Giving presentations at job interviews

Being asked to give a presentation at your interview is a great opportunity for you to shine and stand out from the crowd.

While giving interview presentations can understandably be daunting, a little preparation and thought will enable you to use the situation to great advantage. This is chiefly because giving a presentation offers you a much better platform than is normally available when simply answering an interviewer's questions.

A presentation enables you to showcase your attributes and qualities - and often to research and prepare - way beyond the constraints normally encountered in reacting to conventional interview questions.

So if you are asked to give a presentation - regardless of the time available for preparation - welcome the challenge - be prepared, and make the most of the your chance to show what you can do.

Demonstrating an organizational or strategic interpretation and enthusiasm for the role - showing that you can add value beyond what the employer hopes for - is the key to standing out as a star candidate.

Research, preparation, and freedom to create and deliver a great presentation are the main the ingredients for anyone seeking to make an impact in any situation - and all of these are enabled when you are invited to give an interview presentation.

While the guidelines below are chiefly for interviewees they also help interviewers in creating instructions and a basis for reviewing and assessing presentations given by job candidates at interviews.

When you are asked to give a presentation at an interview you should use whatever time is available to consider the following questions in relation to the employer organization, their market place and how your filling the role can bring them what they need and more.

Here are some strategic questions to consider and resolve as far as possible prior to planning an interview presentation. The scenario is a job vacancy in training, but the principles transfer to any role.


1. Understand the significance of any particular key words used in the presentation instructions - think about the words used by the recruiting organization in their letter or specification, for example "...give a technical presentation..." or "...give a professional presentation..." Think about what they mean exactly by a word like 'technical' or 'professional'. Words like these are often especially significant clues to the sort of presentation style and content that the interviewers are seeking. Try to get into their shoes and understand exactly what they are looking for in the successful applicant.


2. What are the essential competencies and attributes they need in the role? Cover the basics - the job description is usually a good indication, but sometimes you should look beyond this to more of an industry-standard approach, especially if the job description is a little flaky.

Sometimes the employer will expect you to help re-define the role - employers don't always know what they want, or the full extent of what the role. Showing that you understand the role is a good basis for demonstrating that you can actually perform in the role.


3. What gaps/opportunities exist in their knowledge/use of alternative/advanced training design and delivery technology/methods (or other role-relevant issues as appropriate)? Recruiting new people offers employers the opportunity to introduce new ideas and keep up to date with modern approaches, technologies, methods, etc.

You should demonstrate that you will be a good source of new ideas and methods when you join them. Addressing this in a presentation enables you to show how you will add value to the employer's technology, innovation, methods, etc.


4. What particular challenges or crises do they face that you can help them fix? Identifying and solving problems are usually big priorities for new people, if only because everyone else had tried and failed. New blood and fresh enthusiasm are often essential to break deadlocks and find solutions to long-standing problems. So try to discover their big challenges and difficulties, and consider how you'd approach them, without making unqualified assumptions, or running the risk of repeating things they've already tried.

This sort of consideration of their challenges and approaches to solutions requires a balanced approach - not being too assumptive or presumptuous, but at the same time demonstrating a level of confidence and determination to tackle problems creatively with a fresh incisive view and impetus.


5. What specifically can you bring to the situation which will improve their competitive position in relation to their own markets and customers? This element of a presentation demonstrates that you can add value to the organization in terms of sales, business, profit and ultimately financial performance, (an area of enormous importance for most employers) by your appreciation of how the performance of your role can bring competitive advantage and improvement to the organization. Consider what you can do that will enable the organization to retain and attract more customers and business. The ability to translate and express your job in terms of competitive advantage - or in the non-profit sector, in terms of quality of service - is an irresistible proposition for most employers.


6. What crucial differences/innovations/improvements could you bring beyond even their ideal expectations? This is your personal Wow Factor. The employer will have a baseline expectation of the sort of candidate required to fill the vacancy. A number of candidates might meet this specification. So what can you offer that goes beyond the baseline expectation? What can you do that's different and better than other candidates, in a way that the organization will regard it as making a significant additional contribution - perhaps in an area or areas which they have not yet even considered? Think about, prepare, and build into your presentation a really special advantage or capability you can offer that no-one else can, and translate this into what it could do for them.


7. How can you help them better identify, measure and improve crucial performance in their overall learning and development (or other role-relevant functions), and beyond this into their operations? This adds value in the crucial and often neglected areas of measurement, control and implementation. Most employers do not actually measure and appreciate the critical priorities of their operations, and how these key performance areas are affected and enabled (or frustrated) by particular roles within the organization.



As a job candidate when you demonstrate that you can perform the role up to and beyond the organization's basic needs, and then additionally contribute much needed strategic interpretation and implementation support, you will be presenting a very powerful case indeed that you are the best candidate for the job.

At all times keep this at the back of your mind that unless the vacancy is for a very specific and limited role, then the interview is actually mostly about the recruiting organization and the interviewer(s), not you.

What this means is that you must present yourself in terms that make sense to and match the needs of the organization. Everything you say about yourself must be couched in terms of what it will mean for the employer. There is no point in presenting a glowing picture of yourself and your knowledge, experience, capabilities, etc., in glorious isolation. Instead you must prepare and present everything about yourself so that you are irresistibly relevant to the needs and aims and challenges of the organization.

The interview presentation offers you a wonderful opportunity to do this - to demonstrate that you can enable relevant and effective improvement/achievement for their biggest problems and opportunities, better than any of the other candidates.

Research and understand their issues. Then prepare and and present your own personal added value in relation to their situation.

Here are some more general tips on creating and giving presentations.

Finally some quick ideas for structure, especially when little preparation time is available:

The Rule of Three
1. Introduction or aims.
2. The points you want to make (three, subdivided if necessary).
3. Summary - and ideally an impressive memorable finishing statement.

The Tell 'Em Rule
1. Tell 'em what you are going to tell 'em,

2. Tell 'em,
3. Then tell 'em what you told' em.

(Again, essentially intro, key points, summary.)

Three Big Points


(Especially for surprise presentations when you only have a few minutes to prepare.)

Three big points must address the three biggest outcomes that the organization needs from the new appointment.
1. Brainstorm (jot down as many relevant ideas for the three outcomes as you can).
2. Decide (confirm if at all possible) and reduce these down to the three biggest outcomes that the interviewers are seeking from the person to be appointed into the role.
3. Then hit them hard with how you will achieve each of the three big outcomes - and also how you (and they) will assess the effectiveness of the solutions. (Assessment is crucial to awareness, validation and control.)