Interviewing an Office Manager Can be Tricky – Here are 6 Helpful Tips

Office managers are the backbone of your business. They juggle many roles, acting as everything from an administrator to a compliance officer and at times, a proverbial herder of cats.  It is critical to the success of the company to find the right candidate who can keep your business humming, but interviewing office managers can be tricky. Use these strategies to uncover the right candidate for your office.

“In addition to the tips below, Predictive indexing will also allow you to measure motivators which indicate a strong or weak alignment. Start by measuring your team’s motivators and then compare to the potential new hire. The following six areas are how you measure this: leadership, human interaction, results, recognition, creativity, and customer service. The cultural fit of the new office manager is also critical to measure because it will provide value analysis on the match of adaptability, collaboration, results oriented, integrity, customer centric, precision and transparency. Again, measure your team and compare this to the new leader to see if you have alignment or areas that need to be aligned!” Says Sharon Tsao, CMO, Contemporary Staffing Solutions.

Talk About Process

Process is critical to office management. The right candidate needs to be highly organized and methodical. They must also be able to determine what works and what doesn’t within the framework of your existing culture. Ask direct questions about their processes and have the cite examples of the processes that worked well at their last position, and those that did not.

Determine How They Roll Out New Processes

Change isn’t easy, and office managers often struggle to get the team to adopt new processes. Ask candidates to talk about examples of successful and unsuccessful new process rollouts. How did they overcome resistance to change? How long did it take them to achieve full adoption?

Uncover Their Training Philosophies

When new processes are rolled out, training is required. Office managers must have a keen sense of training people with different learning styles and working with people who are resistant to change. Proper training is important to yield positive results, so it is necessary to determine how candidates have trained employees in the past. Ask them to describe both successful and unsuccessful trainings and what they learned from those situations.

“Walking the talk is critical; managers need to be able to supplement all training with day to day example setting – showing their employee how it is done right the first time!” says Alyssa Cenekofsky, Branch Manager, Contemporary Staffing Solutions.

Do They Know Where They Fit In?

An office manager’s role can vary greatly from company to company, and it is important to hire someone who has carefully researched your company and has a firm grasp of where the role fits in to the big picture. Ask candidates to describe their understanding of the office manager role and their understanding or your organization. They obviously won’t know much about the inner workings of the company, but they should be able to demonstrate that they have conducted research.

Assess Emotional Intelligence

Office managers have a tough job. They are often tasked with tracking down important documentation and overseeing critical processes, and it requires both assertiveness and diplomacy to work with people who aren’t always responsive or organized. Ask questions about how they handle and resolve conflict, how they work with employees who can make their job difficult, and how they communicate with others.

Work With An Expert Recruiter

Finding the perfect office manager isn’t easy, but you can find your ideal candidate by working with an expert office recruiter with a proven track record of success. Contemporary Staffing Solutions is a leader in recruiting for critical office positions, and we work closely with our clients to understand their precise needs, so we can match them with a candidate who has the skills, personality and staying power to succeed.

If you are looking for looking for an office manager who can help your organization run like a well-oiled machine, contact the administrative recruiting experts at Contemporary Staffing Solutions today.

See more helpful tips for: Call Center & Office, HR, Business Insight, Job Seeker.