Interview questions for IT managers: 42 to ask, and what good answers include

Hiring an IT manager is awkward for most interview panels, because nobody on the panel can do the job. The finance director cannot judge a view on network design, and the departing IT manager is not there to ask. The result is often an interview about personality, and a decision made on confidence.

This article gives interview questions for IT managers that a non-technical panel can use: 42 questions in six themes, a guide to what good answers include, five rules for a fair interview and a simple scorecard. Candidates can use the same list to prepare.

Whoever you appoint will need clear objectives and honest feedback in their first year. See how New Dynamics performance reviews bring goals, feedback and development into one fair discussion.

What the job is, and what to test

Prospects, the UK graduate careers service, describes the role in its information systems manager job profile: the manager “ensures an organisation's computer and IT systems, networks, and applications run smoothly, securely, and effectively”. It adds the sentence that should shape your interview: “To be successful, you'll need a combination of strong technical and management skills.”

The responsibilities that Prospects lists include developing the IT strategy, planning and managing the IT budget, managing suppliers, scheduling upgrades and backups, securing data “from internal and external attack”, managing crisis situations, supporting and training users, and advising senior managers on future investment.

So the interview has six things to find out. Each theme below has seven questions. Choose two or three from each, and ask every candidate the same ones.

1. Strategy and the business

1. How did you decide what your last IT team would and would not work on in a year?
2. Tell us about a time when you said no to a request from a senior colleague. How did you explain it?
3. Describe an investment in technology that you recommended. How did you make the case, and what happened?
4. What do you need to know about our business before you could write an IT plan for it?
5. How do you decide between building, buying and outsourcing?
6. Which technology that you introduced are you least proud of, and why?
7. How are you approaching artificial intelligence tools at work, and what rules have you set for their use?

2. Service and operations

8. How do you know, from week to week, whether your service is good?
9. Walk us through your worst outage. What happened in the first hour, and what changed afterwards?
10. How do you balance planned work against the daily flow of support requests?
11. How do you manage updates and patches without disrupting the business?
12. What do you measure on a service desk, and which measures have you stopped using?
13. How do you support people who work at home or on the move?
14. When did you last test restoring from a backup, and what did you learn?

3. Security and risk

The UK's National Cyber Security Centre publishes 10 Steps to Cyber Security, which breaks the task of protecting an organisation into ten components, among them risk management, engagement and training, asset management, identity and access management, incident management and supply chain security. It states that adopting these measures “reduces the likelihood of cyber attacks occurring, and minimises the impact to your organisation when incidents do occur”. The list makes a good checklist for a panel.

15. How do you decide which security risks to deal with first?
16. How do you know what equipment, software and data your organisation has?
17. Describe how people join, move within and leave your organisation, from the point of view of system access.
18. Tell us about a security incident that you handled. Whom did you tell, and when?
19. How have you changed staff behaviour on security, beyond an annual training course?
20. How do you check the security of a supplier before you sign?
21. What would you want to see in your first month to judge how exposed we are?

The NCSC also points out that cyber security sits “firmly within the responsibility of the Board”. A good candidate will ask who owns the risk in your organisation.

4. Projects, money and suppliers

22. Tell us about a project that ran late or over budget. When did you know, and what did you do?
23. How do you build and defend an IT budget?
24. Describe a negotiation with a supplier. What did you give, and what did you get?
25. How do you manage software licences and renewals?
26. How do you decide when to retire a system that still works?
27. How do you bring users into a project so that the result is actually used?
28. What is your approach to a supplier that is failing to deliver?

5. Leading people

29. How is your current team organised, and what would you change?
30. Tell us about someone whom you developed into a bigger role.
31. How have you dealt with a skilled technician who was difficult to work with?
32. How do you keep specialist skills up to date, including your own?
33. How do you give feedback to someone who knows more about the technology than you do?
34. How do you protect the team from burnout during on-call periods and major incidents?
35. What do you look for when you hire?

Our list of manager interview questions has more on leadership in general.

6. Communication and judgement

36. Explain a technical decision that you made recently, as you would to our board.
37. How do you tell a department head that their favourite system has to go?
38. Tell us about a time when you were wrong about a technical matter. How did you find out?
39. How do you handle a colleague who buys software without telling IT?
40. How do you make decisions when the information is incomplete and the clock is running?
41. What would your users say about you, and what would your suppliers say?
42. What questions do you have for us about how IT is seen in this organisation?

