1. What is a Project Manager at Médecins Sans Frontières?

As a Project Manager (often referred to internally as a Field Coordinator or Project Coordinator) at Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), you are the operational anchor for life-saving medical humanitarian interventions. This role is not a traditional corporate project management position; it is a highly dynamic leadership role deployed in some of the most challenging and volatile environments in the world. You are responsible for steering the overall direction of a specific project, ensuring that medical and operational objectives are met while safeguarding your team.

Your impact directly translates to the delivery of critical care to vulnerable populations. You will manage multidisciplinary teams encompassing logistics, finance, human resources, and medical personnel. Whether you are scaling up an emergency response to a cholera outbreak, maintaining a trauma hospital in a conflict zone, or negotiating humanitarian access with local authorities, your decisions dictate the success and safety of the mission.

What makes this role uniquely critical is the sheer scale of ambiguity and responsibility you will face. You must balance strict adherence to MSF’s core principles—neutrality, impartiality, and independence—with the pragmatic realities of resource constraints and security threats. Candidates who thrive here are not just organized planners; they are resilient leaders, cross-cultural communicators, and decisive problem-solvers who can mobilize teams under immense pressure.

2. Common Interview Questions

The questions below represent the patterns and themes frequently encountered in MSF Project Manager interviews. They are not a memorization list, but rather a tool to help you practice structuring your experiences using the STAR method.

Behavioral & Competency

These questions form the core of your first-round panel interview. They test your self-awareness, conflict resolution skills, and emotional resilience.

• Tell me about a time you had to adapt your approach because your initial plan completely failed.
• Describe a situation where you had a significant disagreement with a colleague. How did you resolve it?
• Give an example of a time you received critical feedback that was hard to accept. What did you do with it?
• Tell me about a time you had to build trust with a group or individual who was initially hostile to your presence.
• How do you recognize when you are becoming overwhelmed by stress, and what steps do you take to manage it?

Leadership & Team Management

These questions evaluate your ability to guide, motivate, and manage diverse teams in challenging, high-pressure environments.

• Describe a time you had to manage an employee who was technically brilliant but culturally disruptive.
• How do you ensure your team maintains a healthy work-life balance when the workload is overwhelming?
• Tell me about a time you had to lead a team through a period of extreme uncertainty or ambiguity.
• Give an example of how you have managed a remote team or a team spread across multiple locations.
• Walk us through a scenario where you had to deliver very bad news to your team. How did you handle their reaction?

Strategic & Operational Problem-Solving

These questions assess your pragmatic project management skills, specifically how you handle resources, budgets, and operational bottlenecks.

• If you were informed that your project budget was suddenly cut by 20%, how would you decide what to prioritize?
• Tell me about a time you had to make a rapid decision with very little data. What was the outcome?
• Describe a complex logistical or operational problem you solved. What was your analytical approach?
• How do you balance the immediate, urgent needs of a crisis with the long-term strategic goals of a project?
• Give an example of a time you successfully negotiated for resources or access from a difficult stakeholder.

3. Getting Ready for Your Interviews

Preparing for an MSF interview requires a deep reflection on your past experiences and your fundamental motivations. Interviewers are not just looking for technical project management skills; they are evaluating your capacity to lead and adapt in high-stress, unpredictable environments.

Here are the key evaluation criteria you should focus on:

Competency and Behavioral Alignment – MSF relies heavily on standardized, competency-based evaluation frameworks. Interviewers will assess your historical behavior to predict your future performance, focusing heavily on your emotional intelligence, self-awareness, and ability to navigate interpersonal conflicts. You can demonstrate strength here by structuring your past experiences clearly and honestly, highlighting not just your successes, but what you learned from your failures.

Leadership Under Pressure – In the field, you will lead diverse, multicultural teams working long hours in difficult conditions. Interviewers evaluate how you support team well-being, manage underperformance, and maintain morale when resources are scarce. Strong candidates provide concrete examples of empathetic, decisive leadership and showcase their ability to build consensus among highly opinionated experts.

Adaptability and Problem-Solving – Contexts in MSF missions change rapidly due to security incidents, supply chain breakdowns, or shifting medical needs. You will be evaluated on your ability to pivot strategies quickly and make sound decisions with incomplete information. To stand out, share scenarios where you had to abandon a well-laid plan, reallocate budgets on the fly, and creatively solve logistical bottlenecks.

Commitment to Humanitarian Principles – MSF is a fiercely independent and principled organization. Interviewers will look for a genuine understanding of what it means to operate impartially and neutrally in highly politicized environments. You must demonstrate cultural sensitivity, a realistic view of humanitarian aid, and a clear understanding of MSF’s specific mandate.

