my interviewers interrupted my timed interview presentation

by Alison Green on July 23, 2024

A reader writes:

I’d be really interested to hear your take on a situation that cropped up for me while I was attending an internal job interview this week.

I’d been asked to prepare a presentation of “no longer than” 10 minutes. I practiced plenty in advance and was generally coming in at 8 minutes, 30 seconds, so comfortably within.

On the day of the interview, I was halfway through presenting my slide deck when one of the interview panel interrupted with a question, which I answered. This turned into three or four minutes of other queries and broader chat amongst the panel members — all very positive about the content — before they asked me to continue. I’d barely got any further when I was warned that I had less than a minute left: They hadn’t stopped the clock for their conversational detour. As a result, I had to push through the final couple of points far more swiftly than I’d intended.

Fortunately the rest of the interview went well, though ultimately I didn’t get the role. During the call to inform me, the interviewer explained that another candidate had more management experience than me (fair). But upon asking for any other feedback, I was told that I should have had more confidence when presenting, particularly during the last minute or so, and that I could have planned the timing better.

I thanked them for the feedback but I’ve been left wondering what I can really do with this for next time? I was hardly in a position to ban any questions, but putting my foot down and demanding extra presentation time to make up for their interruption sounds like a guaranteed way to lose the job. How can I work on this feedback?

It’s unlikely they wanted you to demand extra time to make up for the interruption.

But it’s very possible they assessed you in part on how well you handled the interruptions, like whether you were able to diplomatically regain control over the presentation and keep going — especially if presenting was a core function of the job. (In fact, if it was, they may have even interrupted intentionally to see how you handled it.) This isn’t necessarily 100% fair, because a lot of job candidates wouldn’t feel comfortable redirecting their interviewers — and if they wanted to assess that, they’d get better results by telling you beforehand that they wanted to see you demonstrate those skills, so you’d understand they were role-playing audience members and not worry as much about “interrupting” your job interviewers.

Or, if not that, they might have assessed you on whether you were able to recover smoothly and adjust on the fly in the time you had remaining.

Or they might not have intended to assess you on any of that, but a different candidate handled those things really well and that gave them an advantage.

It’s also possible the feedback means nothing at all — that when you asked for additional feedback beyond what they’d already offered, the person you were talking to just grasped for something without it being a factor that mattered much in their decision.

It’s hard to know whether there’s really anything here that would be useful to work on — but if you’re looking for something, I’d say it’s planning for audience interruptions and adapting in real time when they happen.

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  1. Emily (not a bot)*

    Presenting is a core part of what I do. Depending on the context, spending a significant amount of time taking questions and then not getting to all of my slides might be the correct way of handling the situation. It’s totally context-dependent.

    I’ve been on the other side, too, where I was the client and someone came to me with slides that didn’t answer what I needed to answer, so we spent more time discussing and not doing the slides.

    If they’re actually judging on the basis of this, that’s just so oddly specific.

    1. Artemesia*

      It is always good to plan short, with optional adds. I used to do a lot of public speaking and workshops and learned early on that what timing they gave me was not reliable. I would be asked for a 45 minute speech and they would get me on half an hour late. Or I would have a particularly dense group and so had to slow way down and interact to get the point across.

      So I learned to plan a skeleton that could go in half the time but that I could adapt and expand as needed. (this was much easier with the old overhead projector than a computer slide deck but it can be done with a slide deck although it takes practice.).

      In this case, if you had 3 key points, you could have:
      1. answered the first question and then asked to defer the others so you could keep to the time they allotted and then take those at the end.
      2. shorten your elaboration of the key points.

      Not easy — but next time plan for more flexibility.

      1. Sloanicota*

        That’s so hard though because I can imagine them watching in polite silence and then being weirded out that my presentation was only six minutes when they asked for ten. (I guess you could include an optional final activity slide or something, but …)

          1. MassMatt*

            …and the LW’s presentation was 8 1/2 minutes, comfortably under that limit. It sounds as though what they should have said was “plan a 4-5 minute presentation” because that’s really what the LW wound up getting.

            1. amoeba*

              Yup. And at least in my field, questions are typically not included in that but asked afterwards. Otherwise it would be very clearly stated “including discussion”. And even then questions are almost always asked at the end.

              This would be very atypical and changing your presentations to be very short of the actually given time for future interviews would definitely be counterproductive.

      2. MassMatt*

        The ability to adjust presentation length based on time available and questions is a great skill for public speakers to have, but IMO it’s much easier to have, say, the core of a 30 minute talk which you can add or subtract 10 minutes, than to be asked to present “no more than” 10 minutes and only actually get five.