Our list of decision-making questions offers more for the fifth of these.

What a good answer includes: five things

A non-technical panel can judge the shape of an answer, even when it cannot judge the technology.

1. A real situation. A named project, system or incident, with dates and scale. Be wary of answers that stay in the abstract.
2. The decision and the reasoning. What options there were, which one the candidate chose and why.
3. The trade-offs. Cost against risk, speed against quality, the user's wish against the security rule. Good IT managers talk about trade-offs without being asked.
4. A result. A number where possible: hours of downtime, money saved, tickets reduced, adoption achieved.
5. A lesson. What they would do differently. Candidates who have never been wrong have not been in charge.

Listen also for plain language. A person who cannot explain a decision to your panel will not be able to explain one to your board.

Five rules for a fair interview

1. Agree the criteria first. Decide what good looks like for each theme before you meet anybody.
2. Ask everyone the same questions. Acas's guidance on interviewing job applicants advises asking each applicant the same questions where possible, “to ensure you're treating applicants in the same way”.
3. Put a technical and a non-technical person on the panel. Acas recommends that, if possible, each interview should be carried out by more than one person. If nobody in the organisation can assess the technical answers, borrow a trusted adviser for the day.
4. Score separately, then compare. Each panel member scores each answer from one to five before any discussion.
5. Test the work as well as the talk. Give a short, realistic exercise: a one-page plan for the first ninety days, or a response to a described incident. Our guide to talent assessment tests explains work samples.

A simple scorecard. List the six themes down the side. For each, record the questions asked, the evidence heard and a score from one to five. Add the exercise as a seventh line. Decide on the totals and the evidence, not on who was most at ease in the room.

Common mistakes

Hiring the best technician. The job is management. A brilliant engineer who cannot delegate will become a bottleneck.

Hiring the smoothest talker. Confidence is not competence. Ask for evidence and numbers.

Skipping security. One theme in six is the minimum.

No exercise. An hour of conversation is a weak basis for a senior appointment.

Letting one panel member dominate. Score alone before you discuss.

Forgetting to sell the job. Good IT managers have choices. Be honest about the state of the systems and the budget, and about how much the board will listen.

Frequently asked questions

What questions should I ask an IT manager in an interview?

Ask about six areas: strategy and the business, service and operations, security and risk, projects, money and suppliers, leading people, and communication and judgement. Choose two or three questions from each, and ask every candidate the same ones.

How can a non-technical panel interview an IT manager?

Judge the shape of the answers: a real situation, clear reasoning, trade-offs, a measurable result and a lesson learned. Include one technically able person on the panel, even a borrowed adviser, and set a short practical exercise.

What makes a good answer to an IT manager interview question?

A good answer names a specific situation, explains the decision and the alternatives, weighs the trade-offs between cost, risk, speed and quality, gives a result with a number and says what the candidate would do differently.

What security questions should I ask an IT manager?

Ask how they prioritise risks, how they know what equipment and data the organisation holds, how access is given and removed, how they handled a real incident, how they change staff behaviour and how they check suppliers. The NCSC's 10 Steps to Cyber Security makes a useful checklist.

Should we set a test for IT manager candidates?

Yes, a short and realistic one. Ask for a one-page plan for the first ninety days, or a written response to a described incident. It shows judgement and clarity in a way that conversation cannot, and candidates usually see it as fair.

How should I prepare for an IT manager interview as a candidate?

Prepare one real example for each of the six themes, with the situation, your decision, the trade-offs, the result and the lesson. Practise explaining a technical decision in plain language, and prepare questions about budget, board support and the state of the systems.

Your next step

If you are hiring, pick fifteen questions from the list, agree what a strong answer would contain and draft the exercise. If you are a candidate, write one example for each theme this evening.

For the whole hiring process, from the job description to the offer, read and download our recruitment and selection guide. The guide is free to read, and the PDF uses our short download form.

Want your new manager's goals, feedback and reviews in one place from the first month? Book a New Dynamics demo and bring your current approach. You can also email contact@new-dynamics.com.