Help me prepare for a job interview - Presentation will be given on the day!

[MariosTash]

I've just received an email to tell me I have a job interview next week and will be required to give a ten minute presentation on the day which will be on a subject of the interview panels choice

How can I prepare in advance? Will I be allowed to refer to any notes?

I'll have 30 minutes to prepare after being given the topic and will have access to flipchart and pens. I'm panicking!!!

Eek! That's scary. I had to give a presentation at a recent interview but at least I had a week's notice. Is presenting a part of the job you are interviewing for? If it is I guess they are obviously looking for presentation skills. If not, I presume they are more looking for what you say and whether you say it in a logical way. And in the second case they would give you a topic related to your job?

I don't know how you can prepare in advance unless you just want to practise giving yourself topics and coming up with a presentation in half an hour - that will give you an idea how the time works out.

(if I was doing this) I'd just revise some job related topics so I'd know I could talk about them if they came up. On the day, I'd maybe come up with 4 main headings related to the topic and plan to talk for 2 minutes on each, with 1 minute each of introduction and conclusion. I'd use the flipchart to put up main headings - maybe with a couple of bullet points under each (sort of like you'd do a powerpoint presentation). Unless it's applicable to draw something like a diagram you can talk about.

Good luck!

Ok, this could be a bit scary. Off the to of my head my tips would be.

1. Introduce the presentation with a brief summary of what you will talk about and the objectives. Then do the main presentation.
2. Interact with them. Ask questions, get opinions.
3. Take a pencil and write the answers to any questions you expect on the flip chart really faintly
4. Referring to notes is fine but don't read from them.

If its for a training type role then keep it as interactive as possible. If its sales type role keep it as informative as possible.

As an extra I would prepare some note paper for them, which I would brand with their logo.

Hope that helps. Will keep thinking.

It is for a senior nurse job which is linked to child protection. I'm thinking just try and second guess what they might ask me to do. I suppose on the bright side I don't have to spend all weekend trying to put a presentation together!

Thanks for the ideas so far

Hmmm - I suspect that they might be trying to see whether you have a reasonable understanding of your job and can stand up and talk to people about it.

As part of my job, I occasionally get students to do this type of unprepared informal presentation to a group and then take questions. It's always on a subject that they should know something about, but usually from a slightly different angle - e.g. you just did an essay on this topic, now you've got 5 minutes to explain it to someone who doesn't have a science background, and explain why it's important. Or 'you just did an essay on this topic, now explain to someone from a related industry how this would relate to their work'.

The overwhelming majority of people I've done this with are able to do a very good job of it when put on the spot, simply because they know what they're talking about and can talk about it logically.

It could be an analysis presentation depending on your role? I had one a few years ago. Basically you worked for a restaurant chain and,had to decide between two quite different locations for a new restaurant based on evidence they provided you with.

Basically, there was no right answer but you must show you've considered all the ins and outs and mentioned all the pros and cons of each options - basically showing you've considered/analysed everything.

Is the role an analyst one?

It's for a nursing job Happy.

I'm a confident presenter so I suppose i'll just spend the weekend brushing up on my knowledge and see what comes on the day. Like you say GrendelsMum if you know your stuff you should be able to give it a good go.

Whoops sorry, didn't notice your update! Good luck!

Ps I'm blaming the wine tiredness for the overuse of the word 'basically' in my post

I'd use a mindmapping technique with the thirty mins you have to prepare. You can do a quick brain dump of everything you know on the question they ask this way

ekidna do you mean just think of everything I know about what they ask and then just organise into headings to talk about?

yes.
you could check out bubbl.us for practising different questions
I find mindmapping approach to preparing for presentations frees up my creativity :-)
yes putting into headings would be good obviously. depending on the mood of the interview I might even present in a mindmapping way. i.e start mind mapping the answers in the presentation on the flip charts. like a paperbased prezi presentation