        IMO the LW did things right, planned for 8 1/2 minutes, allowing for a little time for questions etc. The interviewers were inconsiderate of the interviewer’s time in not merely asking questions but also discussing the topic among themselves.

        If they are going to have such a hard stop on the presentation time, they need to give the candidate the presentation time. If one of the interviewers was a blowhard that loved to hear himself talk, you might not get more than an intro out and then they tap their watches letting you know to wrap things up.

        If this is a role play to see how you handle difficult presentation issues (I’m not getting that sense from the letter) then they need to make it clear that they are role playing and not acting as regular interviewers.

      3. Tiger Snake*

        “but next time plan for more flexibility”

        Is where my brain went to as well. When I went to high school, back in the mesozoic era, english class actually taught how to give a presentation; but literally the only piece of advice from that I learnt and still retained is that I should never use all of the time given to me for a presentation, I should always have time set aside for questions.

        Doing that for a very short presentation is difficult, but difficult does also mean a show of skill here, but it does show off multiple skills that help mark the difference between ‘can present’ and ‘expert at presenting’. It wasn’t until I was in my workplace proper that I got good at shuffling my mental notes on the fly as I was presenting to further summarise points and MAKE extra time as I needed, and even now I’d only consider myself comfortable as a presenter not an expert.

        1. amoeba*

          They did though! They were coming in comfortably under the limit every time. I wouldn’t expect the questions to be as long as the presentation itself!

    2. Consonance*

      I’m really wondering just *how* timed this presentation was. Was there an actual clock? Did they actually get cut off? I’ve certainly asked people to give a presentation of a certain length, but it’s a general guideline, not a presidential debate format. It may be that they got flustered keeping a very literal approach to the time limit, when the interview panel might have been fine with them “reclaiming” their time at the end. The way they wrote it makes it sound like there was an actual timer and a very hard end, but they don’t actually say that, so it’s something to consider.

      1. Interviewus Interruptus (OP)*

        Hi, OP here; no clock within my own eyeline, but I realised as I was exiting that there was one above the door which was likely what the panel leader was using.

        1. Snow Angels in the Zen Garden*

          THEY had the clock and YOU got nothing?

          …It kind of sounds like these people suck!

          2. TK*

            OP presumably had or could’ve had a watch/phone, and if they were doing a Powerpoint there’d be a clock on the monitor.

    3. RedinSC*

      I think, in an interview situation like this, I probably would have probably answered the first question and then said something like, “this could be a great conversation, but due to time constraints, let’s hold the rest of the questions until the end, some of this might answer your questions.”

      2. learnedthehardway*

        Agreed. In fact, I’m guessing that this was part of the interview – ie. how does the candidate maintain control of the presentation? Do they let the audience go off into a conversation or get sidetracked on tangents? Can they get the presentation back on track after a question?

    4. Media Monkey*

      i have done a lot of timed presentations in interviews and i’ve never been stopped after a set amount of time if i was stopped to answer questions. maybe you took a lot of time to answer something they thought should have been a quick answer OP? i think i might expect a candidate to manage the questions by keeping an eye on the time and hustling things along if it looked like we were going over, but we wouldn’t stop someone’s presentation for that reason. seems a bit mean, but as alison says, maybe as you pushed for extra feedback? feedback can be weird – i missed out a job recently as my presentation wasn’t entrepreneurial enough. the topic was not something you could be enterpreneurial about without not really answering the question, so i have no idea what it meant!

  2. SmellMyFinger*

    You dodged a bullet.

    “We screwed up and we find a way to blame you for a missed deliverable.”

    Consider yourself lucky…if you’d gotten the job, you’d be posting here in 6 – 9 months with other situations where their failure to plan resulted in you being at fault for a missed deadline.

    2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      Not really. Being able to adjust on the fly is a requirement in many roles. But especially if you are a lawyer. The court gives you X minutes to present, you have X minutes regardless of how many questions you get. So make your big point first. Then be really good at condensing the others.

      1. Anon Attorney*

        I was just thinking this! In court you can have a rehearsed point by point argument. The judge can interrupt, ask questions, or tell you to just get on with it and you have to reshuffle on the fly.

      2. a clockwork lemon*

        Outside of court, too! I’m in-house/compliance and giving presentations to senior management is a huge part of my job. Most of them are pulled in so many different directions at once it can be like trying to present to a group of squirrels.

        If they want to spend 10 minutes getting nitpicky about something, I have to roll with it, but if they start getting chatty I’ve gotten pretty good at redirecting. All it takes most of the time is a pause in conversation and then, “And speaking of the rain today, let’s get back to this flood of information I’m throwing at you” or whatever.

