Tips for interviewing candidates

[configman]

I'm interviewing people over the next couple of days (project managers).

It's been a while since I've done interviews, so after some advice. Approach I'm taking is:

-- work out what I'm looking for in the interviewee
-- Match a selection of competency based questions against the above
-- Some other general questions e.g how do you kick-off a project, what's your experience in "blah, blah"
-- at the interview give a bit of intro
-- Go through similar questions for each person (with some tailored to their CVs)

Can anyone see any glaring gaps/offer advice? Thanks.

Good project managers need to know a lot more about the technical side of the project -alas so few do. I'm amazed for example with the amount of PM's on software development projects that do not understand version control and issue tracking - or anything about software configuration management. These are the tools that can help them so I expect them to at least have the knowledge what they are and used for.

I just landed a PM role in China yesterday for an American company. They first asked this question "If you were working on a greenfield project what task would you begin with and why?" All my answers were around SCM and processes to keep the project running smoothly from day one i.e. setting up version control and branching/merging strategies - and issue tracking software to implement processes and reporting. Secondly, I was asked how I would support the customer after first release - answer because we have already set up correct processes when the project began we can use our issue tracker to record any help requests and we use our version control to release bug fixes without impacting on-going development.

Apparently all the other prospects jumped straight in with MS Project and scheduling - and forgot how it was to be done.

[Sausage Surprise]

First off I ask them about their previous roles to make sure they are what they are. If they answer satisfactorily then it becomes a case of "will they fit in". If they are male and want to work with me. they need to have a healthy interest in sport (footy) and general socialising. If female, they need to be single with big jugs