City Manager Interview Preparation Guide

This is another classic question that directly stems from asking about managing projects and leadership. A project manager is nothing if not an effective communicator. They need to be able to speak to team members, stakeholders, vendors, etc. Each group will need a slightly different approach. Stakeholders want the broad strokes, while teams will need more detail. If a project manager can’t clearly communicate, the project is doomed before it has begun.

Not all projects are executed under one roof. With more dynamic project management tools and a global workforce to choose from, many project managers might never meet the members of their team, at least in the real world. Then there are the necessary resources that will be outsourced, which involves a different management technique than when working with employees. Knowing how they would manage people and resources can be a crucial point in your decision to hire or not to hire.

Everyone makes mistakes; character is defined by how you deal with them. This question will allow you to first gauge the candidate’s honesty. If they say that they’ve never made a mistake, you can rest assured that they’re not being truthful and their resume can go into the circular file. However, when they tell you about the mistake they’ve made, note if they take responsibility for it (that will reveal their level of maturity) and, of course, how they resolved it.

Intent: This is a classic question for management-level candidates. The interviewer's intent here is threefold: to find out if your management style fits, to determine if you have management ability and to probe how much you understand your own work style.

Context: Avoid responding with cliches. Hopefully you can say more than that you have an open-door policy or you manage by walking around.

Response: In today's environment, you need to speak to leading and developing your team, communication, how you organize and plan, how you execute and how you measure progress. It need not be a long answer, but responding with a well-thought-out approach to your management style will make a better impression than spouting generalities.

Motivation isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, so I like to really get to know my team on an individual level. I feel like this gives me a good feel for what works for each person. A few years ago, I was overseeing a sales team. While our numbers were good, they weren’t great, and a big part of that was a result of one of the members of the team dealing with a child going through cancer and chemo. Because of the gravity of the situation, I decided the team needed a good carrot-on-a-stick reward with a positive spin to it to get them excited about selling. I promised them, if they broke the previous year’s record, that I would shave my head and donate a portion of my salary to a local cancer charity that was working with the employee’s daughter. This didn’t just motivate the team, it completely re-energized them! Suddenly the entire group was working overtime and we expanded the challenge and turned it into a company-wide event. We not only broke the previous year’s record, but fifteen of the employees joined me in shaving their heads and we collected and donated over $5000 to the charity. We had so much fun that we turned it into an annual event that they are still participating in to this day.

This is one of the more popular manager interview questions because, as a manager, delegation is a regular part of the job. Managers who delegate well are more productive, and so are their teams.

Clarify that you delegate according to individual team members’ strengths. If you’ve used industry-standard task management software, mention this skill. Explain how you manage the distribution of tasks so that the work is divided evenly among members for maximum efficiency. Then, provide a specific (and successful) example from your work experience, breaking it down according to the same steps you described as your process for delegating tasks.

These are a couple of tricky manager interview questions, but they do come up often in these types of interviews. They’re designed to see how well you relate to your peers, as well as those who work for you.

Your answer is a great opportunity to speak about your strengths. Ideally, talk about the characteristics that make you an excellent manager. The trick is to accomplish this without sounding unbelievably perfect or arrogant. If you can, use positive yet sincere quotes that you’ve been given firsthand (such as in a performance evaluation or a LinkedIn endorsement), or compliments that have been relayed to you by others. If you don’t have direct quotes to share, it’s okay to speak anecdotally if you can back up your examples with an example or two.

While there are many interview questions for managers, this question in particular is important to prepare for. An interviewer will want to hear that you can comfortably delegate tasks to your team, both fairly and effectively. Consider past projects you have worked on and clearly explain your process for delegating work. Make sure you discuss how you picked the right people for the task and briefed them in.

One approach won't fit all when trying to motivate different team members, so when asking this question recruiters are looking for an understanding of how different personalities and working styles make up a team.

Give specific examples of how you get to know a team and how you assess each person's strengths. Explain how you use positive reinforcement and recognition to motivate employees and encourage them to achieve company goals.

It’s important to get a snapshot of the applicant to bring their resume into sharper focus. Knowing a bit about their life story can inform how they might respond to issues at work, and whether they will fit into the corporate culture. The same goes for their professional history. Staying at a single job for a long time can be either bad or good, but you won’t know until you put their choice into context.