Managers and employers can you give me some tips.Help needed about a presentation.

[notacooldad]

My 20 year old son has an interview with the MOD.
Part of the process is that he has to do a 10 minute presentation about the service. He can present it in anyway he likes, use material from their website and pretty much has a free reign.
He has asked me and his dad for some help as he has never done anything like this before. However neither have we!!
Obviously he is nervous and wants to give it his best shot.

Can anyone give us any tips on what he should be doing.
I've have covered as much as I can about personal presentation such as appear confident, make your presence be known and talk clearly and project your voice so that every one can hear and include everyone by eye contact.

I'm not sure what else to suggest.

Thank you in advance to anyone that can help
( it feels like last minute homework, I thought those days were behind me!!)

With only 10 minutes available I would suggest he picks one specific element of the service, or one very specific angle. Trying to do something very generic about the service as a whole in 10 minutes is far too broad. Picking a specific thing and researching and presenting on that will show initiative, research skills and his own perspective.

Is he able to use PowerPoint in the presentation and if so does he know how to use if. If not, probably not worth starting now, but if he can and feels comfortable that would be an option that helps him focus on the key points he wants to make.

If he goes down that route he shouldn't too whizzy with it - keep it simple and not too distracting. I say this because people can get a bit carried away with animations and lines whizzing in! And don't try and cram lots of text in - some visuals and some summary lines would be my approach.

But if this isn't an option not to worry - he might want to take a well presented hand out to leave behind and refer to as he talks.

Good luck! Hope it goes well.

use it not use if! Wish you could edit posts

PowerPoint or google slides. Both very easy to use. Very little text on each slide; preferably bullet pointed or similar - he should give them the info, they shouldn't have to read it. Simple colour scheme - a background goes a long way in helping a presentation to not be too boring. For himself, open body language, feet hip width apart and inflection in the voice.

I hold a lot of presentation interviews!!

Thank you for the replies.
In all my years of working and applying for jobs I have never had to do a presentation so I am not much help to him!

We recently did interviews for a senior post that included a presentation.

We didn't provide tech for a slide show but candidates did bring hard copies presentations with them. Might be worth checking what are the logistics?

If he is going to do a presentation with PowerPoint - my boss would always advise the power of three - keep it to three core bullets

Lastly - practice, practice! Not just reading through in his head - get him to do it in front of you. Only once you speak the words you are thinking to say does it come together.

Have they stated if time for questions is after or during? Worth knowing as this could effect his timings

He needs to film himself doing the presentation or allow others to watch him to give him feedback. Helps to know if you fiddle with your hair, fidget too much etc and how he comes across.

Also, a good tip is to pause after each paragraph. When you are nervous it is easy to speed up and start chattering away, so mentally thinking 'and Pause' helps pace the presentation and fill the 10 minute slot.