How To Answer Program Manager Interview Questions
First, dont confuse program managers with project managers or product managers. While the job titles look ridiculously similar, and the roles do have quite a bit in common, they arent actually the same. Technically, they all oversee projects, but the niches can vary.
Product managers focus on products. Project managers might work in any niche, depending on their employer. But their work tends to focus on the project at hand, and not on the big strategic picture.
Program managers usually oversee a group of projects , and each one is connected by a common element, like a single company goal. Additionally, they are responsible for guiding strategy, keeping everyone moving toward the right target.
Oh, and project and product managers earn an average of $76,683 and $83,617 a year, respectively. For program managers, the annual salary average is $134,620.
MIKES TIP:While some duties are alike, there are nuances to each role.
Now thats out of the way, but before we go over the program manager interview questions, lets pause for a moment to talk strategy. You need the right approach. That way, if the hiring manager asks you something unexpected, you can adapt.
Start by doing some research.
The program manager job description is a great place to start, as it spells out what the company considers must-haves. Couple that with a look at the companys mission and values statements, and you can find out a lot about the skills and traits the hiring manager wants to find.
How To Use This Guide
I would suggest reading the whole thing! To save you time, Ive tried my best to put everything into immediately actionable things so that youll know exactly what to work on.
In addition, this resource assumes that you dont have too much time every day as many people can only prepare during off-hours, But Im always a big believer that if you are focused on the right thing, youll have a perfect work/life balance.
Even if you are somewhat familiar with this topic, Im pretty sure youll find some new weapons to add to your arsenal as things have changed a lot over the past few years.
What Were The Communication Challenges On Your Last Project
As a project manager, youll need to communicate with your team for all projects effectively. Communication challenges will arise nobody expects that this wont happen. What the interviewer wants to see, however, is how youve handled these challenges in the past. It needs to be evident that even with communication issues, you were still able to work with your team effectively. For example, perhaps instead of being able to have face-to-face meetings when necessary, you were able to put together webchat meetings. Think of a time when something like this happened and how you dealt with the communication challenges efficiently to ensure that the project outcome was still a good one.
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One Of Your Team Members Is Asking For More Time To Complete A Task How Would You Handle This Situation
Situational questions like these are common in project management interviews. This is a chance for hiring managers to see your thought process and gauge how you think on your feet.
How to answer: As a project manager, youâll be expected to help team members that havenât been able to complete tasks on schedule in the interest of the project. Youâll want to know why the issue arose in the first place, and apply an appropriate fix. You might talk about adding another member if the team is feeling overloaded, implementing time buffers in the planning phase for certain tasks, or negotiating with a stakeholder for more time or resources.
Types Of Tpm Interview Questions
System Design: These interview questions evaluate the technical in technical program management. The responsibilities of a technical program manager are a little more big picture than that of a software engineer. For example, these questions are typically focused on system design. In many instances, TPM candidates are asked to think through and design a products system architecture.
- Program Sense: As the title suggests, another critical piece of the TPM role is managing programs. These kinds of questions evaluate your ability to think and work through technical dependencies, product context, execution strategy, and impact on a team.
- Cross-functional Partnership: As we mentioned, technical program managers sit at a crossroads between many different teams and departments. Cross-functional partnership questions, then seek to discover your capability at managing these cross-functional relationships.
- Behavioral: Behavioral questions are common in many interviews. Chances are, youve been asked plenty of them interviewing for your previous roles. Nevertheless, behavioral interview questions are meant to get to know you better based on how you performed in past roles and situations.
Below, youll find several sample questions for each category. We recommend practicing one type of question at a time. That way, youll get a better idea of your particular strengths and weaknesses.
We also recommend brushing up on key concepts in our technical interview cheat sheet.
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What Happens Behind The Scenes
If things go well at your onsite interviews here is what the final steps of the process look like:
- Interviewers submit feedback
- Senior leader and Compensation committee review
- Final executive review
- You get an offer
After your onsite, your interviewers will all submit their feedback usually within two to three days. This feedback will then be reviewed by a hiring committee, along with your resume, internal referrals, and any past work you have submitted. At this stage, the hiring committee will make a recommendation on whether Google should hire you or not.