    3. Wilbur*

      On the other hand, the first and primary reason why they were rejected was that the other candidate had more management experience. The issues with the presentation were only brought up when they asked for more feedback, it’s possible they could’ve had no issues with the presentation and they still would’ve been rejected. There’s nothing they mention that makes the company sound unreasonable, sometimes you only get 10 minutes and you lose half of your time to discussion.

      The real solution to this would be to see if OP can get a stretch project or something that would increase their management experience.

      1. MissGirl*

        This is my exact thought. They pulled this out as something concrete to work on but it really didn’t affect the outcome.

        1. Quill*

          Yeah, it could easily have fallen into the realm of “not perfect but easily trainable” on the first pass, and not counted against them at all!

      2. Aeryn Sun*

        Yeah, it’s really hard to say. I’ve gotten weird feedback at work, tried to analyze it, and realized later on the person giving it wanted to have SOMETHING to work on and not just say “you’re doing a good job, keep it up.” If the presentation was OK, but ultimately not perfect and then someone else did just as well and had more experience, then it’s not necessarily the presentation that did it.

  3. Trick or Treatment*

    I work such a role where I’m expected to present with limited time (because it’s only one function of the project team) as part of my job. I’ve done 10 minute presentations for interviews before, and I don’t think that a “this is a roleplay” warning is common or can be expected.
    However, I would expect that in the interview invite they either mention there will be questions after my 10 minutes or to factor questions into my presentation planning. So on that front the interviewee wasn’t prepared properly.
    But since I’m expected to diplomatically stand my ground against senior leaders and clients in the job, I wouldn’t find it unreasonable for interviewers to test if I can redirect during an interview.

    1. Trick or Treatment*

      That said though… I’m leaning towards this being a case of: they decided on another candidate either way, and were just grasping for other things they didn’t like. The unfinished/rushed end of the presentation stuck in their memories, but not the why. Not malicious, just mildly infuriating.

      1. A Significant Tree*

        I agree. If the interview test is how well a speaker handles interruptions, then the instruction should have been “10 minutes for presentation and Q&A.” As described by the OP, it sounded like the instruction was 10 minutes’ worth of presentation, so was the test actually “will you interrupt the interruptions in order to keep to your schedule?”
        In many presentations the speaker is asked whether they prefer to take questions during or hold until after, so the speaker has some amount of control over interruptions. Would OP have gotten or lost points for saying “Good question, I’ll address that at the end” and pressing on?

        As it is, it doesn’t sound like it was clear the 10 minutes was still ticking away until time was almost up. I could see not feeling like I could or should interrupt if the panel is actively discussing my presentation, even if it’s eating into my time. I would take the feedback with a grain of salt – you didn’t know the rules they were playing by.

        1. Interviewus Interruptus (OP)*

          Hi, OP here. Yes, at the time of the interruption I had no idea the clock was still running and I get the sense that shutting down a very positive discussion about the implications of my concept would have been a Bad Idea. In hindsight maybe I should have challenged at the point I was back into the swing of the pres and actually warned I was running out of time? But I’m really not sure how I could have addressed that without sounding very petty.

          1. samwise*

            I would always assume ten minutes is it. And then adjust if I were interrupted. Because you can add on if you do end up getting time to make up for the interruptions.

            This is one of the skills teaching gives you. I’ve had carefully laid out lesson plans —45 minutes to step students through to a goal. And then they get to the goal in 7 minutes lol. Or — step one of five takes 35 minutes. Or the students get waaaay off — and then you have to find a way to guide them back (or even follow them!). And these same situations happen at work.

          2. amethyst*

            This is a genuine question: But why would you think the clock was not running? If I have a presentation to give at a 60-minute meeting, I don’t expect to get more than 60 minutes to present if people ask me questions.

            I always go with something like “This is such a great discussion! I want to make sure I respect your time, so allow me to wrap up these last two slides” or “Thanks so much for the questions – I have a little more towards the end that I think will address those points” or something.

            1. Snow Angels in the Zen Garden*

              Because they told OP that her presentation was supposed to last for 10 minutes, then they wasted half of it bloviating amongst themselves. Did they not think that ten minutes means ten minutes?

              I’m really kind of baffled by how much people are making excuses for these interviewers. This sounds like a terrible, frustrating setup!

              1. Accented*

                Totally agreed! I really feel for the OP, and I would be so frustrated in this position.

  4. Just another lurker*

    I have made technical presentations for interviews that are designed to be 30 minutes with 10 minutes of Q&A. But Q&A will happen anytime during the presentation. If I sense someone was watching the clock and conversations are “going on and on”, I will make a joke, “This is very interesting but I hope someone has stopped the chess timer?” This usually brings the audience to realized this is an interview but it also puts a gentle notice on the time constraints without saying time constraints.

