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Case study presentation for interview- help!

10 replies

Tailtwister · 20/05/2013 18:14

I've already posted one the 'work' board, but I really need to quick advice. I know it's not good form, but the traffic here is high so here goes.

I may have an interview coming up where I will be given a case study to do a presentation on. They give you 1h to do a Powerpoint presentation which is expected to last around 10 minutes.

I've never done one of these and I'm not the most confident presenter. The thought makes me nauseous quite frankly and I worry I might not be able to think straight to write the presentation in the first place. Has anyone done one of these before? Any tips?

Basically I haven't worked for about a year. A combination of small children and an ill relative have made it only possible for me to return to work recently. Also, after 2 mat leaves one after the other in the past 5 years, I feel I've lost some confidence. I haven't interviewed for about 7 years.

OP posts:
Birdsgottafly · 20/05/2013 18:25

What sort of case study?

You pick out points to make the title of your slides, or sections.

So if five sections, then that's only two minutes per section to fill.

Have a practise at home, you will be surprised how easy it is to fill 10 minutes.

AngryGnome · 20/05/2013 18:28

Ok, do you have a basic idea what the theme of the case study will be? Draw up some generic ideas tonight, and then you can adapt these tomorrow. If you are not a confident presenter i wouldn't bother with any flashy animation/fades in the PowerPoint slides - you might get distracted by trying to make it all run smoothly. Your first slide should be the title of your presentation, your name and title. Next slide, a summary of what you plan to cover, then your actualpresentation on the following slides, last slide a summary of the key points you have made. Finish by askin if there are any questions.

For a 10 min presentation you want 5-10 slides maximum; try to ensure that you aren't simply reading out your slides - they should just hold billet points and key messages.

Try and enjoy it - the interviewers obviously think you have the right skills for this role, or they wouldn't have bothered inviting you to interview. They will be interested in what you have to say :-) try and make eye contact with the panel, and have a glass of water to hand. You will do really well I'm sure Flowers

Alliwantisaroomsomewhere · 20/05/2013 18:32

Don't jam the slides with lots of words or even diagrams. People will be trying to listen to you AND read the slides at the same time - so give the audience time to read the slide and listen to you speak.

Also, don't have too many slides that you need to whizz through. Less is more!

Perhaps for your slides: consider slide one to be your intro, two to cover two points, slide three to get into the meaty part of the talk, slide 4 to bring matters together and slide five to ask audience to consider what they will be taking away with them from the talk or something along those lines - this is if you like the idea of the 2 min per slide that Birds mentioned.

Hope this is helpful... disclaimer: I have done two PP for two job applications and was not successful either time Grin - though obviously I should have been!

Tailtwister · 20/05/2013 19:33

These are all great tips, thanks.

It's for a project management type role, so I imagine the case study will be about a project with issues and I'll be expected to identify them and provide solutions. I won't see the case study until I get to the interview though.

I'm guessing the first thing to do will be to read through and understand the scenario and identify the risk factors? Then go through them and provide solutions and reasons for my decisions?

It's been a very long time, so I'm somewhat rusty. I'm hoping it will all come flooding back, I used to be quite good at this!

OP posts:
babybythesea · 20/05/2013 19:48

Sounds like you have the outline of a plan. I will qualify this now by saying I have done a lot of public speaking, but never had to do it in an interview setting, and not on this kind of topic so feel free to ignore me!! I have given lots of both informal talks and more formal lectures though.

In that type of scenario, I'd be tempted to have one slide per problem, with the problem clearly identified on it, and then just discuss your solution.

I would probably also start with a slide with a 'heading' of some description - the title of the job or something, as much to give you time to settle as anything, and have a small piece of opening blurb, again, to give yourself time to calm excess nerves (and by opening blurb, I mean something as basic as your name and a quick summary of the situation you have been given.)

Then a 'link' - as in, "The first problem I have identified is...." with a slide giving an outline of the problem (not loads of text, just a brief summary). Then discuss your solutions and reasons (I wouldn't necessarily have a slide with text detailing any of the solution - this is what you are telling them and you want them listening to you, but if there are diagrams that would help your explanation then you would need a separate slide showing these).

The other thing you can do is if you think there is a point that you haven't explained very well, check with them. Saying "Does that make sense?" is fine, and if people look a bit blank then it gives you a chance to go back and explain a different way. From their point of view, it means they have someone in front of them who wants to ensure the point has been clearly made, and who can read body language appropriately. If you fluff a sentence make a joke of it ("I'm sorry, I'll start that again and try and get a complete sentence out...") rather than stressing it's gone wrong and making yourself more nervous. People like a sense of humour, and it shows you won't be floored by a small thing going a bit wrong.

Try and make sure any notes you write yourself as prompts are easy to link with the slides, so if you forget that you were saying you don't spend ages hunting through pages of notes in small writing trying to find where you were. The prompts should have big big writing with the same text as on the slide, with the points you want to make smaller underneath (hope that makes sense!) so you can go straight to the right section if you lose what you were saying - quick glance at the slide, then quick glance through your notes for the same text...

Best of luck!

Tailtwister · 31/05/2013 15:03

Just to update, I did the interview yesterday (very tough, over 3hrs) and got a very good offer back today!

Thanks for the advice guys. It was a pretty scary experience, but I had written down your tips and they obviously worked.

Now I just need to decide if I want the job...

OP posts:
LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 31/05/2013 15:59

Congrats, Tailtwister, very well done! Grin

Tailtwister · 31/05/2013 17:26

Thanks LyingWitch! I have to say that interviews have become a lot tougher since I last did one. Very, very intense.

I'm grateful for people's advice though. I'm not sure if I'd have got through it otherwise.

OP posts:
MikeOxard · 31/05/2013 17:39

Oooooh, so you're the one that got the job? It was all explained clearly and succinctly on another thread. Congratulations! xx

AngryGnome · 01/06/2013 08:18

Congratulations on the offer! Are you going to take it?

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