4. Interview Process Overview

The interview process for a Project Manager at Médecins Sans Frontières is generally straightforward, well-structured, and moves quickly. You can typically expect a two-round process designed to assess both your foundational competencies and your high-level leadership alignment. The hiring agency and internal HR teams are known for their quick communication, ensuring you are never left in the dark about your status.

Your first round is usually a competency-based interview with a panel, often consisting of a manager, an HR representative, and a team member. This panel is friendly but thorough, focusing heavily on standard behavioral questions that you can anticipate and prepare for. If successful, you will move to a second round, which frequently involves higher-level leadership, such as a General Director or an Operations Desk Manager. This final conversation is highly focused on mutual fit; managers genuinely want to get to know you as a person to ensure you will be safe, effective, and supported in the field.

The visual timeline above outlines the typical progression from your initial application screening through the panel competency interview and the final leadership discussion. You should use this timeline to pace your preparation, focusing heavily on the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) for the first round, and shifting toward broader leadership philosophies and cultural alignment for the final round. Keep in mind that while the process is relatively short, the emotional and experiential depth required in your answers is significant.

5. Deep Dive into Evaluation Areas

To succeed in your interviews, you must understand exactly what the panel is looking for across several core operational and behavioral domains.

Competency & Behavioral Assessment

Because MSF operates in high-stakes environments, they rely on proven competency-based questions to gauge your psychological resilience and interpersonal skills. This area matters because technical skills are useless if you cannot manage stress or collaborate effectively. Strong performance means providing highly specific, structured answers that highlight your emotional intelligence and self-awareness.

Be ready to go over:

• Conflict Resolution – How you handle disagreements between team members or departments (e.g., medical vs. logistics).
• Stress Management – Your personal coping mechanisms and how you prevent burnout in yourself and others.
• Cross-Cultural Communication – Navigating misunderstandings and building trust in diverse teams.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – De-escalating tense encounters with local authorities or managing the psychological fallout of a critical security incident.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time you had to mediate a deep disagreement between two senior members of your team."
• "Describe a situation where you felt overwhelmed by competing priorities. How did you regain control?"
• "Share an example of a time you had to adapt your communication style to work effectively with someone from a completely different cultural background."

Operational & Strategic Problem-Solving

As a Project Manager, you are the ultimate owner of the project's operational success. This area evaluates your ability to manage resources, plan budgets, and solve complex logistical puzzles in low-resource settings. Interviewers want to see that you are pragmatic, highly organized, and capable of anticipating second-order consequences.

Be ready to go over:

• Resource Allocation – Prioritizing limited budgets or supplies when demands exceed capacity.
• Project Lifecycle Management – Opening, maintaining, or closing a project site based on strategic needs.
• Risk Management – Identifying operational bottlenecks before they impact medical delivery.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Navigating international supply chain embargoes or restructuring a project budget mid-year due to a funding cut.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Walk us through how you would approach scaling down a project when the local community still expects your presence."
• "Give an example of a time you had to make a critical operational decision with severely incomplete data."
• "How do you ensure accountability and transparency when managing a large budget in a chaotic environment?"

Leadership Under Pressure

MSF teams look to their Project Manager for stability, direction, and safety. This area tests your capacity to lead by example, enforce security protocols, and motivate exhausted teams. A strong candidate demonstrates a balance of empathetic listening and authoritative decision-making when the situation demands it.

Be ready to go over:

• Team Motivation – Keeping staff engaged during long, monotonous periods or highly stressful emergency peaks.
• Performance Management – Addressing underperformance or non-compliance swiftly and fairly.
• Security & Safety Leadership – Ensuring strict adherence to protocols without alienating the team.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Managing a team through an evacuation or leading a project following a localized trauma.

Example questions or scenarios:

• "Describe a time you had to enforce an unpopular rule or protocol for the safety of your team."
• "How do you approach a situation where a highly skilled technical expert is disrupting team cohesion?"
• "Tell me about a time you had to lead a team through a significant, unexpected crisis."

6. Key Responsibilities

The day-to-day reality of a Project Manager at MSF is incredibly varied and rarely resembles a standard 9-to-5 corporate job. You are the ultimate coordinator, ensuring that the medical vision of the project is supported by robust logistics, finance, and human resources. Your primary responsibility is to keep the project running smoothly, which involves constant monitoring of the political, social, and security context in your assigned region. You will spend a significant amount of time meeting with local authorities, community leaders, and other NGOs to negotiate access and maintain MSF’s acceptance in the community.

Internally, you will collaborate heavily with your core management team, which typically includes a Medical Coordinator, a Logistics Coordinator, and an HR/Finance Administrator. You will facilitate daily and weekly coordination meetings, ensuring that the medical team has the supplies they need and that the logistics team understands the clinical priorities. If a sudden influx of patients occurs due to an epidemic or conflict, you are responsible for leading the emergency response strategy, reallocating staff, and requesting additional resources from the capital office.

