Top 30 Project Management PMP Interview Questions

PMP Interview Questions and Answers

Under a survey of the Project Management Institute, the USA bears a loss of more than $122 million for every $1 billion by investing in poor project performance and management. This is why it becomes a bit tricky when hiring an ideal project manager. This is another reason why candidates are interviewed thoroughly and effectively. Along with communication capacities, negotiation skills, and leadership qualities, an effective Project manager needs to excel in several other fields.

As project managers play a vital role in digital transformation by implementing digital initiatives, you can face several challenging yet simple questions while you appear for a project management interview.

This guide lists 30 project management interview questions that can help you to prepare better for attaining the job role! Let's look into them quickly!

PMP Questions Related to Clear Communication

1.What challenges did you face in terms of communication in your last project?

Being a manager, you are required to communicate well with your team for delivering excellent projects. While there are no doubts that communication problems appear, nobody would want that to create an impact on the project. What the interviewer here wishes to know is how you have handled communication problems in the past. Make sure you put stress on the excellent quality of the project that you and your team were able to deliver even after facing challenges. As an example, you can say how it was difficult to conduct face-to-face meetings but you managed it with webchat meetings. Regardless, your objective to answer this question should entirely focus on how you manage effective project delivery even after communication problems.

2.Explain your communication style with your team?

When the interviewer asks you this, he/she wants to know if you are an effective commutator who motivates the members of your team even in case of language barriers. Not only do great project managers encourage their team by delegating, but they must also be very clear and precise about their expectations. Ensure to point out the importance of being a good communicator to carry out multiple projects at a time thereby keeping the team intact. You can state how you like and prefer communicating with your team and how according to you it is effective and successful.

PMP Questions on Customer Orientation

3.How can you ensure that you and your team deliver excellent performance to meet customer expectations?

Here, the interviewer wishes to see how you were able to excel in the past with your performance. When it comes to delivering the project, it should be your ultimate goal. You can give examples and details of your past projects. Make sure you don't stretch it and be precise.

4.Name the best practices that you have used to build excellent customer relations?

It is essential to maintain brilliant relationships with customers. The interviewer here wants to know the tips and tactics of how you can maintain excellent customer relations. You can even state the importance of keeping customers happy thereby explaining the process of keeping them content.

PMP Questions on Consistency and Integrity

5.How do you liaise with bad news?

Being a project manager in the past, it is quite likely that you have been in situations where you had to handle delivering bad news. Here, the interviewer wishes to see if you are upfront and considerate with everyone. Additionally, they want to know how the news will impact all the team members and how you handle it.

6.How did you manage to handle dissatisfied employees?

Answering this question effectively will state that you are an effective problem solver and critical thinker. In case you don't have any relevant examples, you can state how much you care about your team members. Hence, you would love to uncover all of their problems and make sure they are not dissatisfied or discontented. While it is not possible to keep all the employees happy, the interviewer wishes to see how much effort you put to keep your team in a good state thereby handling all the rectifications professionally.

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7.Say about those times where it was difficult to keep your promise but you did?

Here, you can think about times when you had agreed to a certain project which was challenging but as a project manager, you had to accept it. Next, you have to explain how you managed to perform your task brilliantly and effectively thereby following your promise. Even though it was difficult and you failed, you can still be honest while answering this.

Domain Knowledge and Skills-Based Question

8.Name the three key challenges in the industry today. How can you tackle these efficiently?

Generally, this question will test your existing knowledge in the project management industry. Describe the 3 relevant challenges and then state the solutions and respond to them according to you. Having this knowledge is essential for bringing success to any project manager to tackle all the challenges in the organization.

Project Management Questions on Developing Team and Team Members

9.How and how well do you motivate your team members?

Team members always feel motivated and boosted when the project manager elevates their confidence. Being a leader, you must not only make sure to keep your team on the right track but motivate them with their ongoing projects. This helps them to build confidence in completing the project with good motivation. If you don't find any examples of the past, you can consider yourself as a team member and state how you would want your manager to praise and appreciate you for your projects.

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10.What tools do you adopt to develop your team?