    I am fortunate that most R&D types are used to presentations going long because of interesting conversations. On the flip side, I dreaded making to the end of my presentation and there are no questions during it. That means no one in the audience was sufficiently interested in my presentation to overcome the inertia of silence to ask a question. (Which usually means low chance of an offer.)

    Good luck on your future presentations

    1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      It really varies, and knowing your audience and what the appropriate response is is key. It’s not necessarily like scientific talks. Sometimes asking to hold questions to the end is appropriate. Sometimes the right thing is to do a time check, and say something like “This is a great discussion, but we only have 15 minutes left, would you rather we move on and come back to this later or schedule a follow-up for what we don’t get to today?”

  5. Elbe*

    It’s possible that this was an intentional test, but I think it’s probably just sloppiness on their part.

    Generally speaking, when a presentation is time-limited, everyone knows to hold questions for the end. That’s pretty standard business culture. What good is setting a time frame if people are allowed to take time away from that at will?

    Leeway to shut down questions or redirect group members varies a lot based on company culture, and in a lot of scenarios it’s just not possible for an interviewee to know how to handle that. Unless presenting to a variety of groups is specifically part of the job, I don’t see how they could have expected the LW to know what they wanted here.

    Ultimately, these people probably just aren’t great interviewers. The LW should try to let this go and not take it to heart.

    1. Sneaky Squirrel*

      This is my take too. When asking the presenter to present on a topic for 10 minutes, there is a reasonable expectation that an interviewee should use most of that 10 minutes to display their presentation capabilities and expertise. Ending at the 5 minute mark to allow for 5 minutes of discussion would likely have been a point against LW for not taking advantage of the full use of their time, especially had there been no questions. The interviewers should have baked in an extra 5-10 minutes to allow for discussion questions. In a real world context, the presenter would have an idea of how much total time they have with their audience and what control they have to field questions.

      1. HonorBox*

        I agree with this completely. Without a fuller understanding of who is in the room and what deference should be given to those in the room, it is absolutely impossible to tactfully shut down conversation that spirals from a question. If LW had been hired and was supposed to give a 1o minute presentation, they’d have more standing to redirect the conversation. The interview panel taking 30-40% of the allotted time is rude. Maybe the fact that LW had to speed through the final minute didn’t really impact the decision but it sure sucks that the panel wasn’t willing to be kind and respectful.

      2. B*

        Maybe, or maybe the culture at this workplace is that you should be prepared to ad lib. Or maybe the job involves making pitches to skeptical audiences. If so, it is totally fair to assess a candidate on their ability to get knocked off script and still make a good presentation.

        It would probably be best to give people a heads up that will be the format, but again, maybe you are looking for someone who can think on their feet without forewarning. It’s not an unreasonable trait.

      3. Artemesia*

        This is why you organize around 2 or 3 key ideas and then expand and contract as needed.

      4. Allonge*

        Eh – yes and no. I am used to presenting in the circumstances you describe, where I am mostly in control of what is happening, but that’s not the only way to present (and you still need a plan B / be able to skip ahead etc).

        I would hope that they ask for a presentation in the interview because this is a large and complex part of the job, so it’s not just a question on whether or not a person can talk for 10 minutes.

      5. Interviewus Interruptus (OP)*

        Hi, OP here. The culture of this org is that if you’re given 10 minutes, you fill it. I already felt I was pushing my luck only running to 8m30s, but was comfortable it made sense within the context of the presentation. The written call to interview heavily implied that there would be questions afterwards, so if anything I was assuming that the mid-presentation chatter would be eating into that. I didn’t feel I had standing to be telling my interviewers to stop talking, particularly when neither presentation nor audience management would be features of the role I was interviewing for. I think I’m just going to chalk this up to being ‘one of those things’.

        1. Great Frogs of Literature*

          If that’s the context, then yeah, I think it was sloppy interviewing and you should carry on with your life.

    2. amethyst*

      Generally speaking, when a presentation is time-limited, everyone knows to hold questions for the end. That’s pretty standard business culture.

      Strongly disagree – everywhere I’ve worked and with partner teams, the culture is actually to ask questions throughout unless otherwise asked. It’s very common for people to get halfway or two-thirds through their deck and not finish or scramble through the end.

      I mean, really, most presentations are time-limited – no one has unlimited time to get through a deck. But sometimes the questions and the discussion are more important than the deck.

      1. Elbe*

        I think that is the cases for most informal, internal meetings. Questions get asked, and then a follow-up is scheduled if you run out of time.

