This article explores the top 25 common incident manager interview questions along with their sample answers. Read and master them to maximize the chances of emerging as the best candidate.
8 Tips to Prepare for a Incident Manager Interview
Here are eight items to help an Incident Manager prepare for an Incident Manager interview. Each item includes the Focus Area, Details, and Tips, with a mix of both technical and non-technical aspects:
Incident Manager Interview Preparation
| Focus Area | Details | Tips |
|---|---|---|
| Incident Management Process | Familiarize yourself with the incident lifecycle, from detection to resolution, and the key stages involved (identification, logging, categorization, prioritization, diagnosis, resolution, and closure). | Highlight any experience in implementing or improving incident management processes. Discuss specific incidents you’ve managed, emphasizing successful outcomes and lessons learned. |
| Communication Skills | Showcase your ability to communicate clearly and concisely with various stakeholders, including technical teams, management, and end-users. Highlight your experience in crafting incident communication plans. | Emphasize the importance of transparent and timely communication. Provide examples of how you’ve managed communication during high-pressure incidents. |
| Technical Proficiency | Demonstrate a solid understanding of the technologies and systems relevant to your role. This could include knowledge of network infrastructure, applications, databases, and security protocols. | Be ready to discuss specific incidents where your technical expertise played a crucial role. Highlight any certifications or training related to incident response and relevant technologies. |
| Root Cause Analysis | Discuss your approach to root cause analysis, including tools and methodologies you’ve employed. Emphasize the importance of preventing recurring incidents. | Showcase incidents where your root cause analysis led to process improvements or system enhancements. Demonstrate a commitment to continuous improvement. |
| Team Collaboration | Highlight your experience working in cross-functional teams. Discuss how you ensure effective collaboration during incidents, including communication, coordination, and knowledge sharing. | Stress the importance of teamwork and share anecdotes where strong collaboration contributed to successful incident resolution. |
| Documentation Skills | Discuss your approach to documenting incidents, including the information captured, tools used, and how you ensure accuracy and completeness. | Stress the importance of thorough documentation for knowledge transfer and post-incident analysis. Provide examples where comprehensive documentation facilitated future incident response. |
| Incident Simulation and Training | Talk about your experience conducting incident response simulations and training exercises. Discuss how these activities contribute to preparedness and improvement. | Highlight any innovative approaches you’ve used for simulations. Emphasize the value of ongoing training to stay ahead of emerging threats. |
| Regulatory Compliance | Demonstrate your understanding of industry-specific regulations and compliance standards related to incident management. | Discuss how you ensure that incident response processes align with regulatory requirements. Be prepared to talk about any experience with audits and compliance assessments. |
Remember to tailor your responses to the specific requirements of the position and the organization you’re interviewing with.
Top 25 Incident Manager Interview Questions and Answers
Here are the top 25 Incident Manager interview questions, along with a sample answer for each question.
1. Why Are You Interested In This Role?
The interviewer asks this question to find out your reasons for applying for the role. The response you give portrays your motivation for the job. In your response confirm your interest in the job.
Sample Answer
“My ability to work in a fast-paced environment and analyze a high volume of technical data pushes me to work as an incident manager. Moreover, I have a very strong knowledge of programming languages including Java, Scala, SQL, and C++. I can comfortably work with software such as Zabbix, Nagios XI, and solar winds. I am seeking a role that will help me put into practice the knowledge I have.”
2. What Are The Roles Of An Incident Manager?
The question is asked to help the interviewer to understand whether you are aware of your duties should you be hired for the job. The best way of answering this question is listing the responsibilities of an incident manager.
Sample Answer
“Incident managers manage the lifecycle of unplanned malfunctions, quality reductions, and interruptions of provided Information technology services. They follow incident management normal operation as procedures and restore provided information technology services to normal operation as soonest possible. Incident managers also liaise with upper management in solving complex IT issues.”
3. What Are The Qualities That An Incident Manager Need To Be Successful?
Your response to this question helps your potential employer to determine you are aware of the qualities that you need to have to effectively work as an incident manager. In your answer highlight, some of the qualities of an incident manager as you connect to the job at hand.
