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7 Outstanding Office Manager Interview Questions

November 28, 2016
November 28, 2016 TruPath

7 Outstanding Office Manager Interview Questions

Are you looking to hire an office manager for your company? The following office manager interview questions will help point you in the right direction during the hiring process.

Top Office Manager Interview Questions

What administrative process worked well at your last position? What didn’t work very well?

An office manager should be aware of what works well and what doesn’t click with fellow employees. Was there a policy implementation that was rough to adopt among employees? Did everything generally run smoothly, and did employees react well to your management? Delve deep on this one.

How have you ensured the adoption of a new procedure or policy throughout a team or an organization?

Again, how smoothly does this candidate deal with transitions in the workplace? Ask the candidate to provide an example of where he or she successfully implemented a new procedure in a past role with a company.

Discuss your approach to conducting training sessions with employees.

One of the top office manager interview questions involves the training process. Because proper training can lead to various kinds of positive results in the organization, it’s crucial to find out how the candidate trained employees. What specifics were employees trained for? Did anything go wrong later on that was, in fact, covered in your training process? A great office manager should have the ability to successfully train employees in his or her wheelhouse.

Describe a typical day and the range of responsibilities in your previous job.

An office manager helps to keep the office running. This could include managing schedules, making phone calls, ordering supplies, getting coffee, assisting with meetings, etc. Office managers generally embody a variety of roles in your organization—so use this question to see how the candidate juggles all these responsibilities.

What is your understanding of the office manager role and your understanding of our company?

Aside from prior experience in the field, an office manager should also research your company and come into the interview with an idea of how things work there. As one of the top office manager interview questions, this should paint a picture of how the candidate operated in a previous role.

Tell me about a recent situation where you had to manage conflict between your staff.

Conflict is almost a given in any workplace, and the office manager can resolve it in various ways. These methods might include effective communication, listening to feedback, coaching employees through issues as well as resource allocation.

Are you comfortable taking orders from supervisors and associates?

An office manager assists in different ways for the whole office. He or she must also demonstrate to the interviewer that they’re a team player. How does the candidate ensure office operations go smoothly? In a prior role, how did he or she handle taking orders from associates as well as adjusting to individual working styles?

So, what office manager interview questions would you add to this list?

For all your hiring needs, contact the professionals at TruPath to find the right fit for your team.


As a trusted recruitment source for more than a decade, TruPath has the industry knowledge and a proven model to help our partners feel comfortable in their search for a candidate.

Through our TruProcess, we are able to consistently deliver exceptional candidates that help organizations continue down successful paths. Contact TruPath today to tell us about your staffing needs.