        But for formal presentations where time is specifically limited to a short timespan like 10 minutes, it generally is different. A reasonable company wouldn’t tell you to prepare for 10 minutes, eat away half of that, and then fault you for running out of time.

    3. Media Monkey*

      to be honest, that is probably industry dependent. i work in an agency and the expectation is that people will ask questions as we go along. it’s fine to deflect and say you’ve got a slide coming up to answer that question but they might have expected OP to move things along or ask if they had a hard stop after 10 mins or similar?

  6. Retired now*

    I don’t know, in my roles I’ve had to do presentations a number of times with lots of interruptions. if I was asked to present no longer than 10 minutes, I probably would’ve gone for seven anticipating there might be questions or comments during. It’s probably funky they didn’t make this explicit beforehand, but I’ve never had a job presentation that wasn’t interrupted by at least one question.

    1. Stoney Lonesome*

      That so interesting. I have had to do a presentation in quite a few interviews. It is pretty standard for a second interview in my industry. The only times I was ever interrupted were when I was specifically told ahead of time that they panel would be role-playing and they wanted to see how I would handle interruptions. I think every other presentation there was specific time built in for questions after the presentation, so all the panelists just waited until the end.

      I guess it comes down to an industry/ culture thing.

    2. Antilles*

      Even with your 7 minute presentation, you’d still be pushing up against the time limit since OP says they spent a solid 3-4 minutes with mid-presentation questions and “broader chat among the panel members”.
      Also, to me, it feels quite strange to hold an interview presentation to exactly 10 minutes, even to the extent of providing a one minute warning so OP rushes through the end. Particularly when you’re allowing interruptions and digressions mid-presentation; typically if you’re going to hold *that* firm to the schedule, it’ll be expected (and announced) for people to hold questions till the end.

      1. Dido*

        I have to wonder if it was really 3-4 minutes or if it just felt like that long to the LW, because 3-4 minutes would be a LONG time to let the panel members have a “broader chat” amongst themselves while she sat idly by and I can see why they would’ve expected her to reign it in

        1. Katara's side braids*

          OP can clarify this, but if she rehearsed her speech enough times it’s very likely that she had a good idea of how long she’d been speaking when the interruption happened. She was also told when her time was almost up. It would be pretty simple subtraction from that point.

  7. WillowSunstar*

    Toastmasters does have in one of the advanced levels in Presentation Mastery an option for practicing being interrupted while giving a speech. It’s actually one of the trickier projects. But you’d have to be part of a Toastmasters club in order to do that. I would suggest, if you want to get more presentation practice, that might be a good route to do so.

  8. MissGirl*

    I think your rejection has more to with lacking management experience. Sometimes people throw out something else that didn’t matter as much to give something more concrete.

    1. Peanut Hamper*

      This is where I land as well. It’s possible that the interviewer didn’t even recall other interviewers asking questions and interrupting, and upon checking their notes just found something like “last minute of presentation seemed rushed”.

    2. Interviewus Interruptus (OP)*

      Yeah, I could buy this, when I’m panel leader I try to find something meaningful to give each candidate as feedback but sometimes there’s nothing at all to fault the candidate on except their luck that there was another candidate with more experience on the day.

      1. Cinnamon Stick*

        That’s exactly it. Most employers don’t usually bother giving feedback at all. Thank you for being one who does.

        Good luck!

  9. Apples and Oranges*

    When I present professionally in meetings (which I do a lot), I always leave space to go longer or shorter with each topic depending on how much discussion and engagement I get. There’s definitely a skill to that as there is a skill in gently moving things along in the internet of time.

    I’m not sure I’d cut short questions in an interview situation, but there’s no harm in calling out what’s happening “wow, you all have a lot to great questions. If I continue answering them, there might not be time to complete all of my presentation in the allotted time. That’s fine with me . Is that the route you’d like to take?”

    So yes there is a lot of skill assessment that you can glean from this, whether the interruptions were intentional or not. That said, I doubt it’ was a deciding factor in not getting the position.

    1. Guacamole Bob*

      This is the ideal way to handle it. Someone very comfortable with presentations in a context where they get a lot of discussion will be able to call out the time issue in an appropriate way.

      Someone very comfortable presenting in these situations is also likely capable at summarizing the key points from the last few slides in the allotted time even though it takes them off script and isn’t what they practiced.

      These are skills that come with practice, mastery of the material being presented, and confidence in one’s role as the presenter as it relates to those in the audience, and seeing the presenter role as also that of a facilitator. Not easy in an interview setting, so I don’t at all fault OP for not handling it perfectly and being annoyed about how it all transpired.

