Invited to interview - have to do a presentation

[mammasmadhouse]

I recently applied for a promotion and have just found out I have been shortlisted which is great, but I have to give a 10 minute presentation which I have never done before, infact I have previously declined interviews which included a presentation. I am already nervous and in panic mode, any strategies or words of wisdom?

What subject do you have to present? I'd do a quick deep dive into an aspect of the job I throughly enjoy. Have a look on Pinterest for some PowerPoint templates. It's only 10 minutes.

What is your worry about the presentation? Is it general anxiety around presenting or is the topic a worry?

Practice in front of a mirror, in front of a friend or family member as well. It will build your confidence.
If you have to prepare slides, keep them simple, with few words and pictures (and no fancy animations - unless showing off with PowerPoint is part of the role!).

Use branded templates from your org if possible. Keep the slides light on detail so you can talk around them and use them as an aid. And crucially practise, practise, practise. Donut at home in English empty room or to a partner or friend if you want to get jitters out of the way. But definitely practise out loud to find your rhythm and also get a sense of whether you're over or under time.

Keep it simple. Expand on what is on the slides
Practice, practice, practice.

My top tip - as a teacher who does nothing but ‘present’ using PPT - is know your stuff and put limited info on slides to encourage yourself to talk about the subject naturally. The worst presentations are when people read out everything they’ve put on slides AT you. These people usually write everything they want to say on a slide too so it’s information overwhelm. Your slides should have the bare bones of your presentation - an aide memoire for you really.

So, maybe a statement with a bullet point list of three on one slide, a graph on another slide, a section of a spreadsheet on an other. Handouts for the observers can be helpful. They can add notes or jot down questions too.

Will presenting form part of the job or are they looking to see what you know/exploring your ideas about something?

Practice, practice, practice until you can give it without notes. Knowing your topic and not following notes, illuminates any issues with losing your place or sounding too scripted.

If you suffer from the 'ummmms' - the best advice I ever got was, that 'ummms' are mostly done where a natural breath should happen. So by pausing (very briefly) and breathing in, helps hugely. It feels strange at first, but it has cured me of the 'ummms' and transformed my presentations. Good luck!

Eliminates not illuminates! 🙈🤣

I have interviewed many people who had to do a presentation (the job was for a trainer) and the best one was when they talked about their rescue dog and his desire to eat furniture due to separation anxiety. We saw photos of the dogs journey and I was transfixed so they got the job.
other people did complex excel functions and bored me to tears and it seemed they were trying to impress me with excel knowledge but I can teach that, I wanted to see if they presented well.
second favourite was how to make a cup of tea.
Do not over engineer it, use a simple subject and make it really interesting.

Look at it this way, OP, with a presentation you get 10 minutes where you know exactly what you're going to say and you can practice it to your heart's content. The rest of the interview could go in any direction. Presentations are a boon!

Presentations are common in my organisation and we're looking to assess the ability to write clearly, spell check, grammar etc, the ability to string a sentence together in a stressful situation and whether you know the subject (ours is usually something about what you think the organisation's biggest challenges are, which means you have to do a bit of research).

TooExtra above is spot on. You have ten minutes where you control the narrative and can really show you know your stuff. This is a great opportunity! Dont have too many slides, and keep info on each one uncluttered too. You need to present the topic, and answer the topic question they have asked you. A beginning, middle and conclusion. I would imagine there’s a lot of info on Google about how to do a presentation if you haven’t done one before? We do them a lot in my line of work - nerves are ok, just do your best. Good luck.

Thank you for your reply. The presentation question is: How I would support, lead and add value to a new project

Op I'd look at an intro slide, then one slide for each of those things then a summary and any questions slide.

Don't try to ram too much in, 10 mins goes past very quickly. I personally write a script, record me presenting it on my phone and then listen to it on loop until I know it.

For each of those areas pick out a couple of key competencies, the skills you have in those areas and how you would apply them to the job.

Just keep it simple but effective, better to be too short than too long as you may be stopped at 10 mins. Leave 1 min for questions at the end. Good luck.

Thank you all for your replies, I really do appreciate it. I have accepted the invite, it will be a learning curve but one I need to face

I had this ask many years ago, but had never used powerpoint before nor made up slides. I managed to find a slide template online, but every slide had a logo of a shark in the corner which I couldn't remove! Despite this- I got the job somehow!

