Top tips for perfect presentations

Do you need to prepare a presentation for an interview and don’t know where to start? Follow these top 6 tips for perfect presentations:

1) Plan

Before you begin preparing your content, ensure you know the time frame you are working to. You need to demonstrate you can follow instructions. If it’s too long this could imply you have poor time management skills. Too short? You could be missing out on the key details. Ask yourself these key questions:

• What is the objective of the presentation?
• Who are you presenting to?
• What are the key points you want your audience to remember?

2) Structuring your presentation

To ensure your audience engage in your presentation you will need to have a structure. This will make sure your presentation is clear, concise and easy to understand. If you haven’t been given any specific instructions, you may want to consider the 10 20 30 rule which was introduced by Guy Kawasaki of Apple:

• It should be no more than 10 slides in length
• The presentation should not exceed 20 minutes
• The font size should not be smaller than 30 point

3) Introduction – tell them what you will be telling them!

Firstly, start by introducing yourself and the presentation. The aim of the introduction is to grab the audience's attention and to start building a rapport with them. You will want to include ‘what you will be telling them’ during the presentation so they know what to expect. You may want to start with a story or a problem to capture their attention.

4) Middle – tell them!

This part of the presentation will be where you spend the most time presenting your points to your audience. At this point you are ‘telling them’.

When creating this part of your presentation, write a list of the main points you want to cover and ask yourself:

• What do I want to tell? How am I going to tell it?
• Will it be factual? Visual?
• If you are using a PowerPoint presentation, keep bullet points to a minimum on the slide and talk through your points.

5)  Conclusion - tell them what you have told them!

The conclusion of your presentation is to summarise what you have covered in your presentation. This is where you ‘tell them what you have told them’ and is the final chance to reinforce your main points.  At this point, thank the audience and invite questions. If you have pre-empted questions you believe could be asked, you will have already considered your responses.

6) Practice makes perfect presentations

Rehearse your presentation and time yourself, this will help you establish whether you need to add more content or reduce the speed you are talking.

Interviewers look for a few things throughout your presentation including specific knowledge, skills, and the ability to follow instructions, so keep this all in mind when you plan your interview presentation.

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