So the Panel interview day came (i had flown coast to coast for that) and 60 minutes went by very effectively in my opinion. There were a LOT of questions being posed by different "client" stakeholders but nothing anywhere close to difficult that i had seen in real-life client situations (which i have faced many times, because i'm an independent consultant for past 5 years with focus on the same area - enterprise architecture & innovation). I was taken on an intentional tangent during the presentation - though i lost time on addressing the tangent and could have done better, i still brought the flow back to the deck and ended up communicating the value/intent of every slide during the 1 hour slot provided. After the presentation ended, 2 people gave me feedback right away that I had done well. But then the 3rd person who happens to be the boss (managing VP) of everyone spoke and said "your voice modulation was not good". Then everyone stopped giving me feedback. I was asked self-feedback "i thought it went great. there was a tangent in the middle which i could have handled more effectively because i had to rush a bit in the end. Overall though i felt that i kept all client members engaged, presented Gartner professionally in a client-setting, demonstrated that i listened to the client effectively especially focusing on their mission critical objectives and how to bring value to address those". Hiring manager walked me out asking me "have you done this before?". I responded "many times in real-life, in fact, i was ready for more client-politics dynamics which was not the case in this panel".