Here it's time to show your huge knowledge and expertise in all the technologies and tools that you deal with and have knowledge about. Make sure you specifically make online tools, software to grams, and several other technologies that you use to finish your daily task. However, ensure stating that you are always up for learning and exploring new programs, software, and tools for developing your team.

11.How do you manage the performance of your team?

Here, the leadership qualities of being a project manager enter. Be very precise and clear while you answer this question. When it's about managing the performance of your team members, you can speak about how you hold discussions, meetings, and calls to keep a track of the performance. Say how you hold strategic discussions each week. You can even provide some real examples of how your effective management has led to excellent team-building and performance.

PMP Questions on Effective Delegation

12.Explain your delegation style?

By asking questions about delegation, the interviewer puts light on your leadership skills. Hence, here you can explain some of the best examples and tricks that have worked for you excellently in the past. In case you have not led a team before, make sure you come up with an example that you think has an excellent delegation style.

13.How effectively do you delegate responsibility?

Delegating responsibility is the supreme quality of being a project manager. When your interviewer asks this question to you, make sure you discuss a few relevant examples that state that delegating responsibility is built naturally in you.

14.How do you review and handle the delegated responsibilities?

The project manager itself means that your roles, tasks, and responsibilities are higher than your team members. Here, you can discuss a few examples of how you handle these. Be it by using any project management software, or scheduling meetings. When you give an example, make sure it meets the expectations of what your interviewer is exactly expecting.

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PMP Questions on Goals

15.State your project and career goals for the upcoming 6 months ?

Be very honest about all or any of the short-term project goals that you have been dealing with currently as this will focus on how much enthusiasm you hold with regards to your projects thereby being goal-oriented. While discussing career goals, make sure you say to the company that interviewing and being a part of their organization is a part of your career goal. In case you are not sure about any company to work for as such, be sure you are very clear with your goals that include your job and job role.

16.How do you set and track the goals of your team?

An important part of being a manager is to set deadlines, project goals, execution goals, and setting goals. This is because it helps the team members to keep going with their projects effectively thereby motivating them to perform better. Make sure you state relevant examples of how you work on setting goals for your team and how you have managed to track them in the past. To be more precise, you can say about a project and its deadline that needed to be delivered quite quickly. Hence, state how everyone was involved in the project and how did you track the project at regular intervals to check for potential obstacles or problems by offering great solutions and ideas to cope up with them.

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Project Management Questions on Managing Ambiguity and Risks

17.Suppose your current project has high levels of uncertainty. How will you handle these uncertainties?

Well, here you must know that no project goes without blocks or hindrances, and hence, people generally expect that. With this question, the person interviewing you wants to know how you can handle any project that can potentially result in a setback. Keep in mind that here, your qualities as a project manager come to play. A good project manager must always have multiple ways and tricks in mind to apply when needed.

18.How do you handle modifications to your project?

To be very honest, some changes take place at different levels and that is inevitable. However, being a project manager, it is essential to adapt all the modifications rapidly. Elaborate to your interviewer how you would keep your entire team on track by packing them together whenever any project change occurs.

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PMP Questions on Proactive Decision Making

19.State a few examples of proactive decision-making that you have made in past projects and life generally?

One top quality of a good project manager is taking initiative. Here, you can think of certain project examples from your past that involve tons of proactive decision-making. You can also state examples that are not related to the workplace as they have asked about general life as well.

20.Explain any situation when you made a tough decision and it backfired?

This question is quite tricky and important. Here, the interviewer wants to see how honest you are with yourself as well as with the ones sitting in front of you. It takes courage to admit one's mistake and accept the failure. The person who is interviewing you wishes to see how well you handle setbacks or drawbacks of your project decision. Answering this question honestly is very essential as there cannot be a person who will not commit a mistake or get into an unwanted situation created by their decisions. The interviewer wishes to know how well you have learned from the experience and get ready to improve your skills as a project manager.

Prioritizing and Time Management Related Questions of Project Management

21.How can you ensure delivering the project on time and is always on track?

Here, your interviewer wishes to get an idea of your work process. Additionally, they want to see if you are detail-oriented. To answer this, you can explain the way you check in with your team during the project unless it is delivered. You can even say that to ensure keeping everything on track and delivering the projects on time, you perform regular and effective communication with your team members because it is the key.

