How to Prepare a Presentation for a Job Interview

Source: Medium

Finding a job in today’s world is easy and complex at the same time. First of all, there are many websites where you can see the offers of different companies. Despite that, social media are also a great tool for job chasing. With all these tools, finding and getting the job seems easy at first glance. However, is that the truth?

Well, you mustn’t forget that all these benefits everyone who has an Internet has. Applying for a job without tough competition is almost impossible in today’s world. Things become even tougher if you are “fighting” for a job that you always dreamed about. People in those moments are under pressure because they do not want to waste the opportunity they god.

Logically, the first condition to get a current job is to be competent enough. This means that you possess high-quality skills and adequate knowledge for current duties. Unfortunately, even that won’t be enough. Our example might seem silly, but let’s compare this with a book. Let’s imagine that you wrote a book that has the necessary qualifications to become a bestseller on the market. However, how are people going to know that if you do not present it to the world in the best possible way? Things are completely the same when we talk about job interviews. Your skills won’t mean anything to you if you do not promote yourself in the best possible way.

One of the ways to raise the chances of getting a job is to prepare a presentation for a job interview. Still, this might be a problem if you have never done anything like that. You won’t know exactly how to make your presentation engaging and convincing.

Because of that, we would want to explain to you how to prepare a presentation for a job interview. There are a couple of steps you need to go through. Let’s find them out together!

Source: Forbes

Make Engaging Content

Well, we know what you think – “This is easy to say, but it is a lot harder to do it.” We completely agree with that. If you do not have highly-quality writing skills, then this step might be tough for you. However, we would want to give you some directions.

First of all, you need to make your potential employers curios. More precisely, you need to convince them to carefully follow the content you used and ask questions. That is the point of making engaging content. There are various ways how you can do that. For instance, many people would make a common mistake. They would lead a monolog full of facts and statistics. It is not something you should do. Instead, if you want to talk about something, leave it without any pieces of evidence and let them ask you that. In that way, you will involve them in conversation and finish half of the conversation.

Source: Medium

Respect the 80/20 Rule

Okay, you indeed need to create some impact and gain attention. However, that needs to be backed up by substance. Have you ever heard about the rule that we mentioned in the subtitle? Well, if not, let us explain it to you. 20% of the slides in your PowerPoint presentation need to be challenging and provoking. We do not want to say that you need to start to argue with your potential employers. Yet, in that 20 %, you will have to share your opinions and thoughts. The employers will have the chance to see that you are truly an expert in the current field. You will use your knowledge to “protect” your opinion.

The other 80% of the slides need to informative and insightful. Yet, this doesn’t mean you should divide these two types of content. Instead, you should constantly mix them through your PowerPoint presentation. For instance, you should start the presentation with some interesting facts. However, after that, you can share your opinion about that. In this way, you will make your presentation more engaging.

Source: EZCast Pro

The Slides Should Be Simple

Believe it or not, making “simple” slides in PowerPoint presentation is not simple at all. If you ask us, it is the most complex thing that you will have to deal with. Imagine that this article does not have paragraphs and short sentences. We believe you would not come to this part of the text. The things are the same with the PowerPoint presentation. It must be interesting in some way but remain simple. That’s why deciding on the things you will leave out and determining how to distill everything down are tough decisions. However, here you need to show your creative side. If the potential employers see that you are a creative person, that is one huge + that you will get. This means you will be creative to find solutions when some problems arise at work.

Source: icma.org

Remember the Phrase “Less Is More”

What exactly “Less is more” means? Well, this means that each slide that you create should not contain a huge number of messages. We do agree that the entire presentation should not have hundreds of slides. However, each slide should send 1 message to potential employers. This means that you need to prepare the messages that you want to send. Focus on those that will bring quality to your presentation and promote you in the best possible way.

Source: Mankind

Leave the Most Important Part for the End

Let’s use books as an example once again. Imagine that you realize the end of the book in the third or fourth chapter. Would that be interesting to you? Well, the main message that you want to send needs to be placed at the end of the presentation. Through your presentation, you need to make them barely wait for the end to discover the point of your presentation. Just like when you are watching a TV show; you will wait for the next episode to discover what’s going to happen next.

Conclusion

The idea that you have and the answers that you will prepare is something you will need to solve on your own. However, if creating a presentation is a big thing for you, the solution does exist. You can always hire a professional that will help you with this. Fortunately, there are many of them like Research Prospect that can help you with this. Check online to see which options you have.