MANAGEMENT INTERVIEW GUIDE

  1. Describe your work history, beginning with your first position after school. Please elaborate on why you either changed companies or positions.
  2. Describe a recent day in your current position, beginning with the time you arrived at work and the time you left for the day.
  3. How many hours do you typically work in a week?
  4. Describe three of your proudest accomplishments in the past few years.
  5. What special talents do you believe you have that will be most valuable to the organization you work for?
  6. Please describe yourself using three adjectives.
  7. Describe the ideal relationship you would envision having with your manager.
  8. How do you typically go about selling your point of view?
  9. What would attract you to an opportunity at another organization?
  10. Describe a person(s) who has had a strong influence on your adult life. What was the nature of their influence?
  11. Who would you say is the most effective manager you ever worked for? Could you describe what made him/her so effective?
  12. How would you compare yourself to this person? If we could ask this person to compare himself/herself to you, what do you envision that he/she would say are the primary differences in your respective styles?
  13. Who is the least effective manager you’ve ever worked for? What made him/her so ineffective?
  14. When it comes to bosses or supervisors, what are your pet peeves? What are the little things a boss might do that drive you up the wall?
  15. What techniques or methods have you used to ensure that you clearly understand the expectations of your current manager?
  16. What methods have you used to ensure that your communication is clearly understood by your employees?
  17. What do you especially enjoy about your current (or most recent) job function?
  18. How many people would you estimate that you have directly hired over the years?
  19. What techniques have you found to be most effective to avoid hiring mistakes?
  20. What would you say has been your biggest hiring mistake? What did you learn from that experience?
  21. When you realize you have an employee who you’ve given up on, what procedure do you typically follow to terminate him/her?
  22. Can you think of a recent crisis and describe how you handled it?
  23. What methods do you use to measure employee performance?
  24. What kind of employee behaviors really irritate you? How do you communicate this to your employees?
  25. If you had the last five years to live over again, what would be two or three things you would do differently?
  26. What are some recurring challenges that you face with your existing (or most recent) staff?
  27. How would you describe your management style?
  28. How do you believe your direct-reports would describe your management style? Any differently?
  29. If we were interviewing one of your sharpest employees, are there any aspects of your management style you would speculate that he/she would criticize?
  30. When you ultimately retire, what would you want your employees and co-workers to say about you at your retirement party?
  31. What kinds of management duties are most distasteful or challenging for you?
  32. Please give us some idea of the proactive steps you have taken to improve the effectiveness of your management style.
  33. How do you handle criticism?
  34. When you deserve criticism, how do you prefer your boss to deliver it?
  35. If there were just one personality characteristic that you could change about yourself, what would it be?
  36. Most people have a code by which they live; how would you describe yours?
  37. Tell me some of the ways you’ve seen other managers de-motivate employees. How would you counsel managers you’ve observed making those kinds of management mistakes?
  38. What role would you like to see yourself playing in a company in say, five years? What vision do you have and what obstacles, if any, do you anticipate in realizing this vision?
  39. How creative do you see a management role to be?
  40. What do you think would be your primary reason for leaving your current situation and accepting a position with another company?
  41. When one of your employees disagrees with a decision that you are about to make, how would you prefer that he/she communicate this with you? How do you communicate disagreements you have with the manager to whom you report?
  42. What are the key performance standards you are measured by in your current position?
  43. How have you performed against those standards?
  44. What has been your proudest achievement professionally over the past five years?
  45. What has been your biggest management blunder over the past five years? What have you learned from that experience?
  46. How comfortable do you feel managing salespeople? Describe some challenges you’ve experienced managing salespeople.
  47. How comfortable do you feel managing operations people? Describe some challenges you’ve experienced managing operations people.
  48. How important is personal development to you?
  49. Please describe some of your hobbies and personal interests.
  50. What type of relationship do you like to establish with your employees?
  51. Why should we select you for this management opportunity?
  52. Is there anything else you would like to tell me about yourself that I haven’t asked?

Compliments of Bill Lee at

Remodelers Advantage, Inc.
535 Main Street – Suite 211, LaurelMD20707
Ofc. 301-490-5620 Fax. 301-498-6869