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Hello, I know this is really late, but I have an interview on Monday for an IT Manager position, I am very nervous for this as I have very little management experience and no experience managing people or doing an actual budget or do any kind of strategic planning. I will be interviewing with an HR Manager and the CEO of the company, as the CEO will be my manager. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

16 Spice ups
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How many people will be reporting to you? If it’s just a couple I would focus on your IT skill set. You can just work shoulder to shoulder with the folks under you…Leadership from the trenches. Maybe manager is just a title they give that position.

Now if you have 20 people under you, that’s a different skill set. You should take some schooling on managing people, motivating people, collaborating with other teams, project management, etc…It gets really complicated, probably more complicated than setting up a server and network.

But everyone has to start somewhere, so all I can think of is present an eagerness to learn and a past track record of where you lead a team to success even non-work related. Maybe you volunteer at a church or have a hobby where getting stuff done as a team is important and you can point to those accomplishments.

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Tod, focus on what you do know. An IT group would not look up to you the as credible management without a solid IT background. If you have proven you can be good at IT you can prove you can be a good manager too!

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PM me with you email address and i will forward you a copy of the budget spreadsheet i use and also some examples of strategic proposals etc.

best of luck with the interview on Monday.

how to address question of which you have no experience ?
for example…

Todd tell me of a stressful encounter you recently had and how as the manager you would dealt with it ?

So how can you reply ?
you have never been a manager, you have no experience of how to deal with it.
Well that’s not entirely true.
Think back and try and recall a manager you had in the past who you felt dealt with stressful situations very well.
now use that as the basis as your reply.

So you might reply…

Well Mr Interviewer.
I’m a relatively new manager and i’m still learning all the time.
however i recall a manager i had called Bob and i often recall that Bob was excellent at dealing with difficult situations. Bob would always remain clam and collected, i dont recall him every getting frustrated or raising his voice… So nowadays when i find myself in a demanding or difficult situation i always remind myself how calm Bob was in these situations and i try to emulate that, being calm and relaxed in stressful situations is always going to lead to a more positive outcome.

I’m trying my best as a new manager to be as much like Bob.

the same technique can be applied to many different areas.

the interview is all about what you can bring to the party.
What problems are you going to solve and how are you going to address them ?
you cannot know the solution to everything and vary rarely will the solutions be original only to you.
So bring a good solution, even one that has been recycled is perfectly acceptable.

Strategic planning…
true there are some people that make an art form out of producing 100+ pages of total bollocks.
no one wants to read it…
not the boss
not the team
not the anyone.

So here is how i tend to address the issues.

What are the strategic plans of the business ?
This is the single most critical question…
how can you as a department support the business if you do now know the overall strategy of the business ?
What are the strategic plans of other departments ?

Has the sales department got a plan to bring in a new ERP system ?
Has the account department got a plan to install a new accounts platform ?

these are all critical things to know as they heavily dictate your strategy/plans moving forward.

you can as a blanket strategy have.

  1. Support the overall company strategy by integrating with key stakeholders and using technology enables to help them achieve their long term goals.
  2. Provide robust and reliable infrastructure to support business operations and challenges.
  3. Provide a reliable backup and DR solution to protects against issues (both internal and external)

it really doesn’t have to be much more complex than that.
i would then go on form that to produce a Short/Medium/Long term plans.
and these plans would have a lot more flesh to them

Budgeting is something different people approach in a different manner.
the art of budgeting is being to explain and present your data in a way that is easy to digest.
nothing more grand than that.
i have a spreadsheet i use and its served me very well indeed.

For example when you are requesting to purchase 6 new PC’s
you need to be able to answer quickly and with authority when the boss starts firing off questions.

