Project managers are massively important to your business. They are responsible for planning, executing and closing projects, ensuring they are completed on time, within budget and to the required quality standards. Project managers aren’t just your connection between internal teams and clients; but they keep the engine of your business running smoothly.
But here’s an all-too-familiar scenario: You hire what seemed like the perfect project manager (they have the credentials, experience and past performance), but after a few months, things begin to go awry. Six months later, projects are behind schedule, team morale is declining, and you’re wondering where you went wrong. Despite your best screening and competitive offers, some project manager hires fail to deliver.
The problem may not be the candidates themselves. More often, it’s rooted in flawed hiring processes that focus on the wrong qualifications and miss critical success factors.
BravoTECH has helped place hundreds of project managers across diverse industries and we’ve seen firsthand what separates successful hires from disappointing ones. Our discovery? The issues rarely come down to technical skills or certifications. Often the problem is about the unique ecosystem of your organization and finding the right candidates to work through it effectively.
What Factors Can Cause a PM to Fail?
1. Chasing Credentials Over Capability
The most common mistake in project manager hiring? Overemphasizing certifications and years of experience while undervaluing practical problem-solving abilities and cultural fit.
A PMP certification tells you someone passed an exam, but it doesn’t do a great job of determining how they’ll handle your specific organizational dynamics or project restraints.
Many hiring managers fall into the trap of using certifications to shortcut the process. But you don’t want to assume that candidates with great credentials will automatically succeed. Project management success often depends heavily on soft skills and the ability to influence without authority.
2. Vague Role Definitions Create Misaligned Expectations
Hiring is competitive, and many firms rush to fill project manager positions without taking the time to define what success looks like in their specific context.
Pushing out generic job descriptions can often lead to hiring decisions based on general PM qualifications, when what’s needed is detailed information about the specific skills PMs need to work in your context.
This lack of clarity manifests in unclear reporting structures and ambiguous success metrics. If your new hire doesn’t know what they’re accountable for or how their performance will be measured, failure becomes likely.
Recommended: How to Write Job Descriptions That Attract Top Talent
3. Lack of Cultural Fit Can Undermine PM Success
Culture matters in hiring – and with PMs working across multiple departments, you need a hire who knows how to navigate within your cultural and political environment. A candidate may excel in one company culture but struggle in another, regardless of their technical competence.
Think about your company. The corporate culture has likely evolved due to the unique nature of your business – market characteristics, your clients’ needs and regulatory and economic pressures. Do you operate in a collaborative culture where consensus-building is valued? Do you value decisive action, or is it important for employees to get informal approvals before moving forward? To succeed, PMs need to understand how to get things done within the context of your culture.
Recommended: The Right Hire: Why Culture Fit and Soft Skills Matter
4. Failure to Assess Soft Skills Properly
Traditional interview processes can lack a quality assessment of soft skills. The ability to communicate well and manage conflicts between internal teams and external clients matters – often more than more technical abilities. Generic behavioral interview questions may lead candidates to respond as they think they should, rather than how they would actually perform under pressure.
Sometimes, this is more about having the right questions to ask than having a poor interview process. That’s when working with an experienced hiring team can help you pinpoint the best interview questions for your unique roles.
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Creating A Framework for Successful PM Hiring
1. Define Success Before You Start Searching
Much of your hiring success hinges on the work you do before you start searching.
Begin by conducting a thorough analysis of what project management success looks like in your organization. This could include talking with current team members, stakeholders and leadership to identify the specific challenges your PM will face and the skills required to overcome them.
It’s a good idea to document or outline any project types they’ll manage and the stakeholders they’ll work with. The more detailed you can be, the better!
2. Create Role-Specific Evaluation Criteria
As you start developing the role you’re hiring for, make sure you create targeted assessment criteria that directly relate to your organization rather than generic PM competencies.
For example, if a project will require extensive stakeholder management, put more weight on communication and collaboration skills. If technical complexity matters more, focus on technical acumen.
Build scoring rubrics that help you evaluate candidates consistently across multiple dimensions. This can help you reduce bias and make sure you compare candidates based on truly relevant factors rather than gut feelings or surface-level impressions.
3. Use Scenario-Based Assessment Methods
It’s time to move beyond traditional interview questions to scenario-based assessments. It’s the best way to reveal how candidates really think and operate. Present real-life situations from your organization and ask candidates to walk through their approach step by step.
This approach offers deeper insights into a PM candidate’s problem-solving and how they manage stakeholders. It can reveal quite a bit about how they may work within your organizational constraints.
4. Evaluate Cultural Fit
You want to ensure that this hire not only brings skills to the table, but also works well at the table. So include your team members and any other key stakeholders in the interview process to ensure cultural alignment.
Bringing in the perspectives of the associates who will work with your new PM is a great way to analyze their cultural fit. During interviews, ask for examples of how candidates may have handled difficult team dynamics or high-stress situations.
Watch for emotional intelligence, adaptability and how they kept team morale high during difficult times. These soft skills may end up determining role fit and project success more than technical ability.
Recommended: 5 Interview Questions to Assess Soft Skills
Build Support Systems for PM Hires
You may be surprised to learn that success hinges on how well a hire is set up to succeed post-interview. Make sure you’ve built a strong onboarding process to help the new hire integrate into your organization effectively.
Establish Chains of Authority and Accountability
Be ready to clearly explain how your organization’s decision-making process and authority structures work. Because PMs need to move between stakeholders and make fast decisions, ambiguity creates problems.
Provide your new PM with the necessary resources and organizational support to fulfill their responsibilities. This includes access to executive leadership and clear escalation paths when needed.
Don’t Overwhelm Them in the Onboarding Process
Your onboarding process should go beyond basic orientation, but be careful not to overwhelm your new hire with complex details. One of the most important things to include is regular check-ins with an internal mentor and access to training – particularly training to fill any skill gaps identified during the hiring process.
Implement Clear & Accessible Feedback Mechanisms
Do you have systems for gathering regular feedback from project teams, stakeholders and sponsors about your project managers’ performance?
The more communication you have, the easier it will become to identify and resolve issues early, before they become major obstacles.
BravoTECH Can Help
We believe the key to successful hiring is treating the recruitment process with the same rigor and strategy you’d apply to any critical project.
Companies that consistently hire the best PMs know that success depends on finding the best person for their organization – rather than a candidate that looks good on paper.
At BravoTECH, we’ve helped teams like yours streamline and improve their project manager hiring process. Our understanding of what makes new hires successful, combined with our proven assessment methods, can help you build a team that consistently delivers results.
When you’re ready to find the next right hire for your team, contact BravoTECH. Let’s take the next step in making your hiring process your secret weapon!