If I were to interview the people who have reported to you in the past, how would they describe your

management style?

If I were to interview your reporting staff members, how would they describe your strengths and weaknesses as a manager and supervisor?

Give me an example, from your past work experiences, about a time when you had an underperforming employee reporting to you. How did you address the situation? Did the employees performance improve? If not, what did you do next?

Rate your management skills on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 representing excellent management skills. Provide three examples from your past work experiences that demonstrate your selected number is accurate.

Describe the work environment or culture and its management style in which you have experienced the most success.

Tell me about a time when you had a reporting employee who performed very well. The employee exceeded goals and sought more responsibility. Describe how you handled this situation day-to-day and over time.

Describe three components of your philosophy of management that demonstrate what you value and add, as an individual, to an organizations culture and work environment.

What factors are crucial within an organization and must be present for you to work most effectively?

Tell me about a time when you reorganized a department or significantly changed employee work assignments. How did you approach the task? How did the affected employees respond to your actions?

One of the jobs of a manager or supervisor is to manage performance and perform periodic performance reviews. Tell me how you have managed employee performance in the past. Describe the process you have used for performance feedback.

When you have entered a new workplace in the past, as a manager or supervisor, describe how you have gone about meeting and developing relationships with your new coworkers, supervisors, and reporting staff.

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.

The interview questions you ask, and the interview question answers your candidate supplies, are crucial to your assessment of the candidates knowledge, experience, and potential cultural fit within your organization. Hiring a manager or supervisor presents a special challenge. Ideally, you want a

candidate who has both management skill and subject matter knowledge about the area he or she will supervise. The subject matter expertise is easier to assess by looking at the candidates past jobs, accomplishments, and degrees. Management skills, experience, and approach are assessed during an interview and by a careful background check. The management interview questionsyou ask and the interview question answers you receive from your candidates help you evaluate the candidates management skill and experience. Evaluating management skills and approach is daunting. A candidate may supply superior answers to interview questions, but the described approach may not fit your organization. A manager who professes a participatory, empowering approach to management, for example, might not fit in an organization that is hierarchical and driven by management decisions made at the top. Any hope you have that the new manager will help transform the management style within your organization, unless there is a firm commitment already existing t o do so, is misplaced. Its more likely the new manager will never fit and leave a failed relationship.) In an interview for a management role, the candidates interview question answers must also allay your fears that the new manager will not gain acceptance from the employees who mustchoose to follow. Employees, who were likely internal candidates or wanted to be - are tough to win over unless the manager is skilled and experienced. Overall Appropriate Interview Question Answers When you assess the job interview question answers from your candidate, pay attention to how your candidate answers your questions. Does he or she appear comfortable responding to each of the situations you describe and question? If not, the candidate may be inexperienced as a manager and may be misrepresenting his or her credentials. Always ask these questions. These interview question answers give you valuable knowledge about the candidates experience. Ask:

how long the candidate has worked as a manager, the number of employees who reported directly to him or her (the number of employees whom he directly supervised with

performance assessment and compensation assignment responsibilities), and to describe the exact responsibilities and activities over which he or she had oversight for these employees. Aside from management experience as reflected in interview question answers, you are looking for answers that reflect the values and approaches that are acceptable and promoted within your workplace culture. You are looking for truthful, genuine answers that accurately describe a management style and approach that will fit within your environment. Beware of a candidate who persistently says the right things but fails to back up statements with solid stories that demonstrate the requested value or approach in action. You seek demonstrable experience that is congruent with your culture, and a solid grasp of management responsibilities and requirements.

