Project Management interview questions
PM interviews — planning, risk, stakeholders, and what you did when the plan stopped matching reality.
18 questions, and for 6 of them what a good answer has to cover. This is the bank Answers Ready practises you against — the same questions, marked on the same points.
introduction
Tell me about yourself.
What a good answer covers
- A shape, not a history: what they deliver now, the size and kind of work, why this role.
- Under two minutes.
- Ends pointed at the job.
delivery
Tell me about a project that went wrong.
What a good answer covers
- Picks a real one. A candidate with no failures has not run anything or is not saying.
- What they decided, not only what happened to them.
- What changed afterwards in how they work.
- Owns their part without theatrical self-blame.
How do you close a project properly?
Mid-level. Marked against your own answer in the app.
planning
You are three weeks behind at the halfway point. What do you do?
Mid-level. Marked against your own answer in the app.
What is the critical path and what do you use it for?
What a good answer covers
- The longest chain of dependent tasks — slip any of them and the end date moves.
- Float on everything else, and what that buys.
- Uses it to decide where attention goes, not to produce a chart.
- Knows it shifts as the plan changes.
How do you estimate a piece of work?
Mid-level. Marked against your own answer in the app.
risk
What is the difference between a risk and an issue?
What a good answer covers
- A risk might happen; an issue has.
- A risk register that is reviewed, not written once.
- Mitigation reduces likelihood or impact; contingency is what you do when it lands anyway.
- An example of one they actually saw coming.
scope
The sponsor keeps adding scope. How do you handle it?
Mid-level. Marked against your own answer in the app.
method
Agile or waterfall — which do you prefer?
Mid-level. Marked against your own answer in the app.
suppliers
A supplier is missing dates. What do you do?
Mid-level. Marked against your own answer in the app.
governance
How do you report a project that is going badly?
Mid-level. Marked against your own answer in the app.
What goes in a RAID log and who reads it?
What a good answer covers
- Risks, assumptions, issues, dependencies.
- Assumptions are the one people skip and the one that causes most trouble.
- It is a working tool, not a governance artefact — if nobody reads it, it is theatre.
- Reviewed on a cadence with owners and dates.
How do you know the project delivered what it was for?
Senior. Marked against your own answer in the app.
stakeholders
You do not line-manage your team. How do you get work out of them?
Mid-level. Marked against your own answer in the app.
Two projects need the same person next week. What do you do?
Senior. Marked against your own answer in the app.
Your sponsor has stopped attending. How do you handle it?
Senior. Marked against your own answer in the app.
budget
You are 15% over budget. Walk me through what happens next.
Mid-level. Marked against your own answer in the app.
certification
Do you hold a PRINCE2 or PMP, and how much does it matter?
What a good answer covers
- Honest about what they hold — checkable in minutes.
- Says what the method gave them in practice rather than reciting stages.
- Comfortable that a certificate is a vocabulary, not a substitute for having run something.