Do You Have Any Questions Or Concerns About My Qualifications
This question shows that you’re not afraid of critical feedback in fact, you welcome it.
Interviewers tend to make note of red flags to discuss with a colleague following the interview, whether it be something on your resume or something you said
. This question gives them the green light to ask about any of the things that are holding them back from being 100% on board with hiring you.
How It Helps You
You get a chance to address concerns face-to-face without being too confrontational. This could be the difference between an offer and a rejection – or maybe even a higher opening offer.
Describe A Time When You Had To Make A Difficult Decision
The interviewer may ask this question as a way to evaluate how you implement the decision-making process. You might answer with past experiences, and you may also give examples of how you would make difficult decisions should they hire you.
Example:”In the past, I had to make a decision regarding cutting costs that led to an extremely tough decision to layoff a small percentage of employees. I made this decision based on our company’s financial data that illustrated the necessity of making this choice.”
Questions That Measure Flexibility And Ability To Adapt
- Do you prefer to plan things out ahead or leave room for trial and error?
- Tell me about a time that an unexpected issue occurred at work, how did you handle it?
- Tell me about a time when you were asked to do something you had never done before. How did you react?
- Can you think of a time when you’ve had to adjust quickly to changes in your department? How did you respond?
What to look for: A significant part of a manager’s job is dealing with changes and unexpected events. Look for answers that prove experience with sudden events. More importantly, look for answers that show a positive and open-minded attitude. Candidates who express negative feelings in the face of unexpected changelike defeat, skepticism, frustration may not be a good fit for management.
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How Can You Actively Contribute To Our Companys Growth
This question gives them the chance to specifically state the ways in which they believe they can fit into your companyâs framework. They should be able to share how they see themselves as part of your business and the qualities they have that can contribute to the overall growth of the company.
One of the main priorities of a manager should be to aid in the improvement of their workplace, and this question targets how the interviewee believes they can do this themselves.
In addition to this, itâs an easy way to see how familiar they are with your company and its operations. Ideally, their answer should be specific rather than a broad response that could apply to any company.
Finally, they should have the ability to relate the unique features of your business to their own existing methods and qualities.
Do You Host Any Events With The Team Outside Of Work
Does everyone keep their head down and do their own thing? Or does everyone enjoy each other’s company? This interview question serves as a great way to find out a little bit about the company culture.
Ideally, there’s a good balance of work and life and the company creates opportunities for those to blend.
How It Helps You
Along with learning about company culture, this is a more lighthearted question that might relax a stiffened atmosphere or lead to a conversation about shared interests.
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What Will My Salary Be
This is also something you should discuss after the company offers you the position. Salary can often be a sensitive subject and should be discussed only at the appropriate time. If the salary is not desirable, then this can be discussed and negotiated before accepting the position.
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What Opportunities Will I Have To Learn And Grow
Does the company offer formal or informal mentoring and coaching to boost your career potential? Does it invest in continued education or professional training to advance your career? Great companies want to hire people who are dedicated to personal and professional growth. Show your hiring manager that continued development is essential in the job market and is important to you.
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Bryqs 10 Best Interview Questions For Managers
Manager interview questions arent simple. Choosing a manager to hire is one of the most important decisions that hiring managers can make. Managers are true leaders who lead their teams to success. A good manager will help teams achieve their goals, help to create a positive company culture, and be a major part of raking in profits for your company. Despite how crucial hiring a great manager is, its something we just dont often get right. By asking the best manager interview questions and with a little help from talent assessments like Bryq youll be able to easily assess the qualities that make a true leader. Good Managers Are Hard to FindStudies show that finding a good manager is actually quite the challenge. According to Gallup, companies hire the wrong candidate over 80% of the time! Thats a staggering number, and when you look at employee productivity levels, theyre equally as astonishing. Only 30% of U.S. employees are engaged at work. This number drops to an abysmal 13% when looking at the workforce worldwide!
Interview Questions to Ask a Candidate for a Potential Manager Job Find sample interview questions to ask a potential manager job candidate to assess their skills and experience in management and leadership.
Describe the work environment or culture in which you have experienced the most success. How did you help contribute to that culture and success?
What Management Style Resonates With You The Most
Anyone with more than a few years of experience has likely dealt with multiple management styles. Some fields require a more direct, rigid management style, whereas others can be more open and relaxed.
