PW Director draft questionsInterview Questions
1. Describe your Public Works experience. Please be specific as to what your actual tasks and
responsibilities were.
2. Please tell us why you are interested in the Public Works Director position for the City of
Scandia. What special qualities, skills and interests you would bring to the position? And
why are you interested in working for the City of Scandia?
3. With any new job a new employee discovers that certain portions of the job match very
well with existing strengths and other portions present real opportunities for new learning
and building new skills. Based upon what you know about the position, where would you
expect to excel and what part of the job would present you more of a challenge?
4. Give us an example of a project you were responsible for where you were less than
satisfied with the results. What did you learn from the experience? What would you do
differently now and how would that change the outcome?
5. Hypothetical: A City Council member approaches you as the new Director with a dynamite
idea to improve the parks. You recognize the project is a good idea, but don’t believe it is in
the current plans. How would you handle this situation?
6. Tell us about your experience planning and managing a successful construction project.
What made the project successful and what role did you play in accomplishing that success?
7. Hypothetical: You are the new Public Works Director. You have just learned that your road
improvement project now has major base failure issues. This change will delay the schedule
just presented to Council by a year and increase the project budget by 20%. The
Department’s ability to get projects completed on time and within budget is in question
already. How would you proceed?
8. Tell us about your experience in preparing and managing budgets. What do you think are
keys to successfully managing a budget in the public sector?
9. Describe your philosophy on providing excellent customer service. What do you believe is
the most important quality in delivering excellent customer service?
10. Tell us about one of your biggest successes. Why do you consider it significant? What
challenges did you overcome to make it successful?
11. What aspects of your work life has given you the most satisfaction or sense of
accomplishment? What do you find frustrating in the work setting?
12. What process have you used to critically evaluate your Department’s effectiveness? What
was the outcome? How would this approach change in a unionized Department?
13. How do you set priorities and organize the work of yourself and those who report to you?
How do you think your subordinates perceive you?
Interview Questions
14. Give us an example where your staff did not meet your level of expectation in regards to
the work product or timeliness of response to another party. What steps did you take to
ensure that the situation did not occur in the future?
15. Hypothetical: You are the new Director. A City resident is unhappy about mowing the right-
of-way. Your staff has met with her on several occasions and you have also met with her on
this issue. Today you get a voice mail message from the Administrator that a Council
member has been contacted by the citizen and is very concerned that you have not been
responsive to this citizen’s concerns. How would you handle this situation?
16. Hypothetical: You are the new Director and have been on the job for 3 weeks. A resident
calls the Administrator’s office and complains about an issue concerning some of your staff.
This issue and these staff have also been the subject of several other complaints over the
last six months. The Administrator’s Office is beginning to suspect there may be a
performance problem with the staff involved. How would you handle this situation?
17. Hypothetical: You have been the new Director for about six months. You have noticed that
whenever you suggest a possible change to one of your direct reports, he always seems
resistant. He does not openly say he doesn’t want a change, but he often speaks glowingly
of his previous supervisor and how well the department has been running. This response is
pretty consistent, regardless of the type of change being discussed. How would you handle
this situation?
18. As the new Director you would undoubtedly have ideas about changes or new initiatives
you might like to bring to the City. Talk to us about a program or initiative you have had a
positive experience with. How might that program/initiative potentially be beneficial for
the City?
19. The Director is expected to have good word processing and basic computer skills—we are
not staffed to have much administrative support in this area. What level of administrative
support are you accustomed to? What level of support would you expect in order to be
successful as our Director?
20. In closing, please share with us why we should hire you as the Public Works Director.
21. Do you have any questions for us?