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How Would You Interview Potential Managers?

Posted by Cliff on from the introducing-the-hot-seat dept.

martincmartin asks: "The company I work for is starting to interview development managers, and I've been asked to interview a bunch of them. While there's been a lot written on interviewing programmers and what makes a good manager, how do you interview a management candidate? What questions do you ask? What are good and bad answers? What else do you do?"

4 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. Re:What level? by martincmartin · · Score: 5, Informative

    Middle managers, directly managing around 10 people who write code, and reporting to the product manager.

  2. Get him talking by tverbeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'd be especially interested in hear each candidate articulate their "management philosophy". While this is likely to lead to a fair amount of buzzword regurgitation, you can discern a bit about what they'd be like to work for from their choice of buzzwords and the connecting tissue that they have to supply themselves to craft a paragraph around them. You also need to know what kind of management style the department/team needs; don't automatically go for the guy who promises the least supervision and the most perks to his staff. Some standard "how would you handle the following scenario..." story problems can also be revealing.

    --
    http://alternatives.rzero.com/
    1. Re:Get him talking by canUbeleiveIT · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I ask people about their management philosophy, but for people who aren't very reflective, they don't have a lot to say.

      This is an excellent point. For whatever reason, many of the really talented managers that I have worked with are simply "naturals." They haven't a clue how to articulate how they do what they do--they just do it. I realize that this probably rubs many /.ers the wrong way, but the smartest and most reflective people aren't necessarily the most effective managers.

      One such manager that I used to work with was Patti. She was unremarkable in every way (looks, intelligence, education) and I guarantee that she had never read any "management philosophy" books. But she had a naturally calm and pleasant demeanor, an innate ability to make correct decisions on the fly, and great ability to prioritize. Her honesty and integrity just gave her such an air of authority that she rarely had to use the power of her position to get her people to get the job done. Needless to say, she was always the top-performing manager in her category.

      Personally, I would much rather have this type of person than some hot-shot who thinks that he is the smartest guy in the room.

  3. What to watch out for ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A good manager has good interpersonal skills and is usually gregarious. Unfortunately a psychopath often does a good job of imitating those characteristics. We hired one and it was a disaster. By the time we figured out what he was and got rid of him he had done a lot of damage to the organization.

    The people who study managers are finding that psychopaths are good at getting management jobs but are very bad at running an organization.

    My advice is to focus on achievements. How has the candidate done at team building? Really check their references. Ask for the names of some employees you can contact. A boss may miss the fact that someone is a psychopath but an employee never does.

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