Supervising, managing, and overseeing day-to-day office operations takes a lot of effort and energy. Office managers are responsible for performing the below-mentioned challenging tasks.
- To perform the administrative functions
- To effectively manage the office supplies and stationery items
- To sort, arrange and order the business files
- To supports the office staff so that they can perform their functions smoothly and
- To prepare all office budgets
Office management professionals often get lucrative incentives, benefits, and salaries in supervisory positions. Reading our frequently asked interview questions will help you prepare sincerely for the interview session.
1. Tell Us Something About Yourself And Also Let Us Know Why You Prefer Working In Office Management Area?
I am an organized, driven, and objective-driven manager who can get the most from the people I am responsible for. Performing my job professionally to the highest standards is essential to the success of your organization, and I am passionate about my work. Besides managing the office team proficiently, I am also capable of ensuring the people I am managing grow, develop, and thrive in their roles. Upon becoming your Office Manager, I would ensure your objectives are met promptly and professionally without hindrances or fuss.
2. What Do You Understand About The Office Manager Role?
Ensure that the office runs smoothly with the help of an office manager. You might also have to support and monitor staff performance, create documents, invoicing, and basic accounting, communicate with clients, manage office supplies, and support executives.
3. How Do You The Concept Of Prudence? Explain The Concept With A Practical Application.
According to the accounting concept of Prudence, business organizations must recognize the expected losses they anticipate incurring in the near future. Provisions for recognizing profits shall be created by setting aside a portion of profits. By reducing its profits by the amount it anticipates will not be recouped by its debtors, a company uses Provision for Bad and Doubtful Debts.
4. What Do You Understand The Term Financial Statements?
Financial statements typically refer to three statements, which are:
Balance Sheets: They represent a summary of the assets and liabilities of a company on a particular date.
Profit and Loss Account: They represent all the incomes and expenses of the company on the credit and debit sides, respectively.
Cash Flow Statement: They account for all business cash inflows and outflows, which take place in the normal course of business. Moreover, they segregate and divide the cash flows into three different categories, which are:
- Cash flow from Investing activities
- Cash flow from Operating activities
- Cash flow from Financing activities
5. We Believe Managers Must Show Perfectness And Quality In Their Work. How Do You Interpret The Term “Quality”?
It is possible to attach different meanings to the term quality. As long as business operations meet established benchmarks and standards, I consider them quality tasks. As well as providing the necessary utilities to the company’s customers, these tasks must also satisfy the company’s customers.
6. Mention Us About A Situation When You Showed Commitment At Your Workplace.
Dedication and commitment are necessary employee traits. The fact that I possess them makes me feel lucky. During my previous employment, I experienced an incident that supports this assertion. Suddenly, we had a new project that needed to be completed before the New Year. As a result, we all had to work four hours longer daily in the office. As a result, I never wavered from my commitment and delivered what was expected of me.
7. You Might Perform Repetitive Tasks Almost Daily. How Do You Cope With This Monotony?
Surely, nothing is worse than a dull and tedious daily routine that can crush you. When employees cannot concentrate, they refrain from performing even routine business tasks. The same normally happens with me, and to cope with it, I usually prefer having:
- Short breaks
- Listening Music
- Playing some fun games with my colleagues during the lunch break
- Motivate me by engaging in encouraging dialogue
8. Office Managers Never Prefer Dealing With The Customers Of The Company. Comment On This Statement.
There is no way I can agree with this statement. Based on my three years of experience, office managers are expected to greet customers and even show a high level of hospitality to make them feel comfortable.
9. Tell Us About A Situation Where You Had To Handle A Difficult Client.
At my last job, a client came into the office and said he had an appointment with one of the managers. Since his appointment wasn’t on the calendar, I politely asked him if he had the right time and date. My concern was that he would become very frustrated, negatively impacting our relationship. While I went to find the manager, I calmly asked him to take a seat. We were lucky to have the manager available immediately, so the client’s attitude improved immediately.
10. What Is Your Ethical Team Culture?
To achieve their goals and objectives, team members should be dedicated. As well as maintaining a high level of productivity, the employees must not engage in any teasing or harassment politics. Team members need to be supportive and encouraging at the same time.
11. Mention Us The Time When Your Office Budget Did Not Get The Necessary Approvals.
It is impossible to deliver a perfect result every time, no matter how hard you try. During my previous tenure, I failed to consider enough historical data when preparing an office budget. My instructions specifically instructed me to take into account historical data from the past five years, but I only considered the past two years. Due to my lack of accuracy and logic, my work was rejected.
12. Name Three Best Software Products Used Widely In The Industry For Efficient Office Management.
Sure. These include:
- Trello
- LibreOffice
- Taskworld
13. Office Management Professionals Normally Work In A Challenging Business Environment. How Do You Manage Your Failures?
