Interviewing at PRTM Management can be an exciting yet nerve-wracking experience. As a leading management consulting firm focused on strategy, operations, and technology, PRTM attracts top talent across industries Standing out requires thorough preparation and insight into the types of questions you’re likely to encounter
This article provides an inside look at PRTM’s interview process, along with strategies for crafting winning responses With the right approach, you can confidently highlight your qualifications and land the consulting job of your dreams!
Overview of PRTM Management
Founded in 1981, PRTM Management Consulting was acquired by PwC in 2011 and rebranded as Strategy&. The firm specializes in helping clients solve complex business problems and transform their organizations. Their consultants come from diverse backgrounds and industries bringing multifaceted perspectives to drive innovation.
PRTM is known for its practical approach that focuses on real results and long-lasting effects. Companies in technology, healthcare, consumer goods, financial services, and other fields have hired the firm to work with them.
Insights Into PRTM’s Interview Process
PRTM’s interview process typically lasts 1-2 hours and consists of two or three rounds:
-
Initial phone/video screening: Assesses basic qualifications, communication skills, and overall fit.
-
In-person interviews: 1-2 rounds covering behavioral, case study, and technical questions. Interviews may be one-on-one or panel-style.
-
Case study: Presented onsite or as pre-work, evaluating problem-solving abilities.
-
Networking events: Opportunities to interact informally with staff.
The process aims to evaluate both hard and soft skills. PRTM seeks candidates who thrive in ambiguity, demonstrate intellectual curiosity, and can build rapport with clients. Technical chops must be coupled with strategic thinking and business acumen.
15 Common PRTM Interview Questions and Answers
Here are typical questions asked during PRTM interviews with strategies to ace your responses:
1. Tell me about yourself.
This open-ended question allows you to shape the narrative. Focus your answer on your experiences and qualifications most relevant to the role. Use concise, compelling stories to highlight your successes.
- Provide an overview of your background, career progression, and future goals at a high level.
- Emphasize transferable skills from past experiences in consulting, project management, business operations, or analytical problem-solving.
- Close with your interest in PRTM and the specific competencies you hope to leverage in the position.
2. Why do you want to work at PRTM?
Demonstrate your understanding of PRTM’s business, values and the attractiveness of the opportunity.
- Show enthusiasm for their strategy-focused approach and specialized expertise.
- Reference PRTM’s culture of innovation, collaboration, and drive for results.
- Share why their commitment to professional development and training appeals to you.
- Highlight your alignment with their mission of enabling clients’ success.
3. What three words would you use to describe yourself?
Choose words strategically to emphasize strengths PRTM looks for.
- Traits like analytical, collaborative, curious portray your thinking style.
- Qualities like enterprising, accomplished, and adaptable showcase your work ethic.
- Opt for nuanced vs. generic words to add depth.
Back up with examples demonstrating those characteristics in action.
4. How do you stay up to date on business, technology, and industry trends?
Demonstrate your curiosity and commitment to continuous learning:
- Cite business publications, podcasts, online resources, and social media feeds you follow.
- Discuss professional networks, conferences, and trade shows you participate in.
- Share how you leverage sites like Coursera and LinkedIn Learning for self-development.
- Give examples of how you apply new knowledge on the job.
5. Tell me about a time you had a conflict at work. How did you handle it?
Share a story highlighting your communication, problem-solving, and conflict resolution skills:
- Set the context by explaining the nature of the conflict.
- Emphasize listening, asking probing questions, and finding common ground.
- Outline your collaborative, win-win approach to resolving the issue.
- Share the positive outcome your actions created for the team or company.
6. Describe a time when you had to solve a difficult problem.
Showcase analytical abilities and resilience in the face of challenges:
- Explain the complex problem and why it was difficult to solve.
- Walk through your structured approach to analyzing root causes.
- Discuss how you generated creative solutions and weighed pros and cons.
- Share the solution you implemented and metrics showing its success.
- Conclude with lessons learned about problem-solving strategies.
7. What experience do you have using data analytics to drive business decisions?
Demonstrate your quantitative skills and how you’ve applied them to create value:
- Discuss datasets, tools, and methodologies you’re proficient in leveraging to glean insights.
- Share examples of analyzing data to identify issues, trends, and opportunities.
- Outline how your data-backed recommendations influenced strategy and drove measurable impact, whether cost savings, revenue growth, risk reduction, etc.
8. Tell me about a time you managed multiple projects. How did you prioritize?
Show you can balance competing priorities smoothly and strategically:
- Describe the projects and business context.