If the hiring committee recommends that you get hired you’ll usually start your team matching process. In other words, you’ll talk to hiring managers and one or several of them will need to be willing to take you in their team in order for you to get an offer from the company.
In parallel, the hiring committee recommendation will be reviewed and validated by a Senior manager and a compensation committee who will decide how much money you are offered. Finally, if you are interviewing for a senior role, a Senior Google executive will review a summary of your candidacy and compensation before the offer is sent to you.
As you’ve probably gathered by now, Google goes to great lengths to avoid hiring the wrong candidates. This hiring process with multiple levels of validations helps them scale their teams while maintaining a high caliber of employees. But it also means that the typical process can spread over multiple months.
What Are Some Examples Of Times Youve Kept Your Promise Even When That Might Have Been Difficult
Think about a time when you reluctantly agreed to a challenging request, because as a project manager, youre expected to make things happen. Explain to the interviewer how you managed to juggle your tasks and effectively manage your time to ensure that you would be able to follow through with an ambiguous promise. Even though you may have had a lot on your plate, interviewers want to hear specific examples that show you were still successful in accommodating additional requests.
22 Million Jobs by 2027 in Project Management
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Whats Your Experience With Budget Management
Hiring managers might ask questions specifically about various skills like budget management. Itâs probably not a deal breaker if you have no experience in most casesâthey may just be trying to get a better sense of where you stand.
How to answer: Managing a budget includes cost estimation, deciding how to allocate funds, keeping a record of how money was spent, and planning for unexpected expenses. Itâs great if you can point to some examples in the past. If you donât have much experience, you can share what you know about budget planning, or talk about budgeting experience you have in your personal life, if itâs relevant. Itâs also good to show that youâre able to pick up new skills.
What Has Changed In The New Pmp Exam Format
The domains for the new PMP Certification exam have been updated to include more diverse skills and approaches.The new PMP Certification exam will focus on three domains:
The new content will also include predictive, agile, and hybrid approaches in the exam.For more detail, please refer to PMP exam updates by PMI.
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Can You Tell Us About The Last Project You Worked On
An interview might ask you about your last project to get a sense of what types of projects youâre used to, what project management approaches youâve used, the number of people on your team, and other details.
How to answer: Describe the important information about the project, like the overall goal, team size, and how you approached it. Speak candidly about what went well, and be sure to mention something you might have improved or that you learned. Having some metrics on hand to show the results of the project can be useful here.
professional certificate
What Project Management Software Do You Prefer
Most project managers depend largely on Gantt charts regarding project planning and scheduling. Award-winning online Gantt charts in ProjectManager allow project managers to plan every aspect of their projects. Managers may use one screen to build dependencies, set milestones, assign tasks, manage workload, and more. The capability of our planning tools would wow any general contractor you employ.
A project manager needs project management tools to plan, monitor, and report on a project. There are several options, ranging from simple to sophisticated. This question exposes, first and foremost, how current the candidate is with software and project management technologies. It also gives an overview of the tools and techniques they employ to manage a project.
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Project Management Interview Questions On Domain Knowledge
A good project manager should have 2 featuresexperience, as well as an in-depth understanding of project management theories. While one without the other hinders performance, to be the ideal project manager, you must have a solid foundation in project management principles. The following question is often asked by interviewers to test the candidates domain knowledge and skills:
Reason : Project Management Professionals Demonstrate Better Project Performance
Not all project managers are PMP certified. Consequently, project managers who lack the credential perform less efficiently than their certified peers. The standards for the rigorous PMP exam are higher than other pmp certifications, testing professionals on five project management processes: initiating, planning, executing, monitoring & controlling, and closing, providing the Project manager with a detailed, standardized, actionable set of project management best practices.
Further, in order to qualify for the PMP exam, aspirants must have an in-depth understanding of nine knowledge areas of project management, including project scope management, integration management, human resource management, time management, cost management, quality management, and procurement management.
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What To Expect At Googles Tpm Interview
Hereâs what you can typically expect at Googleâs TPM interviews.