    2. Media Monkey*

      totally, in a recent interview i decided to hide a couple of slides to make sure i could cover the topic within the time available. when it became clear that they were interested in those, i could unhide and present them (they did ask and i did present them but i didn’t get dinged for time)

  10. Casual Observer*

    When I interviewed for my current role as an instructor, I was told to prepare a 5-10 minute lesson plan that I would deliver to the panel as if they were my students. During my presentation, the 3 panel members acted purposely acted obnoxiously (think interrupting me, making fun of one the other “students”, rolling their eyes, scrolling on their phones, etc.) to see how I handled it and if I could keep the presentation on track. I was not told ahead of time they would do this, so naturally I was a little confused what was happening. When I was offered the position, I was told that the way I handled their heckling was what got me the role, and that they did this because some of our learners can be quite disruptive. It made sense for the duties of my role, but I’m not sure if that’s the case for you, OP.

    1. Salty Caramel*

      A line that I have used on many occasions: “I have some slides coming up that may answer your question and/or fill in some background or details. I’d like to get to those before I answer.”

      This happens to me a lot.

    2. Sal*

      Ugh, public defenders do this kind of hazing interview, too. (In ADDITION to actual role play with difficult “clients”/“judges”/“prosecutors.”) Definitely not my favorite part of PD culture, which otherwise tends to be pretty great (for law).

      1. Cinnamon Stick*

        The son of one of my friends works in a PD’s office and loves it.

        I also hate adversarial interviews. While it’s important for anyone to think on their feet, I’d rather ask, “Have you ever been blindsided by a colleague/manager/client and how did you handle it?”

  11. He's just this guy, you know?*

    Honestly, this sounds like nearly every presentation I’ve ever had to make at my current company! I’ll have a full deck of slides prepared, and people will get so hung up on something in one of the first few slides that 80% of the meeting time ends up getting eaten up on 20% of the content. I’ve learned to just make my slide decks shorter, and also to greatly front load the information so that when we inevitably get hung up on the first slide, we’re not missing out on anything too important later on.

    I realize this doesn’t help what happened in your interview, but maybe it’s worth knowing that this kind of thing can still happen even after you have the job, and it’s possible to learn to roll with it.

    1. Hastily Blessed Fritos*

      Yeah, putting the “executive summary” or conclusions first is key. I also will put a lot of slides in an appendix – if a particular audience wants to go deep in a particular area we can, but otherwise they’re skipped.

    2. Nonanon*

      This is unfortunately something I had to learn in grad school, where one slide of preliminary data would be discussed for half an hour. It was noted that my lab meeting presentations were “terrible,” because, well, I had planned to present data, not discuss one slide for 1/4 of the time of meeting. It usually resulted in weak transitions between slides and rushed conclusions, and I probably looked like a worse presenter than I was.
      TBH, it also might be a mismatch in culture between OP and the company; where OP is like me and prefers “one shotting” and answering questions at the end, and the company prefers an ongoing discussion rather than a straight presentation. Nothing inherently wrong with either approach, but it does get frustrating.
      (For the record, I was chewed out by my advisor, in the middle of an update, for asking that questions be held until the end; again, culture mismatch, nothing “right” or “wrong” about either, just frustrating)

  12. HonorBox*

    It seems like there’s a good (actual) reason you didn’t get the role, but I’m really stuck on how this interview was handled. Maybe there was some role play going on, but it seems more likely that the conversation spiraled from the one question that was asked. I think it sets someone up for failure to derail a presentation they’ve been asked to prepare for an interview. If it was a panel interview, sans presentation, it isn’t likely that anyone would be subjected to an panel taking 30-40% of the interview time in a side conversation. And if they were, and the allotted time was clipped because of that, I’d consider that at least a yellow flag about that workplace.

    1. Trout 'Waver*

      Derails like OP is describing are ubiquitous in science and technical presentations. So my money is on that.

      1. HonorBox*

        Could be for sure. In an interview setting, I’d think it would be kind and helpful, though, for someone from the panel to give some direction to the candidate about how to proceed through / following this kind of interruption. We’ve asked the candidate to prepare 10 minutes of content. We took 3-4 minutes. We owe them either the full opportunity to finish or at least a moment to collect their thoughts to get through key points in the remaining part of the presentation. The power dynamic in an interview is very different than in a workplace setting, and lots of people would fumble in that situation.

        1. Allonge*

          This would indeed be kind!

          It’s just that they may be assessing how the fumbling is done. Presenting to a set of high-level managers is not necessarily less stressful than to an interview panel, and there will not be instructions there either.

  13. Trout 'Waver*

    3-4 minutes of questions in the middle of the talk is a good thing – it means your talk is relevant and your audience is engaged. I wouldn’t take it as a negative. The other candidate had more management experience and they felt like they had to say something to you.