I will discuss how I manage my work-related failures using my techniques and strategies. My performance at work is never substandard because I never lose confidence.
Occasionally, we all have bad days or weeks. It is also difficult to cope when we do not accomplish something we want.
Some people seem more capable of picking themselves up after these experiences than others.
- I recognize and accept emotions
You need to accept failure, at least in the beginning. Minimizing your feelings or distracting yourself can be counterproductive in the long run. Allow yourself some time to feel your feelings and recognize them for what they are.
Do not dwell too long on it, however. You should also avoid blaming yourself since it is counterproductive.
Let the pain hide/subside for a few days, then start moving on.
- I don’t make it personal
Failure can be devastating for some people due to their identity being tied to success.
Rather than perceiving a setback as a setback, they view themselves as a failure. Do not take failure or success personally; instead, see them as experiences. There is no change in the real ‘you’ due to it.
Kipling’s point is that success and failure aren’t intrinsic to who we are. It should not be part of your identity to say, “I am successful” or “I am unsuccessful.”.
- I don’t worry about what anyone else will think
Often, we judge success and failure based on how we think others will view us.
It is impossible to control what other people think. People shouldn’t be influenced by your desire to please them.
When you define success and failure in your terms, you will be able to accept them more easily and do things because you want to achieve, not for other people’s benefit.
14. What Office Manager Duties Do You Enjoy Most And Least?
My favorite thing about working in a busy office is solving problems as they arise. It’s rewarding to work in a team environment and meet tight deadlines. Disorganization makes me anxious, so I’ll step in and help someone who needs help getting organized if I see them.
15. Describe Your Best Boss And Worst Boss.
As far as my best boss is concerned, I would describe him as empathic, driven, and fair. Their work is free of nepotism and favoritism. I would describe my worst boss with these three words: selfish, arrogant, and unfair. It didn’t matter who my boss was; however, I always did my best. Managers and bosses are not chosen by you, just like parents or places of birth. Your attitude to your boss and your job is the only thing you can decide. Having a good attitude was what I always focused on.
16. How Do You Manage Confidential Information?
A password is always used to protect confidential information. I always clear my desk of all paperwork, especially confidential files, before leaving my desk. I will never disclose personal or private information to anyone unless the appropriate individual has authorized its release. I would be willing to verify that the person requesting the information is authorized to receive it, but I would not give it to them without that confirmation.
17. What Is Your Dream Job?
We all surely dream, and some even want to work alongside Elon Musk or manage their favorite football team as an assistant manager. Certainly, these are dreams, but they are unsuitable for sharing in response to this question.
Having a great ability to utilize my communication and customer service skills is what I look for in a job, and that’s what makes this office management area so appealing to me. Customer interaction and problem-solving are two of my favorite aspects of my job. I’d love to work in sales after becoming an expert in your product line and developing strong relationships with your customers.
18. Office Management Is A Wide Area, And You May Be Required To Work Under Various Sub Areas. How Do You Manage Stress In All These Cases?
We can benefit by learning skills to manage fear and anxiety on the job. Several skills taught to me when I started my career are mentioned below with their brief details:
- Relaxation strategies. These strategies perfectly help counter all physiological effects of the fight-or-flight response. For instance, progressive muscle relaxation might help reduce anxiety-related muscle tension. To practice this skill, I sit comfortably with my eyes closed. Working from my legs upward, systematically tense and relax each major muscle group. I tend to hold the tension for 10 seconds; release tension for 20 seconds. Each time I release muscle tension, I think “relax” to myself. The same and many other relaxation strategies can help reduce symptoms of anxiety.
- Problem-solving. This is a great and active coping strategy involving teaching people to take specific steps when approaching a roadblock or challenge. These steps include problem definition, brainstorming potential solutions, ranking the solutions, developing an action plan, and testing the chosen solution. I adopt most of them if not all and have found myself very successful and relaxed, especially during work.
- Mindfulness. Mindfulness is a great ability to pay complete attention to the present moment with curiosity, openness, and acceptance. In that case, stress can be exacerbated when we spend time ruminating about the past, worrying about the future, or engaging in self-criticism. For me, mindfulness has always helped train the brain to break these harmful habits. I cultivate mindfulness skills through formal practice (like guided meditation) and informal exercises (like mindful walking) or try mindfulness apps or classes. Mindfulness-based therapies also prove effective for me in reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression.
- Reappraising negative thoughts. Worry and chronic stress can lead people to develop a mental filter in which they automatically interpret situations through a negative lens. There was a time when I was jumping to negative conclusions with little or no evidence (“my boss would think I’m incompetent”) and doubted my ability to cope with stressors (“I’ll be devastated if I don’t get the promotion”). To reappraise negative thoughts, I started treating them as hypotheses instead of facts and considering other possibilities. Regularly practicing this skill helped me to reduce negative emotions in response to stressors.
