Hiring the Right Project Manager for your Organization

by Edward Velez A project manger is often the most tasked and accountable employee in your organization; commonly found in the trenches managing production and developing contingencies on a daily basis, this catalyst of production also holds one of the least understood positions in business. To hear ten colleagues and bosses describe him/ her will often yield ten different answers. No wonder supplying the hiring manager with a simplified job description rarely brings in enough qualified candidates the first time around! Understanding the Position A project manager is often a master of many seemingly disparate skills. He/she will drill down to levels of detail within the production environment to tweak, course correct or otherwise overhaul internal processes. The project manager functions as a coach, strategist, and soothsayer. Because he/she will uniquely understand his departments idiosyncrasies and the myriad of subtle tweaks needed to keep production on course, every person that he/she supports, advises or reports to will understand the merest facet of what the project manager does. This is true across industries and regardless of the project managers specialty. How do you begin to understand the project managers job scope well enough in order to concisely convey it in an ad posting? Its a process. The Process Whether youre hiring for your company or on behalf of a client, it is paramount to understand what the daily scope of the work is and what some of the departments historical challenges have been. All too often a manager compiles a job description which amounts to a list of tasks commonly performed without regard to frequency, order of importance or other context (such as identifying the number stakeholders and outlining the review/approval process- something that could amount to 50% or more of a project managers time). A project manager never operates in a vacuum. Regardless of the breadth of his/her responsibilities, there are always other departments that serve to support, advise or approve the product or service which the PM has been served to shepherd through the development process. The process is to gather information from a significant sample of vested parties (e.g. parties supported by or that support the PM) to ensure that the job description has both context and
Hiring the Right Project Manager for your Organization by Edward Velez Page 1 of 3

Hiring the Right Project Manager for your Organization

by Edward Velez depth. Sorting through the order of importance can often be ascertained by speaking to the PMs boss and staff. Information Gathering The various stakeholders should be interviewed to understand the scope and context of the PMs work, not just the bosss simplified job description. Understand the difference between what the hiring powers want and what they need. If the past project manager worked well and he happened to be the first 6 sigma PM that they worked with, the hiring powers might insist on hiring another 6 Sigma PM. Understand that this is a misconception and that many excellent candidates will be turned away if you do not distinguish between real requirements for the job and perceived requirements as a validation of strength.

The Ad/ Posting The ad should be organized in a way that allows prospective candidates to understand The 30,000 foot overview The daily, weekly and other periodic duties. Historic challenges- be ready to discuss these even if they are not listed comprehensively in the posting. Reviewing Resumes This is the lynchpin of the hiring process. Segregating the more desirable candidates out of the lot is part science and part art and should never be delegated to a bottom-tier staffer. Needless to say, it is equally fruitless to allow an electronic system to disallow certain resumes to proceed based on the number of matched keywords. This cannot be stressed enough: looking though submitted resumes for qualified candidates is largely a matter of understanding how to read in between the lines. There are many excellent candidates that do not optimize their resumes for each new job posting. The most common reason is not obvious- many successful project managers have been hired through one or two resumes that they may have produced. Their idea of optimizing a resume for a particular posting may be limited to inserting their latest job description.

Hiring the Right Project Manager for your Organization by Edward Velez

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Hiring the Right Project Manager for your Organization

by Edward Velez In short, there are many excellent project managers out there that have expert skills in their respective specialties, but are not expert resume writers. Look for years of experience in various specialties. If a web project manager with ten years experience neglected to list familiarity with certain key technologies pivotal to your companys IT systems (such as ASP.NET), it is highly likely that he/she is in fact intimately familiar with the platform , given how ubiquitous it is in the industry. If this is too technical for the HR staff charged to sort through the batch of resumes, do not give in to the standard practice of eliminating resumes based on simply matching descriptions and skills to the job posting. The ideal way is to get several technical managers to look at each resume, carefully writing comments on the margins in his/her respective copy. Screening Interviews Whether the first interview will be over the phone or in person, apart from discussing the particulars of the job, be prepared to disclose what the interview process will be like- the number of interviews as well as the projected time span between the first and the final rounds of interviews. Simply asserting that the company would like to fill the position as soon as possible is not remotely helpful, particularly when several rounds of interviews are the norm. Unless your organization has a nearly flat hierarchy, urgency does not equal expediency. First and Further Round Interviews The PM should actually be interviewing you. Period. Their job is about understanding how things work and what could potentially go wrong. Even if youve disclosed little or no particulars regarding the environement or the job, They need to compile enough information to: 1. Understand how the department is set up, which should then prompt him to shift the conversation to: 2. What the daily/weekly routines are like and what some of the historical challenges have been.

Hiring the Right Project Manager for your Organization by Edward Velez

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