    Here’s what I do when the power differential prohibits me from cutting off questions. Wait for it to run its course and say something like “Clearly there’s a lot of interest in this topic. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough time to cover the rest of the presentation. I’m happy to stick around and answer questions or talk about anything I couldn’t cover today after the meeting/interview/whatever.” The key is to say it like this is a positive development. Of course you’re happy people are so interested in your presentation!

  14. Person from the Resume*

    LW you did not get the job because “another candidate had more management experience than [you].” Accept that and move on.

    Until you went probing, they did not mention your presentation was a factor. You’re grasping a straws (an applicants tend to do), but there’s really nothing for you to fix here. Just move on and think of this no more.

    2. Interviewus Interruptus (OP)*

      Hi, OP here: I agree! I’m not too hung up on it as there were clearly other factors involved in the final decision. Though if anyone has a polite way to address this were it to crop up again it would satisfy the completer-finisher in me haha

  15. Saturday*

    I would just look for ways to, as gracefully as possible, wrap up quickly when you need to.

    I’ve seen this happen in interviews before – not because their was any plan on the interviewers part, but just because they were engaged with the presentation. It’s hard not to be flustered as the presenter, so making a plan for how to cut things short if needed can be helpful.

  16. Former lab rat*

    Retired now but worked in research basic science. Lab heads were the worst for interrupting, then going down a rabbit hole side discussion. It was very hard for any speaker to regain control, especially job candidates.

  17. A Book about Metals*

    When I’ve had to do these, or been on the receiving end as a member of the hiring team, it’s usually not about whether you finished the whole prez, but how well you did during the time allotted, which might include questions, challenges, etc.

    YMMV of course but that’s how it usually goes in my experience

  18. Colorado*

    I interviewed for a company where they played “good cop/ bad cop” during the presentation portion to fluster the interviewee. I only found out after getting the job and sitting on another interview where they told me that is their strategy. It was one of many, many burning red flags of that job.

    1. Interviewus Interruptus (OP)*

      Ouch, yes if that were indeed the scenario then I’d consider it a bullet dodged

    2. Bruce*

      I had an interview like that, a 3 person panel where one person was the designated jerk. They also used a standardized set of questions, which is not a bad idea if they are well tailored. The funny thing was the designated jerk did not have to try very hard to fulfil that role, we butted heads a few times before he warmed up to me. (Yes, I accepted the offer, the place I was working at before was worse, and that had conditioned me to be tolerant of jerks and toxicity. Happily not at a toxic place now at the twilight of my career!)

  19. NotARealManager*

    I was interviewing for a very competitive graduate program that had a group presentation element. We got a prompt as a small group, then had to pitch an idea from that prompt. We only had about 5-10 minutes to prepare and our pitch had to be under 5 minutes. My mom (not affiliated at all with the program or field of study) had warned me the interview process might involve something like this and I would be judged not on my content, so much as my conduct.

    I’m glad she gave me the warning because the way we divided up our pitch, I was supposed to speak last, detailing the final elements of the pitch. Then during the pitch the person who spoke ahead of me said what I was going to say. I had to pivot immediately and instead of delivering the final elements, I summarized everyone else’s talking points and put a button on the presentation. I got a spot in the program, the person who “stole” my talking points did not.

    I say this only to echo what Alison did: you may have been being judged on your abilities as a presenter, not on what you presented. It might not be fair, but I’d keep it in mind on your next interview.

  20. Interviewus Interruptus (OP)*

    Hi, OP here! Thank you Alison and everyone else for your input, it’s been helpful and run the length of my own thought process as I’ve been reflecting upon this.

    To answer a point that has been raised several times, no, I don’t think this was a planned interruption to see how I dealt with it under pressure. Not only does the role not require presentation very frequently, but on the rare occasions it might be necessary, the listeners would be very unlikely to interrupt (sorry, can’t go further without doxing myself). I think the panel had just picked that format because it was a quick way to get the candidate’s takes on the challenge they’d set for the interview. Furthermore, I know one of the other candidates and they weren’t interrupted at all. I’m taking it as a positive that the panel were excited enough about my ideas that they started chatting about implementation, feasibility, outcome figures etc during my pres!

    In theory I’d agree that politely but firmly redirecting questions until the end would have been a good idea, but the broader implication of the original interview invitation was that there would be questions /after/ the presentation, so in the moment it didn’t even occur to me to be an issue. In fact I was thrilled that they were so interested in my ideas! I certainly didn’t feel I had standing to argue my case at the point I was back into the swing of my presentation and suddenly given a one minute warning. But we are where we are.

