Present Like a Pro
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Published January 24, 2010 Giving a presentation has become a common element of a job interview. A surefire way to stand apart is to avoid “PowerPoint autopilot.” That’s when presenters simply read from their slides, sucking the life out of the material as well as the audience – a phenomenon also known as “death by PowerPoint.”PowerPoint slides should not stand in for a script or note cards. Keep them to a minimum and use them primarily to display visuals, not text. “Less is always more. If people are reading the slide, they’re not listening to you,” says Philadelphia-based business communications consultant Karen Friedman. Visual aids add value to a presentation and reinforce learning. “But presenters should think broadly about visuals. Their body language is a visual. So is a video, prop or audience demo,” says Grapevine, Texas-based communications consultant Dianna Booher, author of “Speak with Confidence: Powerful Presentations that Inform, Inspire and Persuade” (McGraw-Hill, 2003). “All these visuals add interactivity and engage an audience better than slides.” Only use slides if they show something better than you can explain it. Use appropriate humor to reinforce a point or increase the impact of what you say. Don’t go overboard with graphics. “Organize your information into logical order and only then decide what visuals you need to support key points,” Booher advises. When necessary, text should be presented on slides as bullet points, not complete sentences. While some presenters say you should provide the audience with hard copies of your slides for note-taking or in case your technology fails, Austin, Texas-based business development consultant Thom Singer warns against using such handouts: “The audience will skim ahead of you as you speak.” Tell stories to illustrate key points and, when doing so, “black the slide out or use a blank or else the audience’s eyes will go directly to your slide and your story will lose effectiveness,” says Seattle-based executive speech coach Dan Weedin. He believes presentations shorter than 45 minutes should not use PowerPoint at all “unless the images are critical to your message.” Indeed, forgoing slides altogether would make a candidate stand out simply because PowerPoint has become so overused. Says Weedin, “most audiences cringe when they see a projector pop out.” - Written By Dawn Klingensmith |