Assessment Centres: Wonderful presentations January 23, 2012
Posted by Andrew Falconer in : Skills and Competencies, employability and skills, training contract , trackback
If you have been to an Assessment Centre you may have been asked to give a presentation. As your career progresses, you will probably deliver many as they are increasingly a part of the work environment. Most students will have delivered presentations as part of their course, but being asked to speak for twenty minutes on your own can be a bit more daunting.
Developing presentation skills could enhance your career through increasing confidence with clients, benchmarking your talents above colleagues for promotion, helping you to listen more effectively to presentations you attend. Presenting and public speaking can be, for some people, their career but for many it will form an aspect of how they deliver their work.
In as Assessment Centre you may be asked either to
- Prepare in advance a 15 minute presentation on a specific topic
- Collaborate with others to deliver a presentation on a topic given on the day
- Individual presentation given on the day
These are quite different tasks. The second may focus less on content but more on team-work, decision making, working under pressure and presentation style. The third will look at presentation style but also your communication technique. Previous examples of this have included:
- Tell us about yourself and what you can offer this organisation (5 minutes, a very open subject).
- Why I enjoy Latin-American dancing (10 minutes, chosen by the employer from information given on
the application form). - Choose a science topic, currently in the news, of interest to pupils aged 11 years (15 minutes,
interview for teacher training course).
If you are given a topic in advance, they would typically require evidence of independent research and they will consider the approach you take to the presentation.
You need to consider:
- Who is the audience? Are they “in character” as clients?
- What information would the audience need?
- What visual aids best illustrate the point?
- What could you do in your presentation and research to make you stand out?
- How creative can you be in your approach?
This presentation includes youtube videos with audio. View full size.
Visual Aids
Done well, Powerpoint can be an effective application to complement a presentation. Done badly, it can be the death of it. There are alternative applications that can be used, such as prezi.com (free online system used above) which, when combined with other media, can be powerful.
You need to think about your audience. Prezi might work well in the creative industries but not in investment banking. Decide what you want to say, and to whom, before deciding which visual tools to use. Also bear in mind that an physical aid can also be really effective – if you are presenting on Coca Cola’s marketing strategy, having different styles of bottle or can might make more impact that a dull powerpoint slide.
The final video in that Wonderful Presentations prezi above, from CareerPlayer, looks at body language as well as content. It is a very useful additional resource when thinking of your own presentations. You can also get more advice on oral presentations through our free handout
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