- Explain your framework for evaluating urgency, resources required, and business impact.
- Discuss tools like matrices and GANTT charts you used to visualize timelines.
- Share how you collaborated with stakeholders when tradeoffs were necessary.
- Emphasize meeting deadlines and targets through orchestrating people and processes.
9. Describe a time you had to persuade team members to adopt a new approach or process.
Demonstrate leadership, influence, and change management abilities:
- Explain the outdated process and challenges it posed.
- Discuss how you made the case for change with compelling data.
- Share how you encouraged buy-in by emphasizing benefits to the team.
- Outline your strategies for overcoming resistance or skepticism.
- Describe how you helped ease the transition and ensured adoption.
10. Tell me about a challenging client presentation you had to deliver. How did you handle it?
Highlight your communication skills and adaptability in high-pressure client interactions:
- Set the context by describing the client scenario and presentation objectives.
- Discuss how you prepared by tailoring the message to that audience.
- Share how you handled curveballs like critical questions or last-minute changes with poise.
- Emphasize how you built credibility and achieved the desired outcomes.
11. Have you managed junior team members? What approaches did you find effective?
Demonstrate your mentoring skills and commitment to developing talent:
- Share your techniques for providing constructive feedback that motivated growth.
- Discuss coaching on technical capabilities, business acumen, and soft skills.
- Explain how you modeled behaviors around project leadership, communication, and delivering excellent client service.
- Offer examples of team members you helped advance in their careers.
12. Tell me about a time you had to be flexible to changing project requirements. How did you adapt?
Convey your comfort with ambiguity and ability to adjust on the fly:
- Describe the original goals and timeline and explain how they shifted.
- Discuss your agile strategies to re-prioritize, reallocate resources, and keep stakeholders aligned.
- Share how you motivated your team through the changes and uncertainty.
- Emphasize adhering to budget and delivering stellar results despite moving targets.
13. What is your experience using business data visualization tools?
Demonstrate your technical capabilities:
- Discuss your exposure to tools like Tableau, QlikView, Microsoft Power BI, and Oracle Visual Analyzer.
- Share examples of visualizations, dashboards, and models you’ve developed to drive insights.
- Highlight skills like data storytelling, simplifying complexity, and highlighting trends.
- Show enthusiasm for continuously expanding your skills.
14. Imagine you are consulting with a retailer facing declining sales. Walk me through your approach.
Demonstrate your strategic thinking process and aptitude for framing problems:
- Ask probing questions about symptoms, business context, and key performance indicators.
- Explain how you’d profile the customer base, analyze market trends, audit operations, and study competitors.
- Discuss frameworks and best practices you would leverage to diagnose root causes.
- Share how you’d define scope, prioritize areas for interventions, and create an action plan.
15. Do you have any questions for me?
- Ask insightful questions that show your understanding of the business, enthusiastic interest, and cultural fit.
- Inquire about details of the day-to-day work, training, and career development opportunities.
- Pose questions about challenges they aim to solve for clients or business goals on the horizon.
With preparation and practice, you can feel self-assured tackling PRTM’s
Submit an interview question
Questions and answers sent in will be looked over and edited by Toptal, LLC, and may or may not be posted, at their sole discretion.
Toptal sourced essential questions that the best project management consultants can answer. Driven from our community, we encourage experts to submit questions and offer feedback.
When should you use Waterfall over an Agile approach?
There are some conditions where Waterfall Project Management would be advantageous over Agile:
- The project is small and requirements are well-defined.
- The project involves repetitive tasks.
- The project will be done again in the future with the same goals.
- When working with old systems that aren’t likely to change,
- When failing would cost too much and the company doesn’t want to take chances,
2 .
What is the difference between a burnup chart and a burndown chart?
Burndown charts and burnup charts are two types of graphs that project managers use to keep track of and talk about how their projects are going.
A burndown chart shows how much work is remaining to be done in the project backlog. The number of story points in the backlog is shown at the top of the burndown chart. As time goes on, those points are taken away until all of them are finished.
An opposite of a burndown chart, a burnup chart shows how much work has been done and how much work still needs to be done. If the scope changes in the middle of the sprint, it might be helpful because it’s easier to picture.
There is a lot of use for these charts in Agile Project Management, but they can be used for any project where progress can be seen over time. 3 .
What is a WBS?
“A logical breakdown of all the work that needs to be done by the project team in order to meet the goals and make the deliverables that were asked for.” ”.
The two main elements of a WBS are:
- Additionally, it lists the tasks that need to be completed.