19. How Do You Prefer Working – Team Or Alone?
It’s a tricky question since it requires me to choose between two options. Considering the current market scenario, teamwork will always be my first choice of work.
20. As You Know, You Will Perform Several Tasks In A Single Day. How Do You Prioritize?
I will be kept busy throughout the workday, as an office manager is viewed as an all-rounder. To accomplish all the tasks promptly, I must arrange them according to difficulty level, time consumption, yield, etc. I will begin working on the appropriate strategies as soon as I have reviewed them.
21. What Are Your Strengths As An Office Manager?
Office management professionals must be very passionate, personable, and organized and have awesome communication skills. Moreover, the ability to identify and proactively solve problems is also important. Demonstrating a positive, can-do attitude, even when things get busy, is key.
As per my knowledge, the Office management area’s qualities include:
- Optimism
- Communication
- Flexibility.
- Organization and project management
- Creativity
- Emotional intelligence
- Administrative
- Leadership
22. Motivation Is A Crucial Element To Give Your Best. What Motivates You To Work?
Some below-mentioned points motivate me to work:
- Meeting deadline(s), targets or goals
- Mentoring and coaching other(s)
- Learning new things (s)
- Coming up with creative ideas for improving something or inventing something new
- Analyzing complex data models to draw a clear and simple conclusion(s)
- Working well as part of a team(s)
- Leading a team to success and motivating them
- Completing a difficult project and seeing it till the end
- Spotting flaws and error(s) to make sure the result of a project is as good as possible
- Finding all possible ways to solve all problems or overcome challenges.
23. Have You Applied In Any Other Company Also?
It’s my first choice to work for your company, but I’m actively pursuing a few different opportunities. It sounds like you have built a great team here and that the organization has a great culture, based on what I’ve heard about the company from a friend of a friend (or by researching online).
24. What Knowledge Improvement Did You Make In The Last Year?
Since I no longer had to commute two hours to and from work, I, too, gained some time last year. The things I love are what I decided to devote my time to. Consequently, I began playing the guitar and journaling again. My mental health and productivity have both improved as a result.
25. What Do You Know About Our Company?
It wasn’t until recently that I learned about you. My friend told me about you. He saw your advertisement on some Job boards.
Your software products, services, and mission captivated me after doing some brief research on your company.
After working on tons of software products like yours, I feel confident about working on them.
26. What Are You Expecting In A New Role?
After working at [Startup X] for 5+ years, I want to apply my machine learning skills to a new project. As an office management executive, I used to work there.
Currently, I’m seeking a company that allows me to work on a larger scale in the office management area.
Working on such a large-scale project will allow me to progress significantly faster in my career.
27. Why You Chose Us?
As a top employer, your company consistently ranks high. Having read employee testimonials, I know your passion for providing education, training, and resources to help employees succeed. As you recently demonstrated in your latest campaign, engaged employees produce better work. Joining your innovative team, creating great work, and learning new skills within the company would be a great experience for me.
28. What Sets You Apart From Other Candidates That We’re Interviewing For This Position?
Because I have three years of hands-on experience, I’ll be able to jump right in as office manager. Due to my extrovert nature, I have excellent people skills and can quickly build rapport with anyone. I have volunteered in various community organizations, so I can adapt quickly to the office environment and work well with a team of diverse individuals. I have also developed writing and design skills through my blog, which will be very useful in this role.
29. What Do You Think Are Cons Of Office Management Area?
Some aspects of working in office management can take you away from the job. These include:
- Larger task load: As a management professional, you will need to have the largest workload in the office. You might delegate some tasks to others but always work under a demanding caseload.
- Patience: This lets you have a truckload of patience, i.e., infinite patience to deal with everything which works throws at you. This may include lots of glitches, mishaps, and other issues that might all stop you from working. You need to smile and bear everything at your best.
- Motivational burdens: Here, you are the person who might require to motivate the rest of the office. When you notice things going well, you might find your job easy. When you notice hurdles, and things are never smooth, you must realize that it’s something Herculean. You have now got to be prepared for an uphill struggle.
- Working independently: This will depend on your preferred working style, but you will be expected to do a lot of work alone. It’s a lot of responsibility to manage, and not everyone will be prepared to take it on.
30. Do You Have Any Questions For Us?
Yes. I will love to ask a few if you don’t mind.
- What are the various incentives and allowances offered to the office managers for working overtime?
- What is the promotional policy of the company?
- Is it the policy of the company to give paid leaves to its employees, especially in medical emergencies?
Conclusion
We have mentioned 30 best and top questions and answers covering office management. They may vary if we break down the area further to a specific role, but most of them remain the same.