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22.As a manager, what are the tools that you use to plan the activities of you and your team?

Generally, there is an endless list of processes and tools that an ideal project manager uses to stay organized. These comprise all the tools dealing in meetings to project management programs. Make sure you give a list of a maximum number of tools that you think you are familiar with even if you have not used them earlier but are ready to explore in the future. The interviewer here wants to see your knowledge of project management tools and software.

Scenario-Based PMP Interview Questions

23.What does an ideal project mean to you?

This is one of the most important questions in a project management interview. It focuses on the nature and type of project that you would prefer to take up. Make sure you answer this question honestly about which projects excite you and which areas do you excel in. Include points like your deadlines, creativity, and innovation that you implement in your project.

24.What steps will you take to bring the project back on track when it goes off the rail?

Once you find a project going out of the track, the immediate next step should be on how you work on bringing it back on track. Being a project manager, you must be capable of taking effective steps to readjust the resource management, put extra pressure and effort, spotting the root of the problem leading to off-track and others.

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25.How do you handle unhappy stakeholders?

As a project manager, you must be aware of the project outcomes and unhappy customers. While answering this, make sure you reveal the importance and value that you hold for your customers and that you are ready and enthusiastic about accepting their demands and amendments. You should be very open about making necessary changes to what the customer demands. You can even explain how effectively you communicated with the customer throughout the project process to ensure good delivery. In addition, you can even state how efficiently you will communicate with the customer and make them understand the potential outcomes of the project.

26.Explain your strategy by which you prioritize tasks?

It does not matter what size or scope the project has. What matters is a priority. Prioritization is a vital concept that speaks about the success of any project thereby meeting the deadlines. When your interviewer asks this question, make sure you don't forget to state the difference between urgency and importance. Here, you can say what things you consider essential and leave behind those that are not essential. By this question, your interviewer wishes to know how you can manage a project flexibly and rapidly. Make sure you state that you don't feel bad to say a No to any project priority.

 27.What is the most important skill that a successful project manager should possess?

Here, you can bring up a couple of examples from your past projects. If you hold expertise in this field, you would then definitely know that the field of project management does not ask for a single skill. Or let's just say, a single skill is not enough. To be an efficient project manager, you must be endowed with several skill sets including, management skills, communication skills, leadership skills, negotiation skills, etc. While you name the skills, make sure you don't forget to mention why you think a skill is important for the designation. You can even include how such skills have benefited you in the past.

28.Speak about one of the biggest project mistakes that you have committed in the past? How did it affect your work?

When the interviewer asks this question to you, it is quite clear that he/she wishes to see how honest and sincere you are. Making errors is very normal. However, how you deal with it is what matters. Here, you can speak about any mistakes that you have made in your past projects. Make sure you don't say a No to this question. If you haven't committed any big mistake, you can speak of small mistakes that have impacted your project. Don't forget to mention how responsibly you have taken things under control and resolved it.

29.Under project management, What team forming process do you follow?

To be very precise, an ideal project manager must be equipped with enough knowledge regarding several different stages that a team undergoes throughout the project. Hence, this is one such question that is quite commonly asked in project management interviews and you may likely face it too. Moreover, the 5 development stages included in team formation comprise forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. While answering this question, make sure you explain each of these stages in detail.

30.What strategy do you implement for dealing with internal conflicts?

Here, the interviewer wishes to see your mediation skills provided that you are unbiased while solving any internal conflicts among team members. You can add why it is important to listen to both sides and understand their point of view. Make sure you state how you convince both sides to gain a mutual understanding and come to a conclusion that can result in favorable results for the organization or project. State how your decisions don't benefit one while harming the other.

Conclusion-

This guide lists the question that you can face while giving a project management interview to ensure that you are the right fit for their organization as a project manager. Make sure you prepare well before going for the interview, polish all your skills, and gain confidence to answer all the questions that the interviewer asks effectively and fearlessly. However, don't forget to prepare for the most important trait. With proper confidence, you can ace the interview and land directly on the job!

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