    I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that I need to just chalk this up to human error; it simply didn’t occur to the panel leader to pause the clock whilst they were chatting. A yellow flag maybe that they weren’t too considerate of their own impact on others, but given it wasn’t the deciding factor in the end, I’m trying not to read anything further into it.

  21. HailRobonia*

    My takeaway is that if I (non-specific deity forbid) ever have to do a timed presentation for a job interview, I will ask specifically how much time, how much time for questions, and what is their preferred protocol for interruptions.

  22. Umami*

    just a thought – I wonder if the interruptions were because the presentation was unclear or lacking expected information, and that’s what really counted against OP? 3-4 minutes of questions for a 10-minute presentation would trouble me and lead me to believe I hadn’t quite hit the mark.

    1. kiki*

      This turned into three or four minutes of other queries and broader chat amongst the panel members

      It sounds like the questions were more of engagement than clarifying, especially since LW mentioned “broader chat.” I could be wrong on that, but I wouldn’t assume these questions were rooted in confusion.

      1. umami*

        I wasn’t thinking confusion so much as probing. But based on what OP has shared, it sounds more like interest!

  23. RCB*

    I have done a lot of interviewing and for some of the roles I have purposely interrupted them to see how well they are able to recover and get back on track. It was never time limited like this person’s was, so I can’t attest to that part, but it is absolutely a thing where this might need to be tested. In our line of work some of the positions do present a lot, and often to VERY high level people (think prime ministers, other cabinet level people) who LOVE to hear themself talk and will often interrupt because we can’t possibly live without their insights (sarcasm, obviously), and part of the success of the position is getting the presentation/conversation back on course after those interruptions.

  24. macarooncat*

    OP, you didn’t do anything wrong, you tried your best to deal with unreasonable people. You did the prep work and obviously weren’t planning to coast through this interview.

    You’ll drive yourself crazy trying to figure out what they wanted — they don’t know either. If they truly wanted to test your time-management skills they would have done so in a reasonable manner and told you about it beforehand. That’s why when normal people organize presentations in the real world — not the weird model UN interview world — they build time for Qs into the agenda. Why that other candidate got the job is anyone’s guess (including the fact that they could have had some other “in”).

    Interviewers trying to sabotage their candidates is icky and weird. See that shiny bright red flag for what it is, keep practicing your presentation skills, and forget about it.

  25. Frosty*

    I had something sort of similar recently. It was a timed 60 minute Zoom interview, and I know for legal reasons that they are have to keep the interview process as fair as possible due to the possibility of people filing grievances if they are given different opportunities.

    However, mid-interview one of the panel had technical difficulties which resulted in them having to repeat a lengthy question multiple times, eating up several minutes. Then at the very end of the interview I was told “you have 90 seconds left do you have any questions for us?” It seemed absurd that it would be SO rigid and also that I wouldn’t “get back” the time that the panel used due to their own issues.

    I did get offered the job in the end but I felt the bum’s rush to get all the questions answered. It was weird!

  26. Cosmo*

    On my team we do a required 15 minute presentation in the interview. Presenting to students, peers, and executives inside and outside the company is a core part of my job.

    While we try to keep questions for the end sometimes we’ll interrupt if we can’t follow the presentation or there’s a particularly egregious error or issue we want to address in the moment. For senior positions we’d expect folks to be able to handle interruptions gracefully. I’d be fine with someone asking if we had more time since they took some time to answer questions. I’d also be fine with them acknowledging that we lost some time and skipping a few slides as a result. I’m also almost always okay with “that’s a great question, but I’d like to save it for the end if that’s okay with you.”

    As someone who’s done a lot of presenting, there’s techniques you can learn to manage situations like this. If your chosen career path is going to involve a lot of presenting especially to hostile or indifferent audiences you might want to practice some of them. A couple I use include marking slides that can be skipped in my speaker notes and practicing my talk with and without them. Adding extra slides after my thank you slide if I go under time. Practicing presenting a short and longer version of key slides so I can adjust on the fly. I also front load critical information so I don’t end up low on time with a bunch of content I HAVE to cover for the talk to make sense.

    Stuff happens during talks. I’ve had fire alarms and coughing fits. Tech issues (not my fault). Co-speakers that showed up late. Audiences that showed up late. A question from the audience that was not actually a question and took 30 seconds to a minute. It happens to everyone so having the ability to flex a bit is useful.

  27. Switchback*

    My former org would do this intentionally to see how folks would handle it. Sometimes an interruption, sometimes a “sorry, your time has been cut to x” announcement up front. It was deliberately testing their ability to “accordion” a presentation on the fly in front of highly demanding and often egotistical recipients. Interrupting questions would usually be designed to see if the candidate could read the room and re-vector to slightly different interests.

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