​Are you looking to expand your project management infrastructure by hiring a new project manager? Or perhaps several new project managers? Or maybe you made some bad hiring decisions and lacked the PM experience in the organization to experience success on some of the more complex technical engagements that have come your way. What do you do? Who do you look for? Where do you look?


I have some tips on hiring the best PMs available that I’d like to share – and I welcome additional thoughts from our readers as well. Here are my top 5 tips for getting your PM stocked with the best of the best in terms of project management resources…


Look at leadership skills. The best of the best project managers have great leadership skills. It does take skills and the right personality to get your project team to follow you into battle no matter what. Not everyone has it and not all PMs have it. The most successful ones do, however. Look for that in the hiring process and design questions around that thought. Ask something like, “Tell me about a project where you had to make an unpopular decision and how your team reacted to that.” The best can make their team understand why it had to be and they managed to get the best out of their team and that situation anyway.


Look at tech skills. Even if the types of projects that you generally service aren’t all technical in nature, general tech skills are going to help most project managers. They show an analytical side that project managers need to have in order to succeed more often than they fail.


Look for passion. Project managers need passion when leading projects. They are driven to finish successfully, they are driven to serve their project clients and they are driven to successfully lead their project teams and get the best and the most out of them. Look for a passion for the position you’re discussing with them and a passion for the profession in general. If you don’t see it or hearing during the conversation, move on to the next candidate. And stay away from the whiners. If they are complaining at length about a past position or organization, run away. You probably don’t want them. If they say something about not getting proper project support from a senior leader, then that may indicate passion for the project and frustration with not being able to give 110% to the project customer. That’s ok.


Get some detail on project successes. You can tell BS from reality if you’re a good interviewer or hiring manager. When those candidates start talking about past projects if it rolls of the tongue like a 2nd language, you know they know what they’re talking about and aren’t giving you some rehearsed lines from a page. They go into details about dollar amounts, team sizes, struggles they worked through, etc. You’ll probably hear about their weaknesses and strengths without even needing to ask because it will come out in the discussion of their past experiences with projects and project clients.


Emphasize experience over certification. If you want certification, that’s fine. But don’t overlook the experienced PMs out there who have been through it. So many great project managers do not have certification. If you just overload your staff with certified PMs and don’t get good, experienced project leadership on board, you will be sorry…guaranteed. And look anywhere. You can hire a great PM in another city, state or country and use them remotely….possibly with some travel required. A very good PM will be self-disciplined enough to manage one to many projects very well in a remote situation. And that way you can get great talent that you might otherwise not get because they don’t want to relocate and in this economy you probably don’t want to pay for relocation anyway. You don’t have to – remote can work to your advantage.


Summary


I think we all know that hiring good staff in any position is an art form – it is NOT luck. Be careful, be aware, and be prepared to ask the right questions. Look for knowledge about projects, customers, financials, resource management – all those things that go into being a good project manager on a daily basis.


What about our readers – what are your tips on hiring the right project managers for your PM infrastructure? And PMs looking for positions – what are your questions or experiences that you’re running into in the marketplace? Share and discuss.

Are you a candidate for a new project management position in your organization or at another company and you are preparing for the interview? If so, there are some strategies that can help you. One, is to ask a few pointed questions to get detailed information about the PM infrastructure.

You want to ask questions – always ask questions – especially when the interviewer asks if you have any questions. Ideally, you want to answer questions with a positive response. Try to avoid, “no” or “I don’t know” or “I’ve never had experience with that”, etc. Instead, search for ways to apply experience, a quantifiable success story or highlight your leadership qualities.

Make sure to ask intelligent questions. Make them worthwhile so that you are actually gathering information that will help you determine whether or not this is your dream job.

Here are 5 legitimate fact finding questions you can (should?) ask in your next interview for a project management position.

What is your average size project in terms of dollars and team members?

This type of question – a good quantifiable question – makes the interviewer think hard and will allow you to follow-up (possibly) in terms of size of projects and teams that you have led or worked with.

Do you have business analysts assigned to the projects?

You want to know this because this gives you an idea of the level of project management oversight vs. hands-on tech work on requirements, functional design, test preparation, etc. If there are no BAs – and that does happen – then usually what they are looking for is a project manager-business analyst combo position. If so, make sure you are experienced in both areas and willing to play both roles.

Is there a PMO?

Tell me about the structure of your PMO. Finding out details about their project management infrastructure will help you frame your other questions as well as your responses to the interviewer questions. It may also, ultimately, help you decide whether you want to accept the position should it be offered to you.

Does the pool of project managers run through policies, tools and templates annually to discuss changes and improvements?

This is a good one because often PMO’s and pools of project managers will have annual getaways or working sessions where they brainstorm on process improvements… think of it as a huge internal lessons learned session. It can be fun, but most of all, it’s productive and tells you something about the progressive and focused nature of the organization’s project management infrastructure.