Interview Question Answers for Management Positions These are the interview question answers you seek as you evaluate candidates for a management role in your organization. If your interview process is well planned and your candidate profile is clearly described, the skills you are assessing are already identified. The candidates interview question answers confirm his or her capability to perform the job successfully. To establish the candidates skill in each area, the candidates examples and stories must illustrate how he or she effectively approaches and demonstrates competency in each of these management skill areas. In his or her interview question answers, the candidate must demonstrate the competency to:

Lead people and motivate employees to follow his or her leadership, Provide an effective process for performance management that gives measurable goals and solid direction to each individuals job and clearly defines management expectations, Provide frequent feedback and coaching to develop each employees performance continuously, Communicate the information employees need to perform effectively, Reward and recognize employee performance and contributions, Step up to the responsibility of addressing and disciplining unsatisfactory employee performance, and Plan, organize resources, direct, assign and delegate, control, and verify the accomplishment of work and department goals to achieve company expectations (the About.com management guide, John Reh, spells out these responsibilities).

I recently put this together for someone, and Im recycling it here: interview questions to ask if youre hiring a manager of a department, organization, whatever.

As youll see, the idea of most of these to give you a good feel for whether this is someone who gets things done, is a strong manager whos focused on results, etc. Please add in your own!

General Send the candidate your annual report or other materials ahead of time. In the interview, ask him/her to explain the organizations work to you as if you were a prospective funder or investor.

How would the people around you describe you? Whats a common misconception some people have about you? Tell me about a difficult decision you had to make recently. Walk me through the problem and what your thought process was, and how you ultimately handled it.

What is one thing that you have had difficulty over coming in your career, and how did you do that?

What is some of the most useful criticism youve ever received? Why?

Have you ever been given criticism that you disagreed with? What was it? How did you handle that?

Getting things done What has your biggest achievement been at ___? What results there that you produced are you most proud of? (Then ask the same question for other jobs theyve had. Youre looking for someone with a pattern of taking things from X to Y with Y being greater than X.)

What were the big things you were trying to achieve in the past year at ___? What things were/are worrying you? What were/are you doing about it?

What were your organization or departments major goals last year (depending on whether the person was managing the organization or a department there)? How did you settle on those? To what extent did you meet them? How did you measure whether or not you met them? Were there targets you considered setting, but ultimately rejected?

Whats an example of a goal you didnt meet? How come? How did you respond to that? What will success look like for you this year? Why is that important? How hard will it be to get there?

If I were to ask your ___ (someone who reports to the person) what her goals are, what would she say? Does that match what you would say they are?

Tell me about one of the organizations largest or most important projects and how you managed it, from start to finish. Im interested in something where others were doing the work, but you were overseeing it. - What was the vision for it? - What happened? - How did you ensure that happened? (Youre looking for managers who leave little to chance: either they have good reason to rely on the person in charge of the project, or they keep their hands in things enough to ensure success.) - How do you know it happened? - What lessons did you take away?

What are some of the biggest obstacles your organization/department (whichever they are responsible for) hit in the last few years? What did you do to address them?

Tell me about something you got done at ___ that someone else in your role probably wouldnt have.

Managing people

How would you describe yourself as a manager? How do you think others would describe you?

What is your philosophy about management? What do you think the fundamental purpose of a manger is? (Youre looking for someone who knows its about getting things done, not something touchy-feely.) How has your management philosophy evolved as youve gained more management experience?

What do you do to work on being a better manager? What do you think are some of the most common ways people fail at management? Talk about the balance between not micromanaging but still being involved enough to be able to catch problems early on.

Tell me about an employee who became more successful as a result of your management. How would you describe the bar for performance at ___ (or in the department you manage)? Who are your best people? What are you doing to retain them? What do you look for when you hire people? Tell me about your most recent high-level hire. How did you go about searching for the person?

When was the last time you fired someone or coached someone out? How many people have you fired in the last two years? Why? (Youre looking for a manager who fires people who dont perform at a high standard.)

Walk me through one of more challenging times you had to let someone go what did you try first, how did you make the decision? How much time did it take from when you first started having concerns until when you ultimately let the person go?

Tell me about the most difficult employee situation you ever had to handle. What did you do and what was the result?

Tell me about a time you were managing a poor performer. How did you handle it and what was the outcome?

What was the most difficult management decision youve ever had to make?

Tell me about a management mistake that you made in the past. What would you do differently?

Even the best bosses generate complaints from their employees now and then. What complaints do you think the people youve managed would have about you?