Tips for presenting during an interview

Presenting during an interview can be an extremely nerve-wracking experience. It’s all eyes on you. But it’s also a great time for you to show the interviewers exactly what you have to offer.

From your communication to organisation skills, presenting gives you the chance to show what you can really do. But as with anything in life, the key to success is preparation. So here are our top tips for a successful interview presentation.

How to impress during an interview presentation

Don’t overcrowd your slides

Crowded slides that contain lots of information can be overwhelming for the audience. Not only that, your point becomes weaker. It gets lost amongst all the other information that makes it harder for the audience to process. The best slides contain lots of white space and short and simple!

Mix up the format 

An effective way of making your presentation more impactful is by adding lots of variety. Make sure each slide doesn’t just contain text. You can use graphs, charts, images and videos to make your presentation more engaging. This will make your points stronger!

Mirror the company’s branding

Use the company colours for your presentation slides. This adds a nice touch. Not only does this show you’ve done your research, but it shows you have great attention to detail.

Create uniformity

You want your slides to be different and contain lots of variety. But at the same time, each slide should follow a basic layout. To create uniformity in your presentation, try doing the following:

• Use the same font and font size on every slide

• Ensure the header and footer is the same on every slide

• Make sure every slide contains a title in the same position, colour and font

Proofread

There’s no worse mistake than having a typo on your presentation. Your interviewers will be looking for your attention to detail. Having a presentation that contains spelling errors will lose you some brownie points. Make sure you proofread your presentation. Ask a friend to check it through too – they’ll likely pick up on things you missed

Have access to your presentation in multiple places

It’s great turning up to a presentation with a USB file, but what if the computer doesn’t recognise your file? You need to have one or two backup options ready to go. So make sure you email your presentation to yourself and also store it on the cloud!

Interview presenting tips

Practise

Practice is key in your presentation success. Get used to presenting whilst clicking through slides, and make sure you know your lines off by heart. The last thing you want is to spend your entire presentation with your head down in your notes. If necessary, you can prepare cue cards for each slide to prompt you if you get stuck.

Ask your interviewers questions

Ask your interviewers questions. This is one of the most engaging interview presenting techniques. Do this at different points throughout the presentation to keep them engaged.

Sample questions for an interview with an eco-friendly automotive company

• Can anyone tell me how much petrol the average person uses in a lifetime?

• Who here owns an electric car?

• What are the top 5 factors people think of when buying a car?

Keep within the time frame

If you only have 10 minutes to complete your presentation, don’t overrun. Timekeeping is a key skill and they’ll be looking to assess how well you use your time frame. If anything, make your presentation slightly shorter to allow for any mishaps!

Invite questions

Always close your interview by leaving a slide for any questions. This is a key part of any presentation. So remember to hand the mic over to your interviewers so they can get their questions answered.

Prepare to present

Interview presentations can be a fun experience so long as you put in the prep work. Make sure you practise and are confident with the content of your presentation so you can perform your best.

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Questions to ask your interviewer