Not in their protocol? Well this may give you a leadership edge to spearhead this effort in the near future if you are up for the challenge.

Describe the process flow of the average project through the organization from conception to completion.

This response will give you insight to when the PM gets involved, what the pre-engagement project structure or process looks like and what handoff to support looks like.

Summary

No one can guarantee, of course, that any particular conduct or Q&A in an interview will ensure that you get hired. However, asking compelling questions like these during the interview will show the interviewer your genuine interest and will most likely leave a lasting impression.

Project Management ChatHow about our readers – what suggestion questions or tips do you have for other readers seeking a first time or new project management position?

Questions or comments? Feel free to share them below!

It’s especially tough when you have applied for a job where it appears that you’re a perfect match for the position. Why weren't you picked? And why haven’t you heard from the employer after you spent so much time and effort writing a perfect cover letter to send with your well-written resume?...

Cheetah Learning - the #1 provider of Project Manager Professional (PMP) preparation and certification training - touts a 98% success rate in getting their students certified and says they can do it in 4 days of prep, you take the test on Friday of that week and you're done... fully trained and guaranteed to pass that Friday test.

Are you skeptical? You shouldn't be... it is true and I want to explain that process to you...

When you register for Cheetah, Exam Prep, they will help them complete PMI’s eligibility action and once approved, BEFORE your Cheetah class starts you schedule your PMP exam for the Friday the week of your Cheetah class.  

Cheetah has been teaching the class this way since 2001 and the first week Cheetah taught it was the week of 9/11.  Of course Cheetah did not know it would be the week of 911 when they started on Monday that week.  Cheetah has also been teaching the exact same program as a virtual live course since 2015 which is how they are teaching it now with COVID-19.

Curious students can do Cheetah’s free webinar - 5 quick steps to become PMP certified and take a free baseline exam. If you would like to learn more about how Cheetah has helped tens of thousands of students from thousands of organizations from around the globe become PMP certified after only four days of prep over the past 20 years - the link is on the front page of Cheetah Learning’s website.   Cheetah was the first to do an accelerated PMP exam prep program and has the longest running program for one simple reason - it works.

June 8, 2020 - Shelter-in-place orders prevented millions of deaths and tens of millions of COVID-19 cases, according to two studies published in Nature on Monday.

The two studies used different methods but reached similar conclusions. One study, published by a team of U.S. researchers, calculated that lockdowns prevented more than 60 million infections in the U.S. The other study, published by the Imperial College London COVID-19 Response Team, calculated that shutdowns saved more than 3 million lives across Europe.
“Without these policies employed, we could have lived through a very different April and May,” Solomon Hsiang, lead researcher of the U.S. study and director of the University of California at Berkeley’s Global Policy Laboratory, told The Washington Post.
Hsiang and colleagues used an econometric model to estimate how more than 1,700 stay-at-home orders, business closures and travel bans changed the spread of the virus in six countries: China, France, Iran, Italy, South Korea and the U.S. They looked at how infection rates changed before and after local, regional and national restrictions.


Before shutdowns, infections were doubling every two days, the team concluded. After shutdowns, the growth rates slowed substantially. Over time that reduction compounded, which further slowed the spread of the virus.
In total, the six countries avoided about 62 million documented infections. The actual number could be about 530 million, the researchers said, because people with mild infections and people without symptoms often don’t get tested or diagnosed. In the U.S. alone, shutdown measures prevented 4.8 million diagnosed COVID-19 cases and perhaps 60 million “actual” infections.
The Imperial College London team used an epidemiological model to estimate transmission numbers for 11 European countries based on observed deaths. Overall, the countries prevented 3 million deaths and reduced the rate of infection by 81%. The shutdown orders achieved “epidemic control,” they wrote.
In a conference call with reporters on Monday, the research teams said economic activity should return with precautions such as physical distancing, face masks and hand hygiene.
“We’re not saying the country needs to stay locked down forever,” said Samir Bhatt, senior author of the Imperial College London paper.

While the virus may be receding in some areas, the researchers said, only about 4% of people in the countries studied have been infected so far.
“This is just the beginning of the epidemic,” Bhatt told the newspaper in an email. “We’re very far from herd immunity.”

Projects are hard to manage. Big and small – no doubt. In the world of project management, not everything is always how it seems or should seem. When a project comes to you you may think that it should be ready to manage. Your superiors should have more experience and PM or leadership knowledge than you. The project finances should be straightforward.
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I’m not saying project management is difficult…I don’t have to tell you that because you already know it is. However, things aren’t always how you would expect them to be so go into each project like it’s a fresh clean slate and with lots of facts to be questioned, assumptions to be analyzed and questions to be asked.

Let’s review some of my key project management tips that I’ve discovered over the years…