You will also be responsible for rigorous reporting and budget management. You will draft situation reports, update project proposals, and ensure that financial expenditures align with the approved budget. Throughout all of this, your overarching responsibility is the safety and security of your team. You will constantly assess risks, update security guidelines, and ensure that every team member understands and follows the protocols required to stay safe in volatile environments.

7. Role Requirements & Qualifications

To be a competitive candidate for the Project Manager role at Médecins Sans Frontières, you must bring a blend of hard management skills and exceptional soft skills. While you do not need to be a medical professional, you must understand how to facilitate medical operations.

• Must-have skills – Extensive experience in project management and team leadership. You must have a proven track record of managing diverse, multidisciplinary teams. Fluency in English is required, and fluency in French, Arabic, or Spanish is often highly demanded depending on the mission. You must possess strong financial acumen, capable of managing complex budgets, and you must have demonstrable experience working or living in cross-cultural or low-resource settings.
• Nice-to-have skills – Previous experience in the humanitarian sector or working with international NGOs is a massive advantage. Familiarity with logistics, supply chain management, or water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) programs can also set you apart. Experience in volatile or conflict-affected regions is highly valued but not strictly required for first-time deployments if you show the right aptitude.
• Soft skills – Exceptional emotional intelligence, high stress tolerance, and unparalleled adaptability. You must be an active listener, a skilled negotiator, and possess the humility to learn from technical experts.

8. Frequently Asked Questions

Q: How difficult is the interview process? The difficulty is generally considered average, but it is highly rigorous in its behavioral focus. The panel is not trying to trick you with technical brainteasers; rather, they want deep, honest reflections on your past behavior. Preparation using the STAR method is absolutely essential to succeed.

Q: Do I need a medical background to be a Project Manager? No. Project Managers at MSF are typically non-medical profiles. Your job is to manage the operations, logistics, HR, and security that allow the medical experts to do their jobs. You must, however, have an affinity for the medical mission and be comfortable working closely with clinical leaders.

Q: What is the culture like during the interview process? Candidates consistently report that the interviewers are friendly, straightforward, and genuinely interested in getting to know them. MSF values authenticity and humility. The process is a two-way street; they want to ensure you are a good fit for the extreme demands of the field, and that the field is a good fit for you.

Q: How long does it take to get an offer after the final round? Communication is typically very quick. Because MSF relies on hiring agencies and dedicated HR pools to staff urgent field missions, you can often expect feedback within a week of your final interview with the General Director or Operations team.

Q: Will I get to choose where I am deployed? Usually, no. While MSF will take your language skills, experience, and personal constraints into account, you are matched to a mission based on operational needs. Flexibility and a willingness to go where the need is greatest are core expectations for this role.

9. Other General Tips

• Master the STAR Method: MSF interviewers will explicitly look for Situation, Task, Action, and Result in your answers. If you are vague or speak in generalities ("I usually do X"), the panel will push you for a specific historical example. Practice your stories until they are concise and structured.
• Highlight Your Adaptability: Things rarely go according to plan in the field. When answering questions, emphasize your flexibility. Show that you are someone who can pivot gracefully without becoming paralyzed by frustration.

• Focus on 'We' but Claim Your 'I': Humanitarian work is fundamentally collaborative, so you should highlight teamwork. However, ensure you clearly state what your specific actions and decisions were in any given scenario. The panel is hiring you, not your former team.

• Be Authentic About Your Failures: MSF values self-awareness over perfection. When asked about a mistake or a conflict, do not give a superficial answer. Discuss a genuine misstep, explain the consequences, and detail exactly how that experience changed your management style.

10. Summary & Next Steps

Securing a Project Manager role at Médecins Sans Frontières is an invitation to do some of the most challenging and impactful work of your career. You will be at the forefront of humanitarian crises, leading dedicated teams, and making decisions that directly enable life-saving medical care. The interview process is designed not to intimidate you, but to ensure that you have the emotional resilience, structural thinking, and leadership maturity required to thrive in unpredictable environments.

The compensation data above reflects MSF’s unique approach to salary, which is based on a standardized grid rather than corporate market rates. Salaries are modest and prioritize internal equity, usually scaling predictably with your accumulated months of field experience. Keep in mind that while deployed, your core living expenses, travel, and insurance are fully covered by the organization.

As you prepare for your interviews, focus on refining your behavioral stories, understanding the operational realities of field work, and aligning yourself with MSF’s humanitarian mandate. Approach the panel with honesty, humility, and confidence in your management experience. You have the potential to make a profound difference—take the time to prepare thoroughly, review additional insights on Dataford, and step into your interviews ready to showcase the resilient leader you are.