Presentation at interview - need advice

Savvy_Sue

You're first, so you do need to make sure you're remembered. I think paddy's advice is good, don't use PP if you're not confident. But find something which will make you memorable apart from saying "I know a lot of other people would use PP but I've chosen ..." - a prop, a visual aid, a handout of some kind.

And practice, practice, practice!

Brassedoff

A couple of things if I might add them? They have asked for a presentation. Whether its local or national government, they generally expect PowerPoint. You need not have it do all its tricks. You can write it just like a word document. Then adjust it.

Do not deviate from what they've asked for, if you do, forget the job. Just do it simply.

The reason why people are asked to do a presentation is to see how you work with it. You can talk for an hour and not get your message across, whereas one slide can get the same message across in a minute. It's because humans respond to "infographics" why do you think road signs are is picture form rather than word? It's because a infographic comes across quicker.

You have time to do it. Research your subject, split it into paragraphs, do your 'tag line' make that larger.

Then stand there, practice and practice. A good friend who is very high in the food chain at a local council tells me they do a lot of power points as the stupid and thick councillors who know nothing about the subject need to get the message ASAP.

I wish you the very best of luck with the interview.

cazziebo

If you're not comfortable with Powerpoint then don't use it. However, good advice from SteveJW - do leave the panel with something to remember you by.

Panel interviews, especially in public sector, often include people without the faintest idea about recruitment and selection. The good thing about powerpoint is that it is obvious evidence of preparation.Candidates who don't use powerpoint, and are not confident presenters can appear unprepared. If you do use powerpoint, try to keep it to images - pictures, diagrams, info graphics etc.

5 minutes isn't long and structure is important. I would advise against starting with an explanation re not using powerpoint. You should start with something memorable and attention grabbing which summarises your topic.

The body of the presentation should have no more than 3 main points you want the panel to remember.

Summarise these main points in the conclusion. Finish with a memorable statement. Smile and ask for questions.

Best of luck

princessdon

Visual aids don't have to be PowerPoint, posters, handouts and or creative work too. I remember giving a presentation regarding how to reach clients who don't want to be reached. I gave out boxes well wrapped in Sellotape with no scissors, this was to show no matter how good the offering was, if people don't have skills/tools to access them, what's inside the box is pointless. It was wrong to offer things that can't be accessed and then blame them for not engaging.

It went down really well (as did the chocolate inside the box),

Just wanted to share as I hate PP too, all my presentations have a small interaction (box, quiz, etc) to break up the chalk and talk element.

For a community post this is easy to do.

Seanymph

The most memorable presentation I've ever seen used photographs.

I think a handout would be lovely too at the end of the presentation - I see loads in my work, and to be honest a powerpoint is so often text that someone then just stands and reads - and then they handout the presentation either on a memory stick or in paper.

Often I'm left thinking I could have spent the day more productively at the office and they could have just emailed the presentation to me.

So my top tip would be that your speaking has to ADD to the presentation - I think that's why my photograph one was so memorable, in fact I still remember some of the images and what he said and it was around 4 or 5 years ago.

But there was no text, so it worked together - he presented and the photos focused and gave an additional level.

Good luck.

LannieDuck

Hmm... whilst I agree with everyone else that gving a presentation without powerpoint may be more relevant to your job, I would be worried that the interviewers were using the request as a way to test whether you were able to put together and work with a powerpoint presentation. As others have said, it's easy to do badly, and they may want check that you can do it well.

Given your lack of powerpoint experience, I would be inclined to put together a very minimal set of powerpoint slides. Make them nice, clean and succinct with just the take-away messages on them, and then you can basically talk around the topic for 10 mins as you were hoping to do. Demonstrate that you can use powerpoint to enhance your presentation, rather than relying on it.

However, if you've decided not to use powerpoint at all, I really like paddyrg's first post - explain upfront why you decided not to use powerpoint because it's not relevant to the job.

dandelionclock30

SteveJW wrote: »

I am a manager within a local authority, the majority of presentations I see are Powerpoint, some of them very poor. To me the purpose of a presentation is to get the message across, many candidates take the opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge of Powerpoint using every effect it has to offer, including text flying in from every direction.
However if we want a Powerpoint presentation we ask for one, if not specified any format is acceptable.
Have you thought about using flip charts
Leave the panel something to remember you by, some form of handout etc.
What is the subject, people on here may be able to give you some ideas that are outside the box. No it isn't cheating, we expect candidates to use every means possible to research a topic
Make sure you do some research on the Local Authority, league tables, population, number of employees, base your research on the job you are applying for


Good Luck

Good advice, if your not doing powerpoint, then you need to be doing a flip chart presentation and giving them a handout as well. People need more than 1 thing to concentrate on as different people have different learning styles etc.
When you do the flip chart presentation, write the main headings down as you go through them and then talk about the heading. Dont be writing absolutely everything down on the flip chart as its too much as well as talking etc.
When you do the handout, this needs to elaborate on the points on the flip chartand be a decent summary of what you have talked about.
Have a practice run beforehand at home and make sure that you have enough to talk about for the time given. Remember to ask if they have any questions at the end.
Dont "just speak", its not enough and they wont remember all that you have said.So you would put yourself at a disadvantage to start with. Also your handout has to be spot on and accurate. Good luck with it all.