Explaining your value to a prospective hiring manager

Do you know what the company does? Does you have a general idea around the type of projects you might be working on? Do you have a copy of the posted job description in front of you and can speak to its essential details?

At a minimum, the interviewer will expect that you can speak to the job description. Make sure you can. Understanding more about the company, even if it just generates questions for you, is still valuable information to enter the interview with. Not being in alignment with basics about a company that are freely available on a company website or LinkedIn will be negative marks against you in an interview. Basic research only takes 5-10 minutes, and should be time you pencil-in for any interview - even if it's done just beforehand.

Gone might be the days when you need to be dressed in a full suit/equivalent. Nonetheless, how you are dressed can still mean something to some of the hiring managers you will encounter. As part of doing your research, you should assess the relative importance of dress. In general, it is typically safe to attend an interview in a collared shirt or blouse and slacks or skirt in the current environment.

Even if interviewing remotely, you need to dress appropriately, you will without fail be on video. Though it may be tempting to only meet the dress code "above the belt", for some dressing fully (as if you were there in person) can help create a personal professional feeling that gives comfort in an interview.

In general, err on the side of over-dressing than under-dressing. Going above and beyond is harder to fault someone for than not meeting minimum expectations.

Never be late. When interviewing in person, always arrive to the area with plenty of time to spare - you never know when parking, security, or unexpected traffic might slow you down. However, avoid arriving at the interview location more than 15 minutes early.

When interviewing remotely, approach it the same way, for different reasons. You might have unexpected authorization issues logging into a meeting app requiring a restart or password reset, or find that joining the meeting requires the unplanned download of a plug-in. Join a remote meeting somewhere between 5-10 minutes beforehand, but no earlier; your interviewer is unlikely to join until the meeting time.

If this is a remote interview, sit down and look behind you: this is what your interviewer will see. Those who are regularly on remote meetings are familiar with this, if you don't do this often, you may have clothes, pictures, or other debris in your video feed that might not be appropriate, or which may convey disorganization (even if it's just a reflection that it's laundry day). Don't leave things to chance and make sure the background behind you is clear; consider using the blur feature for the background around your video image if the meeting tool you are using for the interview supports that - it can help give you comfort that nothing is missed.

Many hiring managers will start off their interviews with a softball question to you: "tell me about yourself". They are offering you the opportunity to take approximately thirty seconds to two minutes to highlight a few key elements of your work history and achievements that are most relevant to hiring you. Have a very brief elevator pitch ready to go - practice it beforehand. Do not summarize your resume; the interviewer has read it.

Anyone who has done any amount of hiring has some horror stories about bad answers to this question. Your author here once had a candidate spent 35 minutes recounting every word of their resume, without stopping, in response to this question - you can be assured that candidate did not move forward. This type of questions is a test: can you simply and clearly summarize what value you could bring? Simply and clearly summarizing complex projects details is a common project manager duty. Answering this question right in the interview is therefore both an important test of your essential skills, but also an easy give-away that you can prepare for beforehand.

A job interview is a two-way conversation. As you work through an interview there will be information shared that may generate questions about the role, or may be unclear. Moreover, you have information shared with you that answers a question you may otherwise be planning to ask. To avoiding asking for information that is already shared, or to make sure you follow-up on questions that come up, make sure to listen. If you are like the author, and you don't have a photographic memory, make sure to take notes. A good interviewer will think positively of you taking notes, being organized.

If you do not ask questions, a hiring manager will take note. Part of the interview process is evaluation of skills and experience. The other side of it is evaluating alignment. The interviewer is determining if you are well-aligned to their organization - you should do the same; questions are how you are doing this.

Good examples of questions to ask about a project manager role include:

• What does the typical project team in this organization look like?

• What aspect of project delivery is most challenging here?

• What tools do you use for project management?

• Do you follow any specific project management methodologies to guide project execution?

Sometimes some or all of your questions are answered in the course of an interview - this is fine. Simply walk through the questions that you intended to ask, explain how they were answered; if you can come up with more relevant questions, ask some more.

At the end of the interview, thank the interviewer(s) for their time. Project management requires a lot of communication and relationship building. Demonstrate that you are a people person by starting to build a relationship through basic courtesy.

Believe it or not, this sort of basic communication can set you apart. Take an easy win.

The constant barrage of sales emails means that companies try to protect access to their email addresses, and not everyone is on LinkedIn, but take a few minutes a few days after an interview to try to find this information - sometimes it's on a meeting invite.

If you can't find a way to contact your interviewer that is fine, too. This is a value-add that goes beyond meeting expectations. If you cannot find the contact information for the interviewer, sharing the information with the recruiter is another alternative.