How to Hire a Digital Project Manager

Are you looking to hire a digital project manager but not sure where to start? Finding the right candidate for this critical role is essential to ensuring the success of your digital projects. In this article, we will guide you through the steps of hiring a qualified and competent digital project manager while incorporating SEO-optimized strategies.

Define Your Requirements

To begin with, it is important to clearly define your requirements for a digital project manager. Start by identifying the specific tasks and responsibilities that you expect the candidate to fulfill. Do they need experience with agile methodologies? Proficiency in certain project management tools? Understanding these requirements will help you create an effective job description built around relevant keywords.

Craft an Engaging Job Description

When writing your job description, make sure it is concise, yet detailed enough to attract qualified applicants. Begin with an attention-grabbing headline that uses related keywords such as “talented digital project manager” or “experienced project management professional.” Describe key tasks, required skills, and any preferred qualifications. Incorporate relevant industry keywords throughout your description to enhance search engine visibility.

Leverage Online Job Boards and Platforms

To reach a wider audience of potential applicants, post your job opening on popular online job boards and platforms. Seek out specialized sites like those catering to the digital industry or those specifically focused on project management roles. These channels allow you to target candidates who possess relevant expertise in managing digital projects.

Screen Resumes using SEO Parameters

When reviewing resumes/CVs from potential candidates, look for specific keywords related to their experience in digital project management or relevant skills mentioned in your job description. Candidates who understand search engine optimization may structure their CVs accordingly by using action verbs and other language associated with such positions.

Conduct Structured Interviews

Once you’ve shortlisted potential candidates based on their resumes/CVs, conduct structured interviews designed specifically for hiring digital project managers. Focus on questions that assess their technical competence, problem-solving skills, adaptability to changing requirements, and familiarity with industry-standard tools and software.

Assess Past Project Experience

Analyze the candidates’ past project experience to ensure they have successfully managed similar projects in the past. Seek examples of how they handled challenges, met deadlines, coordinated team members, and achieved project goals. Look for evidence of their ability to implement SEO strategies or manage website development projects if applicable.

Evaluate Soft Skills

Apart from technical skills, it is equally crucial to evaluate a candidate’s soft skills such as communication, leadership, and teamwork abilities. A digital project manager must effectively collaborate with various stakeholders involved to achieve project objectives successfully. Assessing these skills will help you select a candidate who can efficiently coordinate teams and maintain harmonious client relationships.

Verify References

Before making your final decision, ensure you contact the references provided by each candidate. During these conversations, focus on inquiries related to the candidates’ performance in previous roles concerning digital project management. Verify their claims by discussing specific projects and tasks they were involved in.

A digital project manager is one of the key figures in the project. And the choice of the appropriate candidate must be very precise.
Skills and competency become clear when there is a discussion about a project’s goal. While looking for the right digital project manager, should be taken into consideration those qualities of personality, that will help him to work correctly with the goals.

Digital Project Manager is not the only name for this specialty in Digital Agency

There are variations that depend on the type of activity of the company

A manager at an agency that does advertising (context, display advertising, targeting, and so on). Alternative title: Digital Manager. He also controls the process, but on the implementation of advertising campaigns.

Manager in an agency that develops creative and branding. Alternative names: Digital Producer, Producer.

The main task of this specialist is to manage the process: setting tasks, priorities, deadlines and monitoring their implementation. Digital Project Manager can manage the production site or creative, advertising campaign and other components of digital marketing.

You need to know the project management methodology (Agile, Waterfall) and have time management. And one more aspect is confident communication skills. The Project Manager should communicate with all participants in the process, in some agencies this position includes accounting.

Useful certificates for this position: PMBok, time management courses, communications and courses on a particular field in which Digital (digital marketing, layout, creative, etc.) works.

Questions for the interview:

• What structure do you work in? Who are your supervisor and colleagues, what does the department look like?
• How do projects come to work?
• How do you plan the project, from what stages is the implementation?
• Which team do you have to interact with? Tell us about the project, where it was difficult to build communication with someone from the team and how did you cope with it?
• What tools for scheduling tasks and deadlines do you use? What alternatives do you know and what are their pros and cons?
• How do you organize your work and personal time? What recommendations can you give to people who have difficulty with this?
• What clients did you have to work with? Tell us about the main activities of customers and their features?
• How to make the deadlines for the projects do not move?
• What methodologies do you know and how were they implemented and put into practice?
• How does a good project manager differ from a bad one and what key competencies should a good project manager have?

Position

Many things in projects can be subjective, but they are often based on some decisions. These decisions should be able to justify both the team and the customer. Often you can find out the limitations by conducting an interview with a business or a client workshop. This requires very strong communication – it is possible only if you are confident in your knowledge and position in the company;

Curiosity

The most breakthrough solutions usually occur in narrow areas, but they need to be closely monitored – good ideas quickly spread to other industries. Plus benchmarking and analysis of competitors – some hypotheses can be accepted and rejected by the way they work with neighbors;

Empathy

Understanding how users behave, what problems they need to decide, what they use – what is familiar to them, and what’s new. A big plus when the experts themselves participate in interviews with users;

Consistency

In digital projects, there is a lot of systematization: the process, the compilation of artifacts, the calculation of profitability, the compilation of a matrix of functionality, the conduct of research and experiments. It is important to have a systematic approach to these tasks.

It’s definitely not easy to find the right candidate. Our agency is working in the field of project management. An unusual life hack, which can help in the process of selection, is to use specially selected projective tests that do not suggest the correct answer. But they help to objectively assess the level of the candidate, his motivation and way of thinking.

The value of a digital specialist is in cross-functionality. A person must understand his tasks and what his colleagues are doing. It is not necessary to be able to do – it is important to understand the value, to be able to work with artifacts and to be interested in the adjacent area.

Digital Project Manager in action

It is necessary to understand well how the industry with which you work and earns. The peculiarity of digital products is the solution to problems for both businesses and users. It is important to look at how a person understands and takes into account the limitations of real business processes.

As for the experience, proven experience with a digital product is an important indicator, but not a guarantee. Also, the absence of such experience does not mean that a person will not cope. The specialist of our company always tries to understand what role the candidate for digital project manager can play in the project, what areas of responsibility he had, what he had to deal with.
Sometimes restrictions are imposed by the company’s business processes themselves – it is important to find out. Nevertheless, an experienced digital specialist always keeps in mind the key goals of the project.

Follow these steps when hiring a digital project manager, ensuring that your selection process benefits both your company’s needs and aligns with SEO practices to enhance visibility online. By finding an SEO-optimized project manager who possesses the necessary technical skills while maintaining strong communication abilities and valuable experience managing digital campaigns/projects, you set yourself up for success in the ever-expanding digital landscape.