How to Assess Project Management Skills to Hire The Best Project Managers?

Project management is crucial to any organization’s success. Indeed, a professional project manager, through his abilities, ensures on-time completion within budgets and completion of objectives, thus calling for the right sets of skills at the workplace by managers: leading teams to effective resource and risk management. When hiring project management, testing a candidate’s project management is integral for identifying the right match. This article covers what project management skills assessment is, some of the most popular skills you must assess a candidate for, and how you can create an assessment using OnlineExamMaker.

Table of Contents

What Is A Project Management Skills Assessment?

The project management skill assessment is the tool to review candidate capability in terms of project planning, execution, and management by considering both hard skills and soft skills relevant to communication and leadership. It generally consists of scenario-based questions, multiple-choice questions, and problem-solving to see how well the candidates can take on the challenges associated with project management.

What Are The 5 Top Skills to Assess for Project Managers?

A project manager should have technical and interpersonal skills to ensure that the project is a success factor. The top five items that one needs to consider include the following:

1. Project Planning and Organization
Project planning is the elementary requirement of a project manager to decompose big projects, provide timelines, allocate resources, and predict risks. This skill will be gauged by how a candidate can plan a project, do task allocation, and manage resources efficiently.

2. Communicational Skills
The project managers should be able to speak with clarity for the team as well as stakeholders. This not only means updating information but also explaining the goals of projects to them and ironing out misunderstandings, if any. While examining communication skills, you may question a candidate about how he or she will manage a particular situation; for instance, what he or she would have done when he/she had to deliver bad news or the status of the project in question.

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3. Leadership and Team Management
A project manager should possess strong leadership skills to inspire and direct the team. They have to manage conflicts, distribute the work, and keep the team’s focus. The assessment of leadership skills will include an exploration of how candidates approach team dynamics and support team members in achieving project goals.

4. Risk Management
Risk management is the most important element in project management. A potent manager will be in a position to identify risks likely to occur early enough and strategize on the best ways to minimize them. You can test this aspect by challenging the candidate on how they would handle a variety of project risks: delays, overestimation of budget use, or even scope of work changes.

5. Time and Budget Management
Project managers should be able to maintain projects on time and within the budget. They must be able to monitor spending, use resources efficiently, and make necessary adjustments. To test this ability, ask a candidate what they would do if a project was falling behind schedule or running over budget.

How to Make A Project Management Skills Assessment Using OnlineExamMaker?

With OnlineExamMaker, you can easily set up a project management skills assessment in the following simple steps:

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Step 1: Set up the exam structure

Create and start developing your project management skills assessment. Design the title, for example, “Project Management Skills Assessment.” In the description, briefly explain what will be assessed, which may include but is not limited to project planning, time management, communication, leadership, and risk management.

Step 2: Create and customize the questions

Use different question types to test essential skills such as multiple-choice, scenario-based, short answer, and true/false or matching questions. Using a mix of question types will provide a comprehensive view of a candidate’s qualifications.

Step 3: Customize exam settings

OnlineExamMaker gives settings such as randomizing questions to avoid cheating and making changes in time limits. You can pick a theme and upload a brand logo to the online assessment, and even set the background of the exam.

Step 4: Upload candidate account

Add candidate account to OnlineExamMaker system and create a group for them, then you can assign the project management skills test to this group.

Step 5: Publish the assessment

When your assessment is set up, you can publish and share the links with candidates. OnlineExamMaker has real-time tracking through which you can track progress or assess the results.

Project management skills assessment is a must to hire the best candidate to manage your projects effectively. Assessing some of the key skills, including planning, communication, leadership, risk management, and time/budget management, will assure you that your candidate fits the position. With OnlineExamMaker, you can easily design a project management skills assessment to make the recruitment process much easier. The question customization, real-time tracking, and detail report that OnlineExamMaker provides will let you make the right choice and select a qualified manager for your project.

Author: Matt Davis

Matt is a content marketing specialist with more than 5 years of experience in content creation, he is glad to share his experience about online education and digital marketing.