Submitted by gpeden on
in
Forums
I had an interesting experience this week. Had a promising Project Manager candidate in - great personality, customer facing skills, great energy, good phone screen (I thought... etc. Answered the behavioral questions pretty good - though in hindsight I learned to be wary of answers of "I would..." rather than "I did...". I think i should have pressed those.
Anyway - this candidate listed MS Project as an area of expertise (which I read as "expert"), and is a skill required for the job. He was able to verbally answer the MS Project questions (baseline, costs, etc.) -but when I asked him to show me on a real MS Project file, he completely crashed and burned. Show me resource usage per summary task/phase, show me how to track actual vs. plan. Fumbled around, even brought up the help file. Show me how to set up a baseline.
When I pressed him he replied, "uh, well I have exposure to MS Project....". I said I was only asking because YOU PUT IT ON YOUR RESUME AS AN AREA OF EXPERTISE!.
So I say I was concerned about what else might be fluffed up on the resume. And he said "Well, if you would just give me a chance and hire me you would see...:"
Uh, hello! I just gave you your chance, and you blew it! Whew - bullet dodged. Don't bring that weak sh*t....
George