Todd didn’t we just buy a load of new kit ?
Well here is the line for new PCs and so far this year we have not purchased any.
you can see from the budget we planned to purchase 12 this year and i have out them in the budget as 6 new machine twice this year.

the boss knows IT costs money, the same as payroll and sales and reception and this and that and everything costs dam money.
what he really wants to know is that you are managing the spend correctly and not just wasting cash.
He knows his staff need new PCs, he knows he needs a decent backup system.
it really is all about managing his expectations in the long run.

11 Spice ups
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Be yourself. Show your IT knowledge. If they didn’t think you were worth interviewing they wouldn’t have called you in. Interviews take time and time is money. Just find out about the business as much as possible. Have 6 or 7 questions ready but be prepared to only ask a couple of them. Many times my prepared questions have been answered during the interview. If that happens ask the to elaborate on, for example, the current location of your team. This shows interest in the business and also plants the seed of it being your team…

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Maybe this will help. Here are some things that are probably true:

  1. They have some sort of working IT infrastructure.
  2. They have IT people employed there now.
  3. They have some sort of chain-of-command.
  4. Someone was probably doing the job before you.

Knowing that, you have some built-in answers for questions they might throw at you.

What’s the first thing you’ll change?

I have to assume that you have an IT department that’s in place. As such, I wouldn’t change anything until I’ve had a chance to examine your operation and see what’s working well for your needs and what isn’t. After that, I’d be ready to make some suggestions based on your short-term and long-term goals.

How will you do strategic planning?

IT has several different types of strategy, but they all focus on enabling the company to perform its function efficiently. IT must plan both to meet immediate needs as well as create opportunities for growth and expansion. The former comes from a study of what we’re doing now, what’s going well, and what could be done better. Future strategy comes from giving IT a seat at the table when long-range planning is taking place. We need to pave the roads to allow future travel. IT must move from a break/fix model to one of removing obstacles to growth.

What is your philosophy of management?

I believe in getting 100-percent out of each employee. To do that, I need to find out what that 100-percent is for each individual. I’ll assign roles and tasks based on individual strengths. I’ll also work to develop each employee’s potential while ensuring that they meet the required standards. I’ll strive to make their job environment enjoyable, consistent with the needs of the company.

8 Spice ups
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Robert’s post nailed it.

Some additonal stuff - just be honest and confident. Every good leader or manager at one point wasn’t leading or managing and either had to make a case for it or got lucky. You’re at that point right now so you’re interviewing with house money. Go in there knowing you have literally nothing to lose, show some swagger, and kill the job interview. You just need to show them that you can lead and you can interact. Those are the two biggest things. If you nabbed the interview for this position it’s basically assumed that you have the tech savvy for it so now they’re vetting you as a person. Go in there and show them that you are the right person for the job rather than focusing on “I have the most experience and skills.”

2 Spice ups
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“IT Manager” is a very ambiguous term. This could be a small IT dept with one or two people underneath you (maybe none) and the emphasis on ‘manage’ means mostly managing the IT infrastructure and maybe signing a couple time sheets.

Or, it could be a large IT dept with 50 people including engineers.

My impression is the position is closer to ‘A’ otherwise there’s no way you would be considered for the job with zero mgmt experience. I would also find it curious they would be hiring somebody external that’s ‘green’ on the mgmt side when certainly somebody on the existing staff is also posting for the job.

So, I’m making the tactical assumption it’s a small IT dept…not that it’s minimalizing the role in any respect.

If anything, do not show a lack of confidence with this type of role because it’s death if they smell it. If you do have people underneath you how you carry yourself in the interview is going to bear a lot stronger than stating cliche’s about how you’ve ‘never been a manager but eager to learn’. More than likely the CEO is going to be looking for some intangible you can’t predict anyways, so like anything else your best position is focus on your tech skills, professionalism and visualize yourself already being in the position in terms of attitude.

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This is a great response. I will be saving it for my own future reference.

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Don’t you think it would be better to get some experience in those areas before trying to assume that position?

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I hope that it went well.

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Indeed…

fingers crossed.

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in an ideal world yes.
in this world…grab what you can.

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Hope it went well.