12 Interview Questions for Managers

Download a free template of interview questions for managers to ensure the selection of the right candidate for your company.

Why are Interview Questions for the Position of Manager Important?

It is important to choose the right manager for your employees. How productive your team members are, do heavily depends on the manager they are led by. That is why it becomes so important to hire the right person as a manager. Managing people is a great responsibility, and most people are not that good at it. The recruitment process should help to identify the right person for the culture and values that the company wants its employees to experience and follow.

An interview is often the first time you get to meet the applicant face to face. Make sure that the interview questions for a management position help you identify if that candidate is the right person for the job. You can design interview questions to make sure that the answers to them clearly show that the applicant is able to manage your team. How they answer and react to and what they have been asked matters a lot as it tells us about the skills and qualities they possess.

There are certain qualities that a manager must-have. HR needs to formulate interview questions for the position of manager in a way that helps to test these qualities as listed below.

Team Player

A manager should know how to act as a team player and work harmoniously with the team. Take a look at their past experiences and ask them if they have worked well as a team member in the past. How you ask the question is important, as the information you will get depends on it.

Suggestions

1. “Tell me about a time when you did an exceptional job as a member of a team and about a time you had to help someone work better in the team.”
2. “Tell us about the team members you have faced difficulty working with and why.”

Delegation

Being a manager, having the ability to delegate tasks effectively is a major advantage. When it comes to delegation, there are different management styles. Some managers want to do everything on their own, or at least heavily supervise the work of their team members. These people are often seen as unable to trust others, and sooner or later, other employees sense this lack of trust.

Others delegate depending on the team targets and the workload people are already carrying. They are seen as fair and considerate of their team. The most productive method of delegation involves giving the job to someone who is good at it and also to those who want to be able to do it better and learn through practice. Management interview questions need to identify the style of the delegation candidate they prefer.

Suggestions

1.  ” How do you delegate assignments to your teammates?”
2.  “Do you prefer delegating tasks to your teammates, or do you prefer getting involved in completing them?”

Handle Pressure

How do you handle pressure decides so much about whether your team looks up to you or not. They want a leader who is good at managing high-pressure situations. In organisations, managers often have to handle pressure from higher management as well as from their teams. HR needs to know how candidate responds in such cases. With the proper strategy and experience, managers can successfully tackle these situations in your company so that productivity is not hampered by the wrong reactions of the leaders.

Suggestions

1. “What do you do when you cannot handle pressure or when pressure is higher than usual?”
2.  “What is your go-to strategy for high-pressure situations?”

Honesty and Communication

Manager interview questions and answers are a good opportunity for a hiring manager to test the communication skills of the candidate. As managers are also supposed to convey the messages, company goals, and policies to employees, they need to be effective communicators. To make the team trust the leader, they need to be honest and develop a personal bond with them. When managers are not honest with either their superiors or their team, the company has to face adverse consequences sooner or later.

Suggestions

1. “Do you consider honesty as an important value to be followed in the workplace?”
2. “Is honesty essential to making good managers?”
3. “What is your take on a team having to be honest with managers to run operations smoothly?”
4. “What do you want your teammates to understand when you say the team needs to be honest?”

Listening Skills

As an authority figure, what managers say matters, but how good of a listener they are determines how well they can do the job. One has to have great listening skills to be a good communicator. Listening is so much more than keeping your mouth shut until you get a chance to speak up, it’s about paying attention. It helps to understand people better and see the reasons and logic behind their actions before making a judgment.

We love people who really listen to us. That can be key to forming a good interpersonal bond with employees and also resolving issues faster.

Suggestions

1. “Do you often find yourself interrupting other people when you disagree with what they are saying?”
2. “Is listening as important to you as expressing yourself?”

To get candidates to answer in a way that allows you to get all the information you need to know, you have to frame a good question. We have carefully curated a list of the best 12 management interview questions, and you can use them to help identify the best candidate for the job.