Sample Answer
“For an incident manager to succeed in this role, he or she must be proactive and possess strong IT skills including software knowledge in VOBIT, ITIL, Zabbix, Nagios XI, and solar winds. He must also have a strong knowledge of programming languages such as C++, Scala, Java, and SQL. Additionally, a good incident manager needs to have excellent analytical, time-management, managerial, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills to work efficiently.”
4. What Major Challenges Did You Face During Your Last Role? How Did You Manage Them?
The interviewer asks this question to get an idea of how effective you are at handling challenges. The best strategy to respond to this question is by demonstrating your ability to solve a problem respectfully and maturely.
Sample Answer
“The greatest challenge I had was the ability to work with some of the latest software in this field. It was difficult for me to effectively offer immediate support, command, and control major incidents that required a high level of software skills. However, I couldn’t sit down and do nothing about it. I talked to the upper management and requested an education break. I went and trained how to work with a variety of software such as Zabbix, Nagios XI, and solar winds. Today I am a competent incident manager who works with nearly all software in this field.”
5. Describe Your Daily Routine As An Incident Manager?
Your response to this question helps your interviewer to get a grasp of how you prioritize your work. The best strategy of responding to this question is to portray that you make good use of time while performing your roles.
Sample Answer
My daily routine as an incident manager revolves around the following:
- Responding to reported incidences, finding out the cause, and beginning the incident management process.
- Supervising the process of incident management and the co-workers involved in providing solutions to the incident.
- Prioritizing the reported incidents based on their urgency and influence on the business
- Generating procedure of how to deal with different incidences such how to the threats relating to cybersecurity including how to correct server failures.
- Logging incidences along with their resolution to check whether there are recurring malfunctions
- Reporting major issues to the upper management working in the IT system.”
6. Describe Briefly About Your Experience
The interviewers ask this question to determine how your experience aligns with the needs of the company. The best strategy for answering this question is by summarizing your work history in relation to the job description.
Sample Answer
“I am a dynamic and intelligent professional with strong IT skills ready to work in a challenging and competitive environment. Previously, I have been an incident manager for three years in an IT firm. Over this time, I have gained a lot of skills in leading the process of incident management, solving and restoring failed It operations, logging and categorizing recurring incidents to help in improving incident management procedures.
I am also competent in using different software needed in this role. Given a chance, I believe that I will make a success of this role.”
7. What Kind Of Strategies And Mindset Is Required For This Role?
The response you provide for this question illustrates your attitudes toward this role. In your answer, highlight the skills and strategies you will employ while performing this role.
Sample Answer
“Incident managers play a very great role in IT service operation. When something goes wrong, they should be proactive in offering immediate support, command, and control of the incident. A great incident manager needs to have an aptitude for acquiring new procedures and technologies. He or she must excel at multitasking and remain judicious in major incidents”
8. What Is The Biggest Challenge That You Foresee In This Job?
The employer asks this question to evaluate your knowledge regarding the changes that are taking place in this field. In your answer, highlight the challenges you foresee in this industry along with how you will manage them.
Sample Answer
“The biggest challenge is the trend in which the technology is advancing. This might fail many existing systems. However, I have an aptitude for acquiring new technologies and procedures to keep me updated in this field. I am also a fast learner and can familiarize myself with any new technology quickly should there be any that will come by.”
9. How Do You Stay Motivated In Your Work?
The employer asks this question to find out your interests and values as you perform this role. In your response, highlight whatever aspect drives your morale for this work.
Sample Answer
“My love for solving technology-related issues gives me the morale to work as an incident manager. I am so much knowledge in information technology and I always seek an opportunity to utilize it. When something goes wrong, I must be proactive in offering immediate support, command, and control the incident.”
10. Describe A Time When You Failed In This Role And The Lesson You Learnt?
The employer wants to find out whether you can admit your mistakes. In your response, own mistakes to your actions and pick a few lessons you learned from the situation.
