Presentation

Question

Have you ever had to prepare/give a presentation as part of a job interview? General experience/feelings on this? I may have to do one soon after passing a writing test, sending writing samples, speaking to a recruiter and speaking to a manager. I understand the point, but it can certainly be a lot of work for potentially nothing in return! I know, it's partially about proving how much you care and how hard you can work, but just wondering everyone's thoughts!

schoenlegal · Answer

Testing your skills/knowledge is perfectly acceptable, even if it takes the form of performing an analysis or preparing a presentation.  HOWEVER, no prospective employer should be using candidates to do actual work for them.  IF you feel that a prospective employer is doing just that, call them on it and/or walk away! Your time and experience is worth money and NO ONE gets to have access to it for free!

Anonymous · Answer

Just a slight caveat with these, ladies.  It's best not to go into TOO much detail on your presentation, depending on the topic.  There have been instances of people giving great interview presentations, not getting the job, and (in the case of one marketing position), 6 months later seeing a billboard from the presentation under the company banner.  Read the fine print, please!

Anonymous · Answer

I have had to do this 3-4x in my career and in a couple cases I got the job and in a couple other situations, I didn't. The ones that were the most work were  when I worked in finance and had to both write an investment analysis / recommendation with supporting data / research as well as present it to the investment team I'd be joining. I didn't actually mind it because I figured if I didn't the job I could either make the investment myself (e.g. in a public company's stock) or I could re-use the work later. I also felt that it was improving my own presentation skills and saw it as an opportunity to assess how well my thinking fit in with my future team's. I agree its a lot of work but I found it to be indicative and fair of what I was expected to do on the job, so in some ways, I saw this as weeding out others. And of being a more meritocratic way of hiring than other interviews that can be more subjective.

Anonymous · Answer

The company that I worked for previously had a presentation as the final interview stage for EVERY role in the organization. I personally loved it - but I don't mind presenting. I actually used a presentation that I had previously created (and encouraged others to do the same) so it was content I was comfortable talking about and really didn't take much prep work.

Nancy McSharry Jensen · Answer

Yes. It’s a lot of work with no guarantee of employment. Agree with others on both the “good practice” and “preserve your IP” angles. Send them as PDFs (harder to re-use)  Consider using them as part of your portfolio for other interviews.

Lady Pele · Answer

If presentations are a part of the job, I can see where the hiring company would be interested in seeing you perform.  While I haven't had to present, I have brought copies of one-page .ppt project summaries to show how I typically communicate to upper management on the status of a project (if they don't already have a format).

Nirupama Raghavan · Answer

I had to do it once.  I actually enjoyed putting the deck together, even though I did not ultimately receive the offer.  I thought about this as a way to see if I'd enjoy the job.  If I enjoyed working on the presentation, I probably would enjoy doing that every day in my job.

Anonymous · Answer

I've had to do this for almost every job I've interviewed for as a sales person - mostly at software startups.  I've had to use what I can find online to put together a pitch deck and deliver it to a room of 4-5 people as the last step in the interview process.  It's definitely a lot of work but it's a worthwhile investment in showing a potential employer how you problem solve and how you operate with limited information and/or resources.  There could be nothing in return but I have found that each time I've done it - I've improved in both my pre-pitch research and my pitