How Would You Interview Potential Managers? 72
martincmartin asks: "The company I work for is starting to interview development managers, and I've been asked to interview a bunch of them. While there's been a lot written on interviewing programmers and what makes a good manager, how do you interview a management candidate? What questions do you ask? What are good and bad answers? What else do you do?"
What level? (Score:4, Insightful)
Designing a standard interview for "a manager" comes close behind making one for "a worker".
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:What level? (Score:5, Informative)
You need to look at the hole picture (Score:2)
Each product team, taken in context (the services and support from the rest of the company),
must be capable of providing skills to handle the whole picture.
Bigger companies provide more support skills for each team.
Bigger product teams provide more internal skills.
The required but missing skills form a hole that must be filled.
The development manager is the one that needs to plug this hole,
either by directly providing innate skills, by asking someone to train
Re: (Score:2)
Re: What level? (Score:2)
"I see here on your resume that your last position was as a 'manager manager'. Right, I managed managers. I see, well, sorry, all those jobs are already filled."
If you are titled as a 'Manager' and you think your responsibility is to watch over other managers and take their info and pass it to upper levels, you are a wart on a mole, constantly being pumped full of BS
Re: (Score:2)
In a large enough organization, why can't the 'subordinates' be managers?
Re:What level? (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, I'll take a stab. For reference, so you know how much or how little my opinion is worth, I've steered my career towards being a senior technical person rather than management. I'm pretty much a sideways move from the level of manager you're looking to hire here.
With that disclaimer given, what would I want to see in such a manager? I think there are specific things involved with managing people, managing projects, and technical leadership. AFAICS, you haven't given a more detailed description of the balance of these for your specific post, so I'll outline my thoughts on each of these areas.
Managing people
It's been my experience that good managers of people tend to do three things well:
Someone jokes elsewhere in this discussion that you can't just judge managers by how hands-off their approach is and who gives the most perks to their staff, but frankly, I think just doing that would be more successful than the current policy at many organisations!
So in terms of interviewing a potential manager, I would be tempted to go for a practical example to judge their people management skills: describe an imagined next project for their team, and ask them how they'd go about finding out enough about the people they've already got to divide up the work, how they'd deal with any gaps (going into recruitment and team-building ideas if it's relevant), maybe how they'd deal with any apparent surpluses or team conflicts as potential difficulties, how they'd go about briefing the team and getting them started on the work, and how they'd monitor and support their team once it was up and running on the project.
Project management
To me, this aspect has a lot to do with dealing with the people above the manager:
Again, I'd be tempted to set this in the context of a concrete example or two during the interview, starting with their first thoughts on an initial brief from senior management, perhaps switching to the people management work above next, and coming back later in the interview when some requirements now need to change halfway through the project to see how they'd deal with that.
Technical leadership
If this is relevant for the post in question, I'd be looking for:
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If this is all you see a manager doing, then there is no need for them at all. All three of these can be provided at the executive level with the stroke of a pen.
If one requires the manager to have both management skills and (in this case) development skills, then the need to "get out of the way" will go away with a good manager. They can step in when the group being managed needs help, resources, mediation, or course change
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no need for a lot of managers.
However, please remember that those three items were only my criteria for managing people. Managers also tend to have the project management responsibilities I mentioned. Some, but not all, are also technical leads, and I gave further requirements for things I would expect of them as well.
FWIW, I disagree strongly with your assertion that a good manager would necessarily make a great
Re:What level? (Score:4, Insightful)
You need to tailor your questions to your organization so that you can ask your management candidate specific scenarios about real business practices and then ask him or her 'how would you solve/implement this'?
You'll get a quick idea how well your managers stack up to each other once you develop a way to determine how well your employees work in your specific organization.
Remember: sometimes a manager has to be a jerk. sometimes a manager has to be the heavy. Don't look for the nicest person. You HAVE to be the bad guy once in a while. A good manager is one who lays down the bad news and then still can motivate the team to perform well.
This is not professional advice. You want extensive advice? Call a consultant.
Re: (Score:2)
Not just to the team, but just as much to the customer and/or his superiors. One of the worst manager types you can have is the one that'll always tell the customer "yes, we can fix that" and the superiors "yes, we'll deliver on budget" while
Re: (Score:2)
> Remember: sometimes a manager has to be a jerk.
> sometimes a manager has to be the heavy.
> Don't look for the nicest person.
> You HAVE to be the bad guy once in a while.
Yes and no. Yes, you have to be the heavy sometimes, you have to be the bad guy sometimes. But you don't have to be a jerk about it. I don't think you meant that a manager does; But some people do seem to feel that you have to be the heavy in the obnoxious a**hole way, and
Question One (Score:5, Funny)
Is David Brent your hero? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
First and foremeost: read the CV in advance, do every single background check you can and at the first lie - show him the door. Which is valid for any interview anyway. Not just management. A person who is happy to lie in your face in an interview is not someone you would like to work with.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Get him talking (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Get him talking (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an excellent point. For whatever reason, many of the really talented managers that I have worked with are simply "naturals." They haven't a clue how to articulate how they do what they do--they just do it. I realize that this probably rubs many
One such manager that I used to work with was Patti. She was unremarkable in every way (looks, intelligence, education) and I guarantee that she had never read any "management philosophy" books. But she had a naturally calm and pleasant demeanor, an innate ability to make correct decisions on the fly, and great ability to prioritize. Her honesty and integrity just gave her such an air of authority that she rarely had to use the power of her position to get her people to get the job done. Needless to say, she was always the top-performing manager in her category.
Personally, I would much rather have this type of person than some hot-shot who thinks that he is the smartest guy in the room.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Hey, if they don't have buzzwords they can't be management material right? :-) Or at least thats what I've learn working on an MBA.
Re: (Score:2)
Think about what happens in your office, or the office that this position is in. What problems do they commonly face? If it is a new group that hasn't worked together than think about problems getting new groups together run into. Managers spend a lot of time dealing with people and the problems that people have with each other. Some examples would be simple jelousy problems between people, argumentative behavior (both to coworkers and to superiors), proble
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That is a good first step, but you are going to get what they want you to hear, probably almost a quote out of a management book, but it won't do a very good job at getting to what they will be like. A situational interview where a multitude of situations are presented and the interviewee must determine his/her actions. Start with some of the common problems you have faced in the organization nd then move on to so
interviewing techniques (Score:4, Interesting)
To get the job, you need to look for alignments on the softer stuff - vision, attitude, personality and motivation levels. There's no quick and dirty way to assess all that. That's why it's an interview, not a questionaire..
Re: (Score:2)
Call the company your candidate worked for, try to get a receptionist, and ask to talk with people at the company who worked _under_ your candidate.
Naahhhh... (Score:2)
My take is role play them through senarios. Because a gruff boss can be good or bad, same with a pleasant boss. You want to know when there is a looming deadline what your boss is going to say about you staying home with your sick kid. Or if the new co-worker has a bad case of body odor/bad attitude/offensive personality. Or if the higher ups are cranky about a change that was made by the employee for various reasons (managers insistance/ legal/ policy change). And ho
What a coincedence (Score:1)
http://www.itasoftware.com/careers/jsearch.html [itasoftware.com]
Anyway, somebody asked you to do it, so you must have some idea of what the job entails(and if you don't, you won't even notice when you fail miserably, so who cares). Talk to each candidate for a while(not a whole lot longer than it takes to figure out that they aren't what you want). Ask questions that you think are relevant to doing the job. The answer to questions like 'Do you have good people skills?' is
What to watch out for ... (Score:5, Insightful)
The people who study managers are finding that psychopaths are good at getting management jobs but are very bad at running an organization.
My advice is to focus on achievements. How has the candidate done at team building? Really check their references. Ask for the names of some employees you can contact. A boss may miss the fact that someone is a psychopath but an employee never does.
link [softpanorama.org]
Re: (Score:2)
The job of a manager is to manage the company process and work flow, not to look important, make "tough" (easy/stupid) decisions, mic
Re: (Score:2)
There was a
2 questions (Score:2, Insightful)
1 - ask the candidate: What have you DELIVERED?
Some people like to stay on a project just long enough to include it on their resume, but don't stay around long enough to be productive. You need someone who has delivered an actual product - finished it, not toyed around with it.
2 - ask his/her co-workers on other projects (admittedly difficult to do.): Would you work for/with Mr/Ms X again?
Some people can deliver, but at a horrendous cost in morale, physical and mental he
Re:2 questions + 4 (Score:2)
Others off the top of my head.
Give me an example of how your resolved a conflict in a team ?
An example of how your secured extra resources ?
How have you managed a team through a big change ?
How have you had to change your management style to suit different team members ?
Three suggestions (Score:1)
2. Ask what their biggest cock-up as a manager was and how they would do things differently. Toss them out on their ear if they can't think of anything.
3. Ask what they would change about management where they currently
experience, experience, experience (Score:2)
ask them to describe their favorite and least favorite direct report.
Role Play... (Score:3, Interesting)
Take the manager into a quiet office and tell them that you're going to do some role play to observe their reactions. Give them a scenario... Eg, Employee theft, Trademark Crisis on project, Loss of proprietary information (that they are responsible for) etc.
See how well they respond. Usually, once they get into role play, they'll even assume the correct emotion state. See what they think of. Put them into an emotional problem.
eg, Someone comes in and lets the manager know they accidently gave their friend proprietary information and now it's on the Internet. Give the manager background. Is it a bad employee? Do they have family and how does that affect his decisions? Can he think on his feet to address the issue? How does he balance his commitment to his team with his commitment to his employer? A company hardliner always makes a bad manager, so even though it's the easy answer, it's often not what the company truly wants in a manager.
Make the scenario real enough, eg, he's just taken on the job when this happens, and now it's his mess.
Observing him as he reacts, thinks and determines what to do won't give a complete picture, but it will give an insight into their way of thinking and how they might react in similar circumstances if it did happen. Especially how he copes with this without knowing enough about the company he works for and what questions he asks the interviewer (playing the role of the managers Senior manager or as his 2IC...)
Adjust as required to meet company needs and position role description.
GrpA.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Theft, crisis and loss should not be what take 95% of his time. Management work consists mostly of repetative, non-exciting things. I would rather like to know how he gives positive and nagative feedback, how he addresses different personality types of his directs, how does his weekly meeting with each direct, how he mana
Simple Question (Score:2)
Ask them to spot things that are impossible (ln0 sorting) and ridiculous ones (2 Day database development and testing to production level)...
If the managers are able to tell which are tough tasks and which are reasonable ones they'll support and respect their staff and encourage really difficult or exceptional work.
A lack of technical skills on the part of the manager, seems to be the biggest divisive element in most technical environments I've been a p
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree. I don't need a non-technical manager to know that something is impossible. I just need them to trust the senior technical people when they say it is, and not to have committed the team to doing it for a customer before they bother to ask.
Mythical Man Month (Score:2)
"Which section of The Mythical Man Month did you find most insightful, and why?"
Management Style (Score:2, Informative)
When hiring someone to manage a bunch of programmers, ask them questions about the Mythical Man Month, agile software development, iterations and traditional waterfalls, and try to figure out if he understands the ways programmers think. You're not looking for a coder, but you do want someone who understands the lingo. If the guy sounds off with how he'll never ask his people to do something he couldn't do, perhaps ask why he'd
I just got interviewed for a similar position, (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It might be what they think they want. It probably isn't what they actually need.
It may be reassuring that you have a manager who can go back to doing what his or her people do, but it's a false sense of security. The approach doesn't scale. Rather than hiring a manager who can step in as a last resort
Quite simple (Score:1)
Programmer's priority should be Technology,Processes and People.
Hope this tip is useful to identify born managers and programmers.
Don't interview (Score:2)
Behaviors are key (Score:1)
One Question (Score:2, Interesting)
It is nearing the end of a project and there is a deadline upcoming. The bugs are still coming in faster than the programmers are fixing them. What do you do?
Re: (Score:2)
Call for a freeze on all new features.
Go back to the design board, and get some semblance of a design there.
Turn off any overtime (you go home in 8 hours, period).
Sort out the bugs into priorities, and have a few people working on fixing those.
Hire more people if and only if the team(s) involved ask for them, and the teams are short staffed.
Hire a few good people, put them to work on fixing the work culture upwards.
How Would You Interview Potential Managers? (Score:2)
Self-image (Score:1)
In simplest term (Score:1)
same way as everyone else (Score:2)
(One of) The most critical management traits... (Score:1)
That is not to say you want to work for a manager that makes rash or random decisions and then becomes all-or-nothing about that decision because he says that's the way it is -- obvious
Great Advice on Manager Tools (Score:1)
Bait and switch. (Score:1)
So I asked a couple of leading questions about their manner of dealing with increasing workloads to meet deadlines.
I phrased the first suggesting that working the team stupidly hard might be in the company culture and the second suggesting that managing client expectations would be prefered. The sychophant too
Watch out for agreement (Score:2)