- Technical questions around distributed systems design and perhaps one coding problem to test your problem-solving capabilities.
- Free lunch during the on-site.
- An additional interview if hiring managers are satisfied with you but want to test you a particular parameter before closing.
- 5-10 minutes at the end of each on-site round to ask any questions you have to the interviewer.
- They will assess you on four main areas: general cognitive ability, leadership skills, the type of projects youâve worked on, and how much of a cultural fit youâd be at Google.
What Is The Salary Of A Project Manager With Pmp Training Skills In Rochester
A project manager with PMP training in New York would get a gross salary of US$93,643 per annum. Based on various factors such as education, skill, operation efficacy, and experience, the individual’s salary varies. With PMP certification training in Rochester, the individual can understand project management, which will help him be paid a higher salary.
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Explain The Concept Of Raid In Project Management
As you know, RAID is a critical tool for any project manager. It stands for Risks, Actions, Issues, and Decisions. To define it, RAID is a tool used by project managers to track risks, actions, issues, and decisions in an organized way. While answering the project management interview question, you should include the definitions of these four concepts as well.
What Are The Benefits Of Having A Pmp Certificate
A PMP certificate is proof of your top-notch skills in the field of project management. It verifies an individuals ability to speak the global language of project managers and brings all kinds of projects to successful completion. By achieving the credential, you can work in virtually any industry as a project manager.
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Technical Interview Questions For Google Technical Program Managers
Google’s engineering managers and technical leads will assess your technical skills throughout the interview. They will judge you on your capabilities to work on high-end technical projects. Various technical scenarios and challenges will be presented to you, and you would have to give a solution for them.
These questions require a strong knowledge of system design concepts:
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Give An Example Of Prioritizing Your Tasks When Working On Multiple Projects
The ability to simultaneously manage multiple projects is essential to a program managerâs success. The interviewer likely wants to hear about the software programs, tools or applications you use to organize your projectsâ tasks and your preference. Examples of project management tools include Basecamp, Jira, Trello, Asana, and Google Suite. If you have any other tips or methods you have learned in your experience while completing successful projects this is the time to list them.
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What Are The Major Industries In Rochester
Rochester’s high-tech output stands at 20th out of 319 metropolitan areas in the United States. Computer & electronic products, machinery, fabricated metal products, plastic and rubber products, chemical and printing equipment, are some of the significant industries in Rochester. Hence PMP certification training in Rochester will help you get employed over here.
Google Program Manager Interview Questions
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I interviewed at Google
Interview
Stringent rubric that did not allow discussion of the rubric. Interviewers had no knowledge of the actual job, so evaluate based on the standardized rubric. There is no space for diversity of thought or experience. Google is purposefully weeding out people that think differently.
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What Is A Program Manager
Program managers are responsible for overseeing a companys projects, interconnected through a common strategic goal, and supervising the project managers who lead them.
They should uphold the three pillars of program management: communication, collaboration, and multitasking. It is their job to keep everyone on schedule, maintain communication between teams and top-level management, and adapt strategic goals as the projects move along.
Typically employed in educational institutions, program managers will be found throughout the public sector and in some larger private companies. Salary for this position is dependent on the company or organization, but can easily be upwards of $100k.
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Project Manager Interview Questions On Prioritizing And Time Management
A project manager must tackle multiple tasks and issues. To be a successful project manager, you have to choose your battles wisely. Since resources are always limited, they need to be prioritized. Time is a valuable resource for the project because once lost it cannot be recovered easily. As a result, Project time management is one of the key skills for any project manager. The following questions are asked to assess whether you are capable of taking up the responsibility for creating efficient ways to execute tasks:
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How Do You Prioritize Tasks In A Project
Knowing what to prioritize is key to a project. Thereâs a chance youâll receive a question asking what you decide to prioritize and why. You might also be asked how you would juggle working on multiple projects at once.
How to answer: Tie your answer back to the interest of the project. Your answer might include some combination of deadlines, stakeholder needs, or determining tasks that make up a critical path. You can pull from some examples in the past or work your way through some hypothetical situations.