Sample Answer
It makes me feel bad when I remember how I failed one of our major clients. I had gone out of the office and my phone’s charge was low. However, I didn’t bother to carry my power bank since I had not planned to take long. I had projected that my phone won’t switch off before returning to the office. Unfortunately, it did. At that particular time, our major client’s database failed. The client tried reaching me but couldn’t get in touch. The operations in their bank had to stop. When I returned to the office, as usual, I checked my emails and voice mails and found that he had called me countless times but had left the message. I swiftly rushed there with my team and we rectified the problem and the operation of the bank resumed. I then apologized to the manager of that bank and left. I learned not to leave gaps while at work. If I am going out, I communicate to my colleagues and I delegate duties should there emerge an issue when I am away.”
11. Why Do You Feel You Are The Most Suited For This Role?
The employer asks this question to assess whether you are the best fit for the job. While responding to this question, highlight your best skills, traits, education, experience, and relevant accomplishments.
Sample Answer
“I hold a bachelor’s degree in computer engineering. I have worked in a similar role for over four years now. During this time, I have gained a lot of skills in this field including leading the process of incident management, solving and restoring failed It operations, logging and categorizing recurring incidents to help in improving incident management procedures. I also possess a strong knowledge of programming languages such as C++, Scala, Java, and SQL. Additionally, I have excellent analytical, time-management, managerial, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills to work efficiently. I believe that I am the best candidate for this role and should you hire me, I will make a success of this task.”
12. Share With Us Your Greatest Achievement.
The interviewer asks this question to know what you regard as success. This question allows you to boast about your achievements in this role.
Sample Answer
“The greatest achievement is when one of our major clients called me to respond to a failure in their bank database. I organized my team and we went there immediately. I identified where the problem was and within two hours we had solved the issue without losing or altering the data in the database.”
13. Highlight Some Of The Challenges Of Sequential Manual Call-Outs.
This is a technical question commonly asked by the interviewer to gauge your knowledge in this field. The best strategy of responding to this question is by highlighting the challenges of sequential manual call-outs.
Sample Answer
“Sequential manual call-outs require you to enter the phone numbers manually. While doing this, you need to enter one number at a time to send information to the user and wait for that user to pass that information in turn. Manual call-outs take a long time especially if you are sending information to many individuals. Additionally, manual call-outs increase the chances of committing human errors. This is a huge problem since it can jeopardize the incident response.”
14. How can Integrating Map-based Information Help Administrators And Responders In An Incident?
The interviewer may ask this question to test your technical knowledge of this role. In your response, highlight the benefits of integrating strategies while responding to an incident.
Sample Answer
“It is very crucial for administrators to access map-based information and situational intelligence such as news-feed data and weather to effectively manage responders. Integrating map-based information will help the administrators to make better decisions in guiding responders on how to manage an incident. The integration enhances efficiency in decision making since one can use a map to identify the nearby sources.”
15. Why Do You Think Eliminating The Risk Of Human Error In Messages During Incidents is Important?
The interviewer will ask you this question to gauge whether you are aware of the importance of accuracy in this role. In your response, explain the importance of accuracy in this role having in mind the needs of your employer.
Sample Answer
“Even if human error is unavoidable, it is important to eliminate it especially while communicating during the incident management. Human error can critically interfere with the protocol being followed when responding to an incidence. To eliminate human error, it is essential to automate the communication processes and procedures to make sure that the desired outcomes are achieved. This will enhance proper documentation of data.”
16. Why Is It Important For Incident Management Systems To Have Real-Time Reporting And Analytics?
The response you provide for this question will demonstrate your knowledge in this field. The best strategy for responding to this question is to demonstrate your analytical skills.
Sample Answer
“The majority of the organizations follow certain regulations that determine the timeframe taken to communicate any critical information to customers, employees, regulatory groups, and partners. Real-time reporting and analytics provide valuable information to the administrators regarding the success of their communication and execution plans. It also allows the administrators to adhere to all industrial and governmental regulations concerning their communication.”
17. How Do Incident Management Systems Help Eliminate The Challenges Of Workforce Mobility?
The interviewer wants to determine your knowledge in performing this role. In your response, demonstrate that you can carry the role successfully.