- It divides big tasks into smaller ones and shows them in a tree-like structure.
Apply to Join Toptals Project Management Network
and enjoy reliable, steady, remote Freelance Project Management Consultant Jobs
What is the difference between quality assurance and quality control?
Quality assurance (QA) is related to the process of preventing defects. Quality control (QC) is related to the process of identifying defects. Let’s take two examples to illustrate this:
- One way to do QA is to use a spellchecker while writing. Having someone review your text is a form of QC.
- Writing automated tests during development is a form of QA. One type of QC is checking new features by hand in a testing environment.
5 .
Is it possible to compare velocity across different teams in the same project?
If multiple teams work on one product backlog, they could use the same reference stories for their estimations. In doing so, it would be possible to make a forecast based on each team’s velocity.
But if they work on different product backlogs, it doesn’t matter what they compare because velocity depends on many things in each team, such as sprint length, team makeup, naming conventions for sizes, and the product. When teams are compared to each other, they feel pressured to gradually give stories more story points than they really need. This creates unnecessary competition and bad estimates. 6 .
What is the downside of estimating using man days or hours in Agile?
Developing software is a complex task, especially if you are working on new features. Most of the time, developers can’t say for sure how many hours it will take to finish a task. Using man hours to estimate tasks will often result in over- or underestimations.
Another problem is that developers can give different estimates of the same task based on their level of experience because story points and other more general units of measurement are not as accurate. Even if a junior developer and a senior developer both agree that a new task is twice as hard as the last one, that doesn’t mean it will take them the same amount of time to finish it. When you estimate in man hours, you can’t compare developers with different levels of experience using this method. 7 .
What are the 2 most important metrics to monitor on a Waterfall project and why?
Milestones. The Waterfall approach assumes that work has been planned in advance and a schedule with milestones was created. For a Waterfall project manager, the schedule is the most important thing to keep an eye on because it quickly shows if the team is on track to finish the project on time. If the team is a bit late for one milestone, then that might not be a problem. If, on the other hand, the team keeps missing deadlines, the project manager should step in and see if there are issues with the schedule or the team’s work.
Budget burndown. In Waterfall, it’s important to keep track of the budget and how much you spend, especially if you hire outside help or rely on third parties in some way. People who work as project managers in a Waterfall environment are judged on how well they can finish projects on time and on budget. 8 .
To see if a project is on track, why can’t you compare the number of stories that have been finished to the total number of stories that are in the backlog?
A backlog is a collection of all of our requirements at the current point in time. Once we start planning, we will know for sure how hard each item is, even though we can put them in order of importance. At that point, we make estimates for each of those things based on how the software and our team are right now. So, the backlog is just a list of “wishes” that can’t be measured correctly in terms of story points until those stories are chosen for a sprint. Still, the scope of a backlog can change all the time as new stories are added and old ones are taken off.
You should compare the number of stories that have been finished to the number of stories in the release backlog, which is a subset of the whole backlog that has been estimated and ranked. A release backlog is a collection of stories, estimated to be delivered over some time via multiple sprints. When new stories are added, they go into the full backlog. They can only get to the release backlog by making deals with stories that have already been paid for. 9 .
If you were a project manager, what would you say are the most important skills and traits they should have?
There is no one right answer to this question, but a project manager should list the following skills and traits:
Communication skills. A PM should have great written and oral communication skills. Every day, a project manager will have to talk to different people on the team or with stakeholders. They can do this through meetings, emails, presentations, or other forms of communication. Successful PMs are empathetic, informative, and clear when communicating or negotiating.
Organizational and planning skills. Project managers often have to juggle different tasks at the same time. They have to do their own work and plan work for their team at the same time. As a project manager, one of the most important skills you should have is the ability to make plans for your work and the work of your team.
Leadership skills. Staying calm and collected, lifting other people up, and making the team work as a team. A project manager should be able to lead from both a strategic and an operational point of view, own the project, inspire and motivate the team, and give them a plan for how to succeed. A good leader synthesizes information and knowledge to achieve the solutions quickly and calmly.
Risk management. A project manager should have good risk management skills to identify the risks on the project. Risk identification and management is an important skill because it helps keep the project on track and stops failures that were not planned for.
Domain knowledge. If the project manager knows a lot about the field of the project, they can talk to everyone involved in the project in a smart way and know what the technologies can and can’t do.
Knowledge of methodologies. When running a project, a project manager should know a lot of different methods and frameworks they can use. They should know about different project management approaches, such as Waterfall, Agile, Kanban, Lean, SAFe, and more. This will help them run the project better and choose the right approach for it. 10 .