You need to find out what management style the candidate prefers and understand how that relates to your company culture.
Unless you hire an entirely new team, the incoming manager will need a management style that works well with existing team members.
The new manager will have to coordinate and communicate well with their direct reports and learn some nuances on the job. They must have a management style that team members respect.
Finding out the candidates preferred management style is essential, but candidates should also be able to adapt their management style based on the communication needs of their team members.
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What Other Jobs Are You Considering
For the most part, candidates should be looking for jobs in similar fields. It doesnt matter if theyre looking at other companies or even other niches within a specific skill set.
What might raise a warning flag would be if theyve applied for non-managerial jobs as well as the manager position in your business.
What Are Behavioral Interview Questions
Behavioral leadership interview questions are questions designed to help you gain insight into a managerial candidates future job performance. While competency-based questions focus on a specific skill, and situational questions ask candidates to share how they would respond to a given scenario, behavioral interview questions ask managerial candidates about how they acted in the past.
These questions often start with, Tell me about a time when or Give me an example of to prompt the candidate to discuss how they handled various situations in the workplace.
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How Would Your Colleagues Describe You
Don’t be overly modest, but be cautious of sounding arrogant. Speak about your strengths. If you’re a good listener, use an example to back this up. If you’re supportive, tell the interviewer about a time when you helped a colleague. If you have positive quotes to use or compliments given to you from others, don’t be afraid to use them.
If this is your first job straight out of university, use examples from your work experience, volunteering activities or weekend or summer jobs.
Good Questions To Ask Leaders And Managers About Conflict Resolution:
- Tell me about a time where two members of your team had a disagreement. What did you do to resolve this? Would you do anything differently if given the chance?
- Tell me about a project or situation that involved input from multiple departments/stakeholders. What did you do/say to manage the situation? What was the outcome?
- Describe a time that you had to deal with an employee that was toxic to the team/work environment. How did you communicate with the employee that his attitude/behavior was not ok. What was the outcome?
- Tell me about a time where a senior member of your team had an issue with the work of one of your direct reports. How did you react/resolve this situation? Would you do anything differently if given the chance?
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How Do You Motivate People
EXAMPLE ANSWER:
Motivation isnt a one-size-fits-all solution, so I like to really get to know my team on an individual level. A few years ago, I was overseeing a sales team. While our numbers were good, they werent great, partially because one of the members of the team was dealing with a child going through cancer and chemo. Because of the gravity of the situation, I decided the team needed a good reward to get them excited about selling. I promised, if they broke the previous years record, I would shave my head and donate a portion of my salary to a local cancer charity. This didnt just motivate the team it completely re-energized them! We not only broke the previous years record, but fifteen of the employees joined me in shaving their heads, and we collected and donated over $5000 to the charity.
What Are The Best Answers For Behavioral Interview Questions
Unlike competency questions, with behavioral interview questions, there are no right or wrong answers. The best answers to behavioral leadership interview questions are answers that help you gain valuable insight into how each candidate views their role as a manager. Pay close attention to how the candidate talks about their colleagues and workers, and look for applicants who present as professional, likable and motivated.
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Top 12 Manager Interview Questions And Best Answers
When interviewing managers, most interviewers will focus on two distinct aspects of the managerial experiencewhether you get results and how well you deal with people. Both are equally important.
If you cant deal with managing different personalities in team environments and under stress, nothing else you do will matter. On the other hand, if you get too involved in dealing with peoples personal problems, youre unlikely to be able to help the organization achieve its goals.
How Do You Motivate A Team
One approach won’t fit all when trying to motivate different team members, so when asking this question recruiters are looking for an understanding of how different personalities and working styles make up a team.
Give specific examples of how you get to know a team and how you assess each person’s strengths. Explain how you use positive reinforcement and recognition to motivate employees and encourage them to achieve company goals.
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Use Team Scorecards To Keep It Fair And Collaborative
Weâve already established that managers are so much more than administrators â theyâre leaders. That likely means theyâll be interfacing with a variety of teams and individuals inside the company.
