Asked to give "short" presentation in interview

RachVG

Hi,

Just before Christmas my department were informed we're being made redundant in April as our job role is being transferred to another location. I think the majority of my colleagues plan to wait until April to look for new work so that they can get their redundancy payment, but personally I'd rather look for a new job and if it means I have a job but no redundancy payout, I'd prefer that to the opposite!

Anyway, I have secured a job interview on Monday and spoke briefly to a lady on the phone about the format of the interview. She said there'll be two parts, a competency based section and then a short informal presentation (she also said "don't go 'aargh presentation' and not to worry about it too much!).

She's since emailed me the information and while I'm fairly certain I can come up with lots of examples for the competency questions, the presentation section has me stumped a bit. It says ten mins maximum delivery and the topic is to outline my first 30 day plan if I'm successful.

Now, I've got the job description and I can get some stuff from that, but as the role is admin/support based I'm not entirely sure what to say. It's a completely different industry to the one I currently work in, although I am confident my skills are transferrable - but I expect the first 30 days will mostly be for learning about the role and the business - how do I make that last ten minutes? When it says ten minutes max, how much under that can I go without looking under prepared?

I think particularly, knowing how to start it is worrying me. According to the email, the panel will just be one person, the one who will be my manager if I get the job (not the same person I spoke to on the phone, who is based in a different location and is from the recruiting team rather than somebody I'll be working with). If we've already been talking for the main competency part of the interview for a while, won't it be quite awkward to then stand up and go "hello, I'm x and I'm going to talk about x"? I did check if it's meant to be a Powerpoint presentation and she said there's no need for that.

I'm nervous about the presentation side of things but I'm also quite happy that at least I still have three months to keep looking for jobs while I'm still employed here, so it makes me feel like the pressure is off this interview a little bit and I'm more likely to perform well. If I could just figure out how to attack this darn presentation!

daisygirlmac

Hello :hello:

I've had a few interviews where I have had to give a presentation and I can safely say that 10 minutes feels like an awfully long time to fill when you don't have much to fill with! Btw I think that's a bit of a sod of a topic, especially for an admin/support type role. It's much more common to have to do presentations for a sales role in my experience.

With this in mind (if I were you)....

Start with a bit about yourself, be friendly and relaxed, personalise yourself to the interviewer and let them know a bit more about you - 1min 30 secs max

Acknowledge that as you are coming from a different industry you appreciate there will be a learning curve for the first few weeks and outline how you plan to approach this. Maybe include how you learn best (shadowing someone, actually doing tasks-whatever you do best) and how you would set yourself a target of feeling confident at performing x amount of tasks by the end of each day/week. You could include examples how of you feel your transferrable skills would help you in the new position, and also acknowledge any potential areas of weakness and what you plan to do about it.

This bit above obviously needs to be the bulk of your presentation but even so, I don't think it needs to be more than about 4 or 5 mins. I would see 10 mins max as a chance to be clear, concise and probably extremely welcome as I would imagine the interviewer will be getting a little tired of 10 minute presentations!

I would then move on to a "why you should employ me" section, outlining why I would be a strong candidate for the job. Again, this doesn't need to be more than 1min ish and then you can ask if the interviewer has any questions for you or if there's anything they feel you haven't covered.

I'd aim for about 7-8 mins tops, and remember that you always speed up a little bit out of nerves. Take a deep breath, smile, lots of eye contact and good luck!

Jaybee_16

It really depends on the role and how many people have an input into the work you are expected to do.


Topics for the presentation would be:


- I would start with current skills and how they are transferrable to the new post.
- If you are replacing a previous post holder, you will need to get up to speed with the expectations of the role and what the previous person did.
- You need to be inducted into the new company and take time to understand what they do, how they do it and why they do it in that way.
- If there are a number of people providing work to you, or you deal with a number of managers, spend time in the first 30 days speaking to them individually, asking what works well and what doesn't work so well, then think of potential improvements in what could do with being improved.


There's a start.




Good luck !

Savvy_Sue

"On my first day, I would expect to be shown around the premises, including the fire exits. At this stage I'd like to be introduced to key people I'll be working with / for / to. I'd also hope to find out what the arrangements for making drinks are, and to start to find out what everyone drinks."

Not entirely serious, but it's a key part of my induction plan for any new staff ...

Savvy_Sue

BTW, just general tips, make sure you speak clearly and don't gabble or mumble, practice beforehand either in the mirror or with a friend, maintain eye contact and SMILE!

SueC_2

Sounds like they are asking you to plan your own induction.

Start off by picturing yourself on your first day - you'll want to know where you put your coat, where your desk is, how the break system works, where the fire exits are, company rules, accident reporting procedures, who your colleagues are, etc etc etc.

Then picture yourself a month later - doing your job as per the job description they have already made available to you.

Now plan how you would like to get from Day 1 to Day 30. Who will you need to spend time with? What documentation will you need to be provided with? Are there other departments you would like to visit so you can better understand how the business works? What support will you need? What technical information will you need? How will you get to learn about the industry?

Now arrange that lot into some kind of logical order, and take ten minutes talking them through it.

Daunting as it sounds, if you're giving a presentation, giving it about yourself is probably as good as it can get - at least you know the subject matter inside out without having to do too much research!

Good luck.

getmore4less

when they say April are they going to put people on notice before then or pay PILON?

How much service and how much with the redundancy be.

With counter notice it may be possible to get dates to match up.

FBaby

You need to look at the job spec and pick up all you would need to do to be prepared to do the job independently by day 30. That would include insure you are set up with IT (if applicable), training you need to do to take on tasks, meeting the relevant people, reading internal documentations, familiarising yourself with the site (if applicable), shadowing someone, make a list of all the things you need to pick up from your predecessor, insuring deadlines are transferred into your calendar, etc...

Whatever you do, make sure it is structure. So you could have HR and training part, picking up the job from where it was left from predecessor, and educating yourself for instance.

RachVG

Thanks everyone - I think I now have something I'm happy with, just ignoring it now for the rest of today and coming back to it tonight with "fresh" eyes!

It's a new team that they're setting up so there's no predecessor but I will be using everything else!

(Though I don't drink hot drinks so hope they don't do drinks in 'rounds'!)

getmore4less wrote: »

when they say April are they going to put people on notice before then or pay PILON?

How much service and how much with the redundancy be.

With counter notice it may be possible to get dates to match up.

We were notified at the end of November, work will start transferring in February and all work should have been transferred by the date we were given in mid-April. I believe (based on the last time that redundancy came up in our department, though I ended up transferring to the new location that time) that they will be paying PILON. I've been there 6 years and redundancy is the statutory minimum.

RachVG

Thanks for all the tips everybody, I've just had a phone call offering me the job so I must have done OK!

Jobseeeker

RachVG I am doing the same thing this week! Would love to know how you approached this question in the end, since you were successful.