What are the 2 most important metrics to monitor on a Scrum project and why?
Sprint burndown. The burndown chart shows how many story points are still unfinished compared to the time left in the sprint. The burndown can reveal if a team is commiting to few or too many items into the sprint. It also gives the Scrum master a reason to look into problems if the burndown stops rising. Lastly, it serves as a mobilizing and motivating metric for the whole team to deliver their goals.
Velocity. The goal is to stabilize this metric and keep it consistent through sprints. Velocity shows the teams capability to deliver tasks. The fact that it is constant does not mean that the team is stagnant. Their better work is taken into account in their estimates, which get smaller as the team learns more about the project and forms working habits. 11 .
What are the 2 most important metrics to monitor on a Kanban project and why?
Throughput. This metric counts how many cards were delivered or solved during the same time period. It is the most important way to see how things are going. The cards may be different sizes, but if the right comparison period is chosen, it should even out. However, if it doesn’t, you may need to look into whether the way tasks are broken down into cards is flawed. Mature Kanban teams are able to create cards of relatively similar sizes.
Cycle time. This metric keeps track of how long a card stays as “work in progress” (WIP) or how long it takes for a card picked up by a team member to move through all the columns on the Kanban board. A good Kanban project manager should be able to make this process more efficient. 12 .
How would you work with Agile methodology in a fixed-price project?
First, if it hasn’t been done already, you should have high-level meetings with your team to figure out how big the project is. Then, these estimates need to be checked against the project’s set schedule to see if they match. If they don’t, you will need to contact your project sponsor and/or client to resolve this misalignment.
Secondly, you should prioritize the project deliverables using the MoSCoW method. It sorts all the items into “Must/Should/Could/Would deliver” groups and outlines a clear priority of different items. Start working on the highest priority items in the first sprints. If the project runs over schedule, the impact will be minimized because the most importants will have been shipped already.
Lastly, most fixed-price projects have a predefined scope, however, you can use Agile to your advantage here. As clients test the first versions of the product, they often come up with new ideas and insights. Let the client add new deliverables as long as they agree to take out items in the backlog that are the same size. 13 .
How many communications channels would be best for a project with 14 stakeholders?
The key here is to look for communication overlap, i. e. , situations where the same communication channel can be used for multiple stakeholders. The exact answer will depend on the types of stakeholders you have, but here are some examples of when communication overlaps:
- The same mailing list, Skype group, Slack channel, etc. could be used to talk to internal stakeholders from different departments. To cut down on communication costs, make this something that anyone in the company can join for free, like a Slack channel or a Yammer group.
- Sometimes, you can talk to clients in open Slack communities, public forums, Facebook groups, newsletters, webinars, and other places.
In a typical project, at least half of the 14 stakeholders should fall into one or more overlapping groups. The others might need one-on-one communications channels (email, messaging apps, meetings). A RACI matrix helps to split stakeholders into four roles: those who responsible, those who are accountable, those who need to be consulted, and those who only need to be informed. 14 .
Imagine that your team has one member that is always under delivering. What do you do?
Before you make a choice, there are a few things you could do as PM to make things better.
Ask and Listen. This is the crucial first step. We want to find out the reasons behind the under delivery and how to solve them. Talk 20% of the time, and listen 80%. Let the team member express themself and their frustrations. Figure out the reasons for their underperformance. If these problems can be fixed, do so. If they are caused by the team member’s actions and not something else, move on to the next step.
Explain and Remind. This is the step where you explain the behavior you want to change, and why you want it changed. Explain again the overall strategy and plans for the company and the team, and what roles each individual has. Be specific about what needs to change and how this would positively impact everyone. Work with the team member to set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-framed) performance goals for improvement.
Discuss and Appreciate. In this step, make sure you reinforce any good change of behavior the employee shows with their progress. Also discuss the change that happened and how it positively impacted the team and the project. Re-evaluate the SMART performance goals and set new ones once once these are achieved to encourage further improvement. 15 .
What are some of the ways to improve team performance in a Waterfall project?
Reduce management overhead. Do not let anyone on your team have more than one manager they need to answer to. Make sure everyone knows who they work for. Overhead costs are caused by complicated management structures, and this problem is especially likely to happen with waterfall projects where many people report to many different people.
Reduce unnecessary communication. Eliminating needless meetings and streamlining communication process can help any team to increase its performance in Waterfall. As the people who make decisions in Waterfall projects are often in charge of the project’s critical path, it is best to give them less extra work to do so they can focus on their main task and get the team moving again.
