Interviews can be nerve-wracking enough, from making sure your body language doesn’t put off the interviewer to rehearsing common questions, there’s a lot of preparation to do.

If that wasn’t scary enough, some employers now demand you do a presentation as part of the interview process. It’s time to read some handy hints.

Time to rehearse

Rehearsals aren’t just for thespians, dahling, it’s vital that you do as much preparation as possible to conquer any nerves. If you have to do a presentation, you’ll be given plenty of time to prepare in advance, and you must make the most of it. From writing notes and learning as much as you can by heart, to practising the tone of your voice, there’s plenty to think about.

Worried you might lose your words once you’re in front of the interviewer(s)? Bribe a friend with a cup of tea and get them round to help you practise your presentation until you’re completely confident.

Appearance is everything

Get your appearance right and the job could be yours. Get it wrong, and you’re sitting on the rejection pile.

So find your smartest outfit, give your hair a brush and look your best. After all, you don’t want a scruffy appearance or poor hygiene to leave more of an impact than your presentation.

 

How to structure a presentation

Structure is the most important thing to get right if you want to keep the interviewer’s attention. But the good news is, it can be fairly simple to do. The key thing is not to waffle on. Write the presentation out, learn it and time it. Unless they tell you otherwise, a job interview presentation shouldn’t last more than 10 minutes.

 

Start with a basic opening : Give a brief overview of what the presentation is about.

 

Elaborate : Follow it up with the main points of the topic you’re talking about. Divide this into numbered points to give the presentation structure.

 

End : Finish off with a short summary and conclude concisely.

 

Pronounce. Your. Words. Properly

We know you’re nervous and probably want to get the presentation over with as fast as possible, but resist the temptation to talk too fast. Take a deep breath and speak clearly. You don’t want to be constantly interrupted by the panel asking what on earth you’re saying.

Be visual

If someone did nothing but talk at you for an hour, chances are you’d soon start daydreaming out of sheer boredom, so keep the interviewer’s attention by being as visual as possible.

Why not try the following?

• Give out hand-outs of your presentation for them to read
• Have open body language
• Don’t be afraid to gesture
• Use a nifty PowerPoint presentation

Just make sure you don’t dictate the same lines from your hand outs; remember, you aren’t reading a script.

Keeping eye contact

Nobody likes being ignored and if this was a face-to-face interview you’d make sure your body language was perfect and that you maintained eye contact throughout to keep the interviewer’s attention.

This doesn’t change just because you’re doing a presentation; in fact, it’s more important in this scenario to keep shifting eye contact to make sure you keep everyone engaged with what you’re saying…

Prepare for questions

Just because you’re doing a presentation, don’t think that you’ve cleverly avoided the interviewer’s questions. Chances are they’ll ask about you AND your presentation so be prepared and make sure you know your presentation inside out and back to front.

In my time as a senior recruiter I have sat through no small number of presentations. Many of them left me cold. I wondered if the people giving them really understood the purpose of the exercise i.e. to test in this way is the candidate’s ability to represent and sell an organisation, (and in the process themselves). To test their ability to inspire an audience with confidence. To test an ability to persuade and to demonstrate the ability to marshal thoughts and structure something that sounds really impressive. Showcasing. Convincing. Persuading. Getting the message across.

So sitting, as some candidates I have listened to do, in front of a flip chart with some very small handwriting, wiggling across a single piece paper does not really do a deal to impress. Mumbling in a down beat fashion or shuffling pages of A4 on the desk really does not cut it.

I also wonder if few people attend any training on presentations or public speaking. Speaking to an audience is one of the most common phobias there is. Why would you volunteer to go on a course to do something that literally frightens you? Suffers feel that all eyes are upon them – “the spotlight effect” – their acute self-awareness makes it very difficult for them to focus on what is going on around them, to remember their speech, or to read from notes. Their mind goes blank or foggy.

Their distress is further fuelled by their efforts to hide or mask their discomfort which may become apparent through blushing, facial immobility, sweating, shaking, twitching, or an inability to speak normally or coherently. And in an interview situation where getting the job depends on success it is all much worse.

So what should the candidates have do when faced with the task…. ‘you have ten minutes to give us a presentation on…’?

1. An understanding of the audience, what they already know, what language they speak and what they want to hear about. I guess the man from the World Bank had never met a social housing tenant, I think he was an academic. His presentation, although very important, did not set the room alight. Effective presenters know who their audience are and how the message needs to be delivered.
2. Effective presenters stand and command the room. Presenting is a display activity. Standing indicates confidence and control. It enables a small amount of movement, a little pacing, wider hand gestures; a greater ability to get up close to the audience. Standing enables you to inject more energy into your presentation. If you think of some of the great orators that you have heard, they did not sit behind a desk and mutter.
3. Clear diction and adequate volume. One of the great bonuses of standing is the way that it will enable you to breath deeply and speak on the out-breath. This will give your voice depth and volume. (But if you have a microphone you need to be careful not to over project.)
4. Measured delivery, presenters need to relax, speak slowly and use all the techniques of pace and rhythm to ensure that there is clarity and emphasis. Presenters need to recognise the ability of the audience to absorb and give them appropriate time to do so.
5. Good visual aids, if you have to make your presentation ‘on the day’, and are given flip chart, tuck a ruler and pencil in your pocket. Make your visual aids, helpful, clean and neat. Use them for the emphasis, they should give not for the narrative. If you are given a topic in advance and are using powerpoint, use it sensibly, again it is not the narrative it is the emphasis.
6. Structure, a presentation needs a clear beginning, middle and end. It needs an overview and a conclusion. And keep to time, nothing annoys a panel more and tells them that you have not planned and rehearsed.
7. Message, if a presentation is testing oral persuasiveness then there needs to be a very clear message or argument with facts and evidence to support it. Ask yourself, what is the the thing that I want my audience to walk away remembering? you also need great content. You need content tailored to the audience and answering the questions they want answering. Speak with conviction, if you don’t believe your message who else will?
8. A smile, a sign that you are pleased to be there. Sometimes a touch of humour can help you build rapport with the audience, but how much you can use this will depend on the situation. But your smile needs to be on the mouth and in your eyes and your eyes need to meet theirs.

Yes, I have sat through many hours of very poor presentations and many other hours of very good ones. To be memorable you need, great, relevant content delivered with conviction and style.

by Mary Hope