Video:How to Interview a Potential Manager

Transcript:How to Interview a Potential Manager

Hi! This is Meghan Lynn Allen for About.com, and today for About.com, and today we're talking about how to interview a potential manager.

Tips for Interviewing a Potential Manager

The interview process when hiring a new manager can be difficult. You want to make sure they don't just answer the questions right, but make sure they're the right fit for the right job. Sometimes a self-driven manager wouldn't fit in a top-down environment - think about the big picture and not just about answering the questions.

Interviewing a Potential Manager

It's not just the manager who has to fit with the company, but the company has to be a good match with the manager. You should start with some simple questions to determine whether they have the real experience beyond the on-paper credentials.

Questions for a Potential Manager

Some of those basic questions are: how long have you been a manager? How many employees reported to you? And, what was your experience like? Then you need to get into some deeper questions that highlight their management style. You can ask them, how have they dealt with an employee in the past when they were in a situation where they needed to be reprimanded? Or in a situation where they needed to be rewarded? And ask them how they deal with crises, catastrophe - and how they deal with success.

More Tips for Interviewing a Potential Manager

You can ask the managerial candidate how they measure their own job performance. Avoid candidates who can't back up statements. You don't want to hire someone who just gives yes and no answers. You want someone who can discuss, in-depth, their reasoning, their ideals, their motivations, their goals, so you know that they can do that same thing when they're managing your employees.

Look for evidence that your managerial candidate can organize and delegate. Delegation is an important quality that every manager needs to have. Ask the candidate what mistakes they've made and how they've learned from them. Yes, it's important to have a confident manager, but they also need to be able to say, I'm sorry, or, that was my fault.

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