With Breezyâs Scorecard feature, itâs easier than ever to hire a manager that everyone feels good about. With an easy-to-share thumbs-up, thumbs-down system , you can get the all-clear from team members with the press of a button. â¶ï¸
Have You Managed Remote Teams
Project managers may be managing team members from around the world that they never see. Depending on the type of project youre hiring for this information could be key.
Project managers that can not effectively manage remote teams may experience problems. These issues can cause project delays and into the companies bottom line causing costs to skyrocket.
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How Can You Make Sure You Communicate With Your Team Effectively
Because managing a team can rely heavily on effective communication, interviewers ask this question as a way to assess your skills in this area. You might answer with examples of how you implemented weekly updates, team meetings or monthly conferences.
Example:”In my past role, I used an online messaging platform that enabled quick communication between myself and my team. I made mandatory weekly project updates so I could know what my team was accomplishing each week. I also conducted monthly team meetings to go over only the most pertinent information related to what we were working on for that time frame.”
View Interview Questions From Multiple Angles
Research suggests that most hiring decisions are made within 15 seconds. Whether that is enough time to warrant a good decision is debatable by many experts but unless they are poorly dresses or have bad hygiene it is advised to avoid passing any judgements until the interview is at least 50% complete.
The best interview questions will tell you a story about the person behind the resume. These questions are designed to reveal their habits, lifestyle, personality, knowledge, strengths, weaknesses, skills and abilities.
Interview questions should also benefit the job seeker and provide them with a chance to speak on details that dont fit on one or two sheets of paper.
Todays savvy interviewer will always include interview questions tailored specifically to the company and position. This list of the 10 best questions works across various industries and job descriptions.
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Communication Interview Questions For Managers
When it comes to managing teams, communication is one of the most important factors. Use this combination of standard and behavioral-based interview questions to assess your manager candidates communication skills.
- What are your preferred tools for communication? How have you used these successfully in the past?
- Tell me about a time when you had a project run into problems because of communication. What would you have done differently if given the chance?
- We let employees work remotely X number of days/week/month. What do you think is necessary to ensure everyone is operating at a high level? How do you help monitor progress or goal setting within your team?
- Describe a time where your team had a fire-drill emergency situation occur. How did you manage the team effectively through that situation? Is there anything you would have done differently if given the chance?
Depending on the size of the team, a manager will often have to mitigate and resolve conflicts within the team/department/company. These are good questions to ask managers to learn how theyve navigated different conflicts.
Whats The Most Interesting Project Youve Worked On In A Past Position
Ask this interview question to determine if the applicant would likely enjoy the work available at your company. Do the types of tasks they find fulfilling align with the job description for your position? Making sure employees find their work professionally satisfying is one of the most important factors in retention.
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How Does This Role Contribute To Larger Company Goals
It’s not terribly difficult to find a candidate who can execute in a role. It is, however, terribly difficult to find a candidate who can also understand how it fits into larger goals.
This includes being able to self-manage, prioritize high-value activities, and grow their role in a direction that aligns with the company’s growth.
How It Helps You
This information can be hard to come by if your company isn’t very communicative or transparent, so this is a good chance to get that information to use it to guide your decisions if you land the role.
Describe A Conflict You Had With One Of Your Colleagues And How You Resolved It
When working alongside other people, its impossible that everyone always sees eye to eye. That is why its important for a prospective employee, especially one who will be in a managerial position, to have strong conflict resolution skills that will allow them to effectively get along well with their team. An applicant should be able to relate an experience during which they successfully worked out an issue with a colleague.
- An honest and concise response
- Ability to listen to others complaints
- Willingness to compromise
Example:
I had a disagreement with a previous co-worker when they missed some important deadlines, increasing the workload for the rest of the team. After discussing it together, we were able to find a way to improve workflow for everyone.
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What Was One Of The Most Difficult
Why It Works: The answer to this question will help determine what motivates this management candidate in their career, what it is that gives them a sense of growth and satisfaction. This is helpful in assessing whether the candidate will sustain satisfaction in the particular environment for which you are assessing them.
How Do You Evaluate The Performance Of The Person In This Position
Knowing how you will be evaluated is a good idea before going into any position. Some companies offer annual evaluations, while others offer more frequent feedback. It may also benefit you to know if you will be working directly with your supervisor who will be there to observe your work or if they will be relying on data or results that will affect your evaluation.
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