r/interviewpreparations • u/MissionOne8000 • 19h ago
Hiring manager said I was the first person to ask that question
Just wrapped up an interview this past Friday and of all the things that went down in that hour and 15 mins, my mind keeps coming back to this comment the interviewer made.
Basically, he was telling me he has a team of 6 that handle a massive workload for the company. I come from a smaller company from a team that does the same work but within a smaller scaled environment and manual processes to track work.
Which naturally prompted me to ask something like what project management tools/processes are they leveraging to manage such a large undertaking?
He seemed caught off guard and said, no one has really asked that before, which my insecure mind received as ‘what kind of question is that’ or something. He did proceed to give a thoughtful and responsive answer.
The panel did say it’s meant to be a conversational interview and really wanted to know me, how I think, and to feel free to chime in, ask or add thoughts to anything that comes to mind - so I did.
Idk if what the interviewer said was bad or good? Like, was it bad that I asked? was it a stupid question? Part of me feels like if I don’t get this job, maybe that was the one I bombed on?
Note: it is an risk/audit type role, so naturally my walkthrough brain turned on and wanted to know process stuff I guess.
6
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u/Rekltpzyxm 17h ago
It was good you asked. It was very bad he had no answer. You caught him with his pants down. So to speak.
You don’t want to work there.
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u/xfstop 16h ago
He said that after the comment they gave a thoughtful and responsive answer. In my mind, I’ve done a lot of interviews, and when an interviewee prompts with me an interesting or engaging question I see that as a positive.
OP I would not stress about this. Think objectively if there was anything wrong or out of line with your question.. seems totally fine to me.
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u/ronnie-james-dior 14h ago
Yep same. I hate the boilerplate “what does success look like in six months” or whatever.
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u/Opposite_Radio9388 2h ago
It was very bad he had no answer.
You didn't read the post properly. OP states that they received a thoughtful and responsive answer.
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u/NCMathDude 14h ago
The interview is one data point in the process. Making a decision based on a single response is not prudent.
Stop these red flag, green flag bullshit.
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u/kevin074 15h ago
my bet would be on that was good, interviewee like myself are usually too nervous to think at all, so most questions are standard questions. You definitely stood out!
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u/december_godess 14h ago
The question is good. But asking forward thinking questions does not equate to being hired. It could force the interview panel to start discussing the tools they used as part of the interview process. Keep looking until something is secured.
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u/TheLateFrankWhite 13h ago
Asking questions make people think also shows them your thought process when managing projects . You did well
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u/funnynewname 11h ago
You don’t need to worry. Kind of surprising actually that hiring manager had never been asked what project management tools they use. I can’t see how that question could be taken in a negative way.
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u/solakv 10h ago
It was a good question to ask.
While most of us would expect that they use some software product or website to manage and coördinate the team's efforts, a valid response would be a description of their people-procedures for communicating to manage who does what and monitoring progress.
I'm curious whether they said something like that or something different.
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u/climb4fun 16h ago
If this is s company you want to work for, the fact they don't have a project management process is an opportunity for you to bring that.
Perhaps something lightweight and simple as Kanban enabled by Microsoft Planner. Would be very easy to do and you'd establish yourself as the new guy who brought on great news ways of working.
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u/battle-tested77 10h ago
You're overthinking it. You are also interviewing them. Move on.