Sample Answer
The process of managing a mobile workforce adds a layer of complexity for incident management as well as the mass communication needed during that process. Today, employees are increasingly performing their roles away from the office – in different locations or facilities. That renders landline phones unreliable in communicating with employees. So, by using incident management systems, managers can make sure that the right information is communicated to the right people on time. Today, everyone has a mobile phone. Thus, they can download apps that will enable them to receive communication and act on it. They can get notified via push notifications and respond when asked to by their managers. This can greatly increase the situational intelligence of incident managers.
18. As An Incident Manager, What Is Your Management Style?
Leadership and management are essential aspects of this role. The interviewer will ask you this question to evaluate your leadership and management techniques. In your response, demonstrate that you can lead by example and inspire confidence in your subordinate as well as delegating tasks efficiently.
Sample Answer
“As an incident manager, I believe in building and working with a team. Each member of the team should be clear on their role, know where they fit in, and feel as though they can depend on one another. I also believe in real-time feedback. If you do something wrong you should know it immediately. Regardless of right or wrong, the further removed feedback is in time, the less effective it is.”
19. What Is Post Implementation Review (PIR)?
The employer commonly asks this question to know how familiar you are with the terms used in this field. The best way to answer this question is by defining the term as you relate it to the job at hand.
Sample Answer
“In my understanding, Post-implementation review is an assessment and analysis of the complete working solution. It is mainly performed after implementing a request to evaluate whether the task was completed successfully.”
20. According To You, What Is The Difference Between Emergency Changes And Expedite / Urgent Changes?
This is a question asked by the employer to determine if you know the difference between the terms used in this field. Simply define the two terms and relate to the job at hand.
Sample Answer
Emergency changes are changes that need to be implemented quickly in an organization while expedited change refers to a change that meets a serious business requirement but isn’t associated with restoring service.
21. What Is Your Experience With Incident Management Software? Can You Provide An Example Of How You Used It In Your Previous Role?
Sample Answer
In my previous role as an incident manager, I used ServiceNow to manage and track incidents. I was responsible for creating incident tickets, assigning them to the appropriate teams, and tracking the incident until it was resolved. I also used the software to generate reports on incident trends and to identify areas for improvement.
22. How Do You Prioritize And Manage Incidents When Multiple Incidents Occur Simultaneously?
Sample Answer
When multiple incidents occur simultaneously, I prioritize them based on the progress of
their impact on the business and the urgency of the situation. I use a triage system to categorize incidents into high, medium, and low priority. High-priority incidents are those that have a significant impact on the business and require immediate attention. Medium-priority incidents are those that have a moderate impact on the business and can be addressed within a reasonable timeframe. Low-priority incidents are those that have a minimal impact on the business and can be addressed at a later time. I then assign the incidents to the appropriate teams and monitor their progress until they are resolved.
23. What Is Your Experience With ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library)? How Have You Implemented ITIL Processes In Your Previous Roles?
Sample Answer
I have extensive experience with ITIL and have implemented ITIL processes in my previous roles. I am familiar with the ITIL framework and its five stages: service strategy, service design, service transition, service operation, and continual service improvement. I have used ITIL processes to manage incidents, problems, and changes. I have also used ITIL processes to improve service quality and reduce costs.
24. What Is Your Experience With Change Management? How Do You Ensure That Changes Are Implemented Without Causing Incidents?
Sample Answer
I have experience with change management and have implemented change management processes in my previous roles. I ensure that changes are implemented without causing incidents by following a rigorous change management process. This process includes identifying the need for the change, assessing the impact of the change, developing a plan for the change, testing the change, and implementing the change. I also ensure that all stakeholders are informed of the change and that they understand the impact of the change on their systems and processes.
25. What Is Your Experience With Root Cause Analysis? Can You Provide An Example Of How You Identified And Resolved A Problem Using Root Cause Analysis?
Sample Answer
I have experience with root cause analysis and have used it to identify and resolve problems in my previous roles. One example of how I used root cause analysis was when we experienced a recurring issue with our network connectivity. I conducted a root cause analysis and identified that the issue was caused by a faulty switch. I then replaced the switch and tested the network connectivity to ensure that the issue was resolved.
Conclusion
The employer is simply looking for the candidate with relevant knowledge and skills. Studying and practicing these questions and answers will help you to demonstrate that you are the best candidate.
