Top questions to ask when interviewing a project management Apprentice

Interviewing a project management apprentice can be tricky as the candidates are unlikely to have much experience to draw upon. Whereas an experienced candidate will be able to tell you about previous projects that they have worked on, along with any successes and failures, a project manager apprentice will probably only be able to tell you about the project management skills that they have learnt during their training. You therefore need to ask questions which will allow you to find out more about their life outside of work, in order to be able to draw conclusions about their suitability for the role. This can include asking them about any work experience, volunteer work and hobbies. Here are some questions recommended by Parallel Project Training who run project management apprenticeships:

• Tell us a little about yourself. This is a good question to ease the candidate into the interview and allows them to share a little about their personality. Expect the candidate for speak for no more than around a minute on this subject. You should look for a candidate who chooses relevant, interesting information without rambling on for too long or being too vague.
• Ask about their strengths. Whilst it is easy for the candidate to give you a long list of adjectives to describe different strengths, you are looking for a small number of strengths with examples to back up their assertions.
• Ask about their weaknesses. This is a tricky question but enables you to see how self-aware the candidate is. Of course every individual has weaknesses so if the candidate says that they have none, this is a sign that they have not prepared well for the interview. It requires a level of honesty which gives you an insight into the candidate's personality.
• Find out why the candidate wants to work for you.Asking this question enables you to find out how much research the candidate has done into your organisation. A well prepared candidate will have at the very least looked at your website to understand what the company does, the values and the vision. With this question you are looking for knowledge, enthusiasm and a good description of why the candidate's skills fit with your organisation's values.
• You may wish to ask where the candidate sees them self in 5 years time.This is a way of assessing ambition and finding out if the candidate has a long-term plan, or indeed has thought beyond this first job. This may or may not be relevant to the role or to your organisation.
• Do you have any questions?A good candidate will have prepared a list of questions to ask you. It doesn't necessarily need to be a long list but even just one or two well thought out questions shows that a candidate cares enough about the interview to have given it some prior consideration. This in turn lets you know whether or not they are serious about the role.

The author has written and published articles on a wide range of topics including Small Business Advice, Tax and Accounting, Interior Design, House Renovation and Project Management.