “okay” examples from initiating. The trick here is to 1) show awareness of this and 2) talk up how excited you are to grow in that area and what your specific plans are for doing so.
Stakeholder Management
Once you’ve peeled apart the project life cycle, let’s focus on stakeholder management. Here, we’re looking for examples of times you’ve worked with diverse populations related to a project (remember that stakeholders can be internal or external to the organization!).
Your outstanding examples here are going to fall into one of two camps:
- Anytime you were able to make headway where someone else couldn’t with a tricky stakeholder. Maybe they’re resistant; maybe they’re lovely but it’s a super complicated organizational structure; maybe no relationship previously existed at all. Whatever it is, if you were able to grow something through your relational skills, that’s a great example.
- Anytime you were able to use stakeholder relationship skills to go above and beyond and deliver a truly outstanding project. Example: maybe you worked with a stakeholder to hear something that no one else had heard before and uncover a business problem that you then solved.
Obviously, a truly slam-dunk answer would combine the above. That said, I think I have maybe two examples that do this. If you don’t have one yet, don’t stress.
Scope (including our bffs Budget & Schedule)
Finally, you’re going to want to be able to speak to how you “manage scope”. If you’re new to project management this might sound a little like Greek. The trick here is that you can think of “managing scope” as a tool to stay within budget and on schedule.
“Scope” is basically “the pre-defined list of things we have to achieve as part of this project, based on the strategy we set at the beginning”. And one super important takeaway that sounds simple, but is actually at the heart of project management: we define scope really well at the beginning so that we can say, throughout the rest of the project, that whatever isn’t specifically in scope is out of scope.
The reason this matters, as I say in the APM, is that our resources are limited. If we always had unlimited time and unlimited money to deliver a project, we could deliver all the extra bells and whistles we wanted! But we usually don’t. Usually we’re under some pretty tight pressure (time, money, or both) to get the project done and out the door. Having a defined scope to point to is a make-or-break difference for you as the project manager to be able to say: “sorry, we won’t be able to add that to the project, as it’s not in scope”, and then to go about your merry way completing on-time and on-budget.
So, what are times you’ve done that? Just as with stakeholder management, you might not have called it scope management. But you’ve probably had to tell someone some disappointing news about not being able to accommodate their request because it came in too late. And you’re probably not a total Scrooge, which means there was probably a legitimate business reason for that.
By the way… that can also be an example of stakeholder management! Did you have to tell a student organization that they couldn’t participate in an org showcase because they got their form in late, and your student staff have already set out the floor map, and you can’t pay them extra to re-do it for this one org?
BOOM! We’re looking at 1) scope management, because you aren’t going to push this student org fair project’s schedule or budget for one org who couldn’t get their stuff together on time AND 2) stakeholder management because you probably had a ~*~Developmental Conversation~*~ with said organization. Maybe this resulted in genuine student learning! Amazing. Maybe it didn’t; that’s okay, too. Sounds like you’re prioritizing equity and fair treatment across all student organizations.
Wrapping It Up
Now, of course, this is only a starting guide. I am absolutely not saying that this is everything a project management interview could possibly include.
What I am saying is that if you begin your interview prep by peeling back 1) mapping your experience to the project life cycle; 2) pulling out examples of great stakeholder management; 3) pulling out examples of managing scope, ideally that speak to budget and/or schedule… you’re going to be in a great place.
This will be a foundation for any entry-level project management interview… and it’s a very solid one. from there, you can choose to go the extra mile with things like tailoring your examples to what you know about the organization, supplementing with reading books, etc. Start with the basics, though, as we’ve covered them here. And, as always, reach out if you need help!
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