Switch to Agile. Certain Waterfall projects would benefit from switching to Agile methodology. By following all of the best Agile practices, your team will be able to do much better on some projects, especially ones that involve delivering software. 16 .
How should a project manager get a remote team off to a good start? What are the two most important things they should do?
Kick-off meeting. When you can only talk through the remote tools, it’s hard to get to know everyone on the remote team. So, it would be helpful to have a kick-off meeting where everyone can introduce themselves over web chat and talk about themselves in a less direct way. This increases the trust within the team and helps to build better relationships between team members.
Defining communication and reporting guidelines. Transparency and communication are key pillars when building a remote team. This helps all the stakeholders involved to feel informed and allows the team to build trust. So, when a project first starts, it’s important to set rules for communication and reporting as soon as possible. This will make sure that everyone knows what is expected of them and stop a lot of trust problems that could happen otherwise. A manager could, for example, set up a daily Scrum meeting and make sure that everyone on the team uses a standard tool like Slack for daily reporting. The manager could also set up time for regular one-on-one meetings with remote team members. This will make sure that everyone knows what level of communication the PM and stakeholders expect and will follow it if it is done at the beginning. 17 .
What are the benefits of using an Agile methodology or framework on a project?
Focus on the real business value. Agile methodologies often stress using user stories with acceptance criteria to define product features. This makes sure the team is still meeting the needs of real users and not just racing to finish the list of needs.
Constant feedback loop. Also in Agile development, testing is integrated into the development. This enables periodical tests to see that the product is working during the development. This way each feature incrementally delivers a piece of working software. In this way, software can be tested after each sprint, giving early feedback that is useful for the project and letting changes be made as needed.
Higher product quality and user satisfaction. It has been shown that using an agile method to deliver software leads to higher user satisfaction and better overall product quality. This process lets the team keep improving processes and work until the problems are fixed if any problems are found during sprint retrospectives.
Reduced risks of building the wrong thing. It was less likely that the wrong solution would be built if software was developed in small steps and shown to stakeholders. This also saved money in case the whole project had to be canceled.
Increased transparency and predictability. Stakeholders feel like they have more control over the whole project now that they know more about it and are more involved in it. This makes it easier for people to trust the group that is running the project and see when it is finished. 18 .
How do you mitigate the risk of scope creep on an Agile project?
The Agile framework defines scope as a variable constraint rather than a fixed one. Scope creep in an Agile project is when new or unplanned work is added in the middle of an iteration. It’s not the same thing as adding more work to the whole project.
All Agile frameworks solve this type of scope creep through formal processes and ceremonies. In Scrum, for instance, new work shouldn’t be added in the middle of a sprint. Instead, it should only be added during sprint planning. When new work is added to a project, the product owner should decide what to do first, keeping the project and business goals in mind at all times.
Change control turns into scope creep at some point, and a good project manager knows how to handle this risk well. The best way to do this is to let everyone involved know how much the change in scope will cost. This way, they can make smart choices about whether to add new features.
There is more to interviewing than tricky technical questions, so these are intended merely as a guide. Not every good candidate for the job will be able to answer all of them, and answering all of them doesn’t mean they are a good candidate. At the end of the day, hiring remains an art, a science — and a lot of work.
Tired of interviewing candidates? Not sure what to ask to get you a top hire?
Let Toptal find the best people for you.
Our Exclusive Network of Project Management Consultants
Looking to land a job as a Project Management Consultant?
Let Toptal find the right job for you.
Job Opportunities From Our Network
HOW TO INTERVIEW for Your FIRST MANAGEMENT or LEADERSHIP Role!
FAQ
How tough is a PwC interview?
What is the final round of the PwC interview?
What to know about PwC before an interview?
What interview questions do project managers ask?
Here are ten interview questions for project managers about their experience and background: 11. How did you first become interested in project management, and what drew you to this career path? 12. Can you describe a complex project you have managed from start to finish, including the scope, timeline, and budget? 13.
How do you manage a team in project management?
Managing a team is an important part of project management. It’s your responsibility to ensure your team works together to deliver a product or service. Try to answer this question with an example of how you were able to successfully handle a conflict. Example: “I always encourage my team to try to resolve conflicts on their own first.
What should a project manager do?
As a project manager, keep your sponsor informed of any issues that may slow or stop the project’s success. Your answer can describe how often you contact your sponsor and why. To answer this question, try to think about your interactions with project sponsors and when you talk to them.