I agree with an intro slide, then 1 each for each support, lead and value. Write a few lines or just points on each- but expand whilst talking on each.

For that question, I would a) mention some sort of project management best practice eg Prince 2, and b) illustrate with examples of projects where you did all of those things. It doesn’t matter if you use the same examples later in the interview.

Will you have to do presentations if you get the job?

Practice out loud - not just under your breath or in your head.
While you are saying the words out loud time yourself - 10 mins will go quickly. Timing is the hardest thing, so they will be impressed if you finish right on 10 mins without going over.

Is it specified if time for questions is included in the ten minutes or after? Find this out if it is not clear (I would expect it is not included, so comes after).

Don't have notes for yourself on paper or little cards - the PowerPoint slides are your notes. Use them to jog your memory for what to talk about next, then talk freely about that bit, not in memorised sentences.
The feature when you reveal the points one by one is very useful to keep the audience concentrating on what you are saying instead of reading ahead.

Don't put too much text on each slide. No more than three or four bullet points, with no more than five or six words to each bullet point, in 'note' form not full sentences. In a large font.

Hi all
I am preparing my presentation for my interview at the end of this week. Its a 10 minute presentation I have approached this by having a slide about leadership and a slide about the areas I would look after ie budget, risk etc and will talk about what I will do across these areas with some brief reference to previous roles etc and a slide detailing my objectives ie planning, meeting people, getting to grips with the area/project etc does this sound ok? Do I need tto include a summary my experience that differs from my application? A friend suggested that she would approach this presentation by look setting out aims and objectives that I would achieve in post and make then time bound so just want to check whether I need to change my approach as I dont want to misinterpret the question.

Ok, if you're new to presenting i would only do 10 slides, which gives you a minute per slide and will help you keep on track with your timings.

They have asked for 3 key areas. So I would do one slide on how you'd support the project, one on how you would lead the project and one on how you'd add value to the project.

You have 7 slides left.

The first slide is a good place to introduce yourself. You can put some of your experience that's relevant to the role on this slide.

The next slide may be a good place to demonstrate that you understand the business/project.

The final slide can be a summary.

Leaving you with 3 slides to play with. You could do 2 per key area instead of one. So in the support section, you could say what you'd like to do on the first slide and then on on second slide give examples of how you have done this previously. And repeat for the other 2 key areas.

10 slides. That stick to the brief and tell them about you and give them an idea of what you'd like to do and what your experience is.

Don't over clutter the slides. And don't have information transitioning in because you have to click each time to get that info on the screen. And only use the minimum text. They should have all of the basics from the slide deck but get the interesting info from what you talk about.

You've got this. Show some passion through the slides. Stand tall. Let us know how it goes!

The focus is about you, so spend more time on what you would do than on the role itself. They want to know that you can stand in front of people and that you understand the brief.

I would do maybe 5 slides for a ten minute presentation. The first slide would be about what you understand the role to be, and the rest would be about how you approach things. What you would look to accomplish in the first 100 days would probably slide 2 (meet stakeholders, meet peers, meet team, understand objectives, understand manager's objectives, that sort of stuff). After that would be to choose some things and state what you would support, with examples from previous life. How you would lead, with examples, and how you would approach a new project to add value, again with examples.

As others have said write you script and get familiar with it. Put bullet points on the slide to remind you of your text.

Speak slowly and whatever happens, don't go over time.

OP, make sure you are telling it like you’re telling a story and not just listing a bunch of individual points.

I love an interview with a presentation!

It's your chance to take control of what you say rather than answering someone else Qs.

You've had some good advice.

My top tip would be not to overfill your slides. Keep them brief to use as prompts, and talk around them.

1 slide per minute.

Don't rush.

I would not focus on the number of slides or how you talk or stand or anything like that. I would not even focus on how many minutes my presentation is. I would use the 10 minutes as a guide line and stay under it.

The best presentations I have done is when I focussed on the information I wanted to share. Just make sure that is clear. It prevents me from being self-concious. Being concise and structured can also be really helpful.

I think in this instance they want to know what your personal views are on how projects could be run better/more efficient.