Scenario Based Project Manager Mock Interview
Master 25 scenario-driven interview questions covering stakeholder conflicts, scope changes, and resource constraints.
Question 4 of 25
What is your communication style? Cite an example of how it helped move a project along.
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Maria Cheryl Harkins is a Talent Development Consultant with over a decade of experience in sourcing, qualifying, interviewing, testing, onboarding, and training.
The project manager is the glue that holds the project together. Depending on the industry and the nature of projects, your communication effectiveness will play a major role in keeping team members informed and accountable throughout the process. Show the interviewer that you can adapt the way you communicate with team members based on the needs of the project. Provide an example or examples in which you used effective communication to resolve an issue or manage risk.
Maria Cheryl Harkins is a Talent Development Consultant with over a decade of experience in sourcing, qualifying, interviewing, testing, onboarding, and training.
"I like to over-communicate to ensure that nothing gets lost in the fold. For example, after sending post-meeting action items through email, I will assign tasks through the project tracker with clear notes. Then, I will continue to reach out to the task owners for real-time updates. Once, I had a team member whose deliverable was due in a day but was unresponsive. I sent a note through the project tracker and followed up through email, but still couldn't get a hold of them. I decided to call their personal phone and found out they lost their internet connection for the day and wouldn't be able to make the deadline. I made the call to re-assign to another team member immediately."
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Anonymous Answer
As a project manager communication is one of the most important skills. Effective communication is vital to making a project successful. There are 4 communication styles: passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive, and assertive. The type of communication style would depend on the situation. For example in the past I was working on a project where two employees had a constant conflict, it got to the point where it was affecting the project as they were taking more time arguing than working. I am very keen on ensuring that a project is delivered on time. What I did was use my assertive communication skills and told them to get it together and make a decision to get along else I am going to remove one of them from the team.
Marcie's Feedback
Nice! It sounds like you're very familiar with the different styles of communication, and you recognize the importance of communication in project management. It's great that you provided an example that shows how you effectively used one of those styles. What ended up happening? Did those arguing team members respond well to your method of communication? Also, consider describing how you communicate in general outside of the style types you mention (for example, directly, clearly, in a friendly manner, firm when needed, etc.) Good job!
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