7 Best Practices for Facility Manager Interview
A facility manager has the onus of maintaining a safe and comfortable environment at the facility. It extends beyond just physical maintenance and encompasses occupant satisfaction, building sustainability and regulatory compliance. The company expects you to hire a perfect blend of leadership, organizational and financial acumen. How should you prepare for a facility manager interview? It’s not as dreadful as it sounds! With a few best practices, you’re good to go.
What are the Key Expectations in a Facility Manager Interview?
As you might know, facility management is not a walk in the park. From physical maintenance, vendor management, building security, regulatory compliance tenant satisfaction and building sustainability, there’s a lot on a facility manager’s plate.
As an interviewer, you need to evaluate candidates based on technical as well as soft skills. Speaking of technical expertise, the facility manager must be well-versed with building management systems, and regulatory protocols and abreast of all the latest tech trends in FM.
Related Read: How FM Tech is Transforming Facility Management?
In addition, check for skills like creative thinking, problem-solving, leadership, team management, and conflict resolution among others. In the next section, we’ll take you through the 7 best practices for a successful facility manager interview. Buckle up!
Top 7 Best Practices for Hiring a Facility Manager
#1 Set the Job Requirements in Stone
The first best practice is to set clear candidate requirements. While the job description explicitly states the facility manager’s roles and responsibilities, you must have a clear picture of the ideal candidate in your mind. Define the technical expertise, soft skills, cultural adaptability etc. along with qualities like zeal to learn.
#2 Speak Less, Listen More
Do you know about the Pareto principle? Yes, it’s the 80/20 rule. You can apply the same in a facility manager interview. Understand where the candidate is coming from- his past work experience, expertise, soft skills and success stories.
Allow them to share excerpts from their career. This helps you to evaluate the candidate’s suitability for your organizational environment.
#3 Check For Cultural Compatability
Cultural compatibility is by far the most important and yet the most overlooked aspect of candidate fit assessment. You need to carefully analyze if your interviewee vouches for compliance or loves innovation and flexibility more.
Even a candidate with top-level facility management certifications and sound work experience can be a cultural misfit for your business. Listen to their work history and try to determine the candidate’s management style. Moreover, do share the unique work culture of your business in the facility manager interview.
#4 Look For Experience and Credentials
You should primarily look for two important features of any candidate’s CV- Experience and credentials. Both serve a different purpose. Let’s see.
A robust history of delivering quality outcomes in terms of occupant satisfaction, building sustainability, team management etc. is a strong indicator of a good candidate. You can ask about their workplace dilemmas and resolution strategies to gain invaluable insights into their management skills.
Moreover, you should also seek candidates with professional certifications like CFM among others. This demonstrates the candidate’s zeal to learn and excel in the field of facility management.
#5 Deliver a Tailored Interview Experience
You can expect candidates with diverse skill sets, educational backgrounds, communication styles and mindsets. While looking for the one, you need to make sure that you provide candidate experiences tailored to each one.
We’ll advise you not to follow a rigid question structure and leave room for flexibility. Your questions should be well-aligned with your business’s unique challenges and needs. However, your interviewing skills will be put to the test through your swift adaptability to each candidate’s needs as well.
Moreover, you can also consider including case-based questions which would stimulate the candidate’s problem-solving skills and creativity. Inviting an existing facility manager, a team member or a tenant for a 360-degree interview wouldn’t be over the board.
#6 Give More Weightage to People Skills
We can’t completely overlook the technical competence of a facility manager. However, you must thoroughly assess the people skills of the candidate during the interview. A facility manager has to ensure tenant satisfaction, build positive vendor relationships and lead maintenance teams.
You would want your hire to have good team management and other interpersonal skills. An effective communicator is likely to succeed in motivating the team members, resolving facility conflicts and lending an ear to occupant dissatisfaction.
Related Read: Elevate Tenant Experience in Corporate Facility
#7 Assess Ability to Handle Conflicts
Finally, you should assess conflict resolution skills in a facility manager interview. A facility harbours multiple stakeholders- tenants, employees, maintenance teams, vendors, security teams and others. With so many heads and duties, you can expect conflicts and challenges every once in a while.
One way to achieve this is by asking candidates to share past experiences. They might give instances of conflicts with vendors or occupants and elaborate the resolution strategies. In a facility manager interview, you have to assess the candidate’s problem-solving, negotiation and active listening skills. Make sure that their past experiences showcase the aforesaid.
The Bottom Line
With the aforementioned best practices for facility manager interviews, you can choose your next facility manager. This candidate will not only possess impeccable knowledge of FM techniques but also be articulate and work towards occupant well-being. Ultimately, the seven tips for hiring an ideal facility manager is a strategic approach to ensure thoughtful hiring and curated candidate experience.
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