I haven’t been to this forum in a while, so I guess I’m again a noob. My company is looking to hire a PM, but we want to see if there is a good way of testing the new candidaes on their experience in the remodeling industry. Are there any tests that anyone knows of?
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Give them a simple project, like building a set of saw horses, that should answer most questions if their worth anything.
P.S. welcome to BT!
Edited 10/4/2007 8:37 pm by G80104
You'd be better off giving them aptitude and personality testing to find the right person. If all you are looking for is experience that's easy.... but it will rarely find you the person you are really looking for.
Try Kolbe and enneagram for starters.
Tests can only take you so far. I've hired a number of IT PM's (looking for one right now in fact) and I'm much more interested in how they interact with me than in how they do on a test. Project Management has been described as 90% communication and this is the best way to get at their skills in this area.
I like to do situational interviewing: "Tell me about a time when you had to deal with an upset client. What happened, what was the outcome.", "In this position you deal with personality conflicts. Tell me about a specific situation, how you handled it, what worked, what you would do differently...". Make sure they describe real events vs. hypothetical situations.
Regarding skills - planning, risk mitigation and issue management are in my mind the most important. Have the candidate walk you through how they do those, what are their main concerns and focus areas, etc.
I like to have a team of interviewers. Each person is assigned a certain area to focus on (based on their own strengths) as well as the general impressions (most important being - would I want to work with this person?). Hope that helps.
based on some of the PM's I've worked around ...
if they have anything about Engineering on their resume ...
real quick and real loud yell ...
NEXT!
Jeff
Buck Construction
Artistry In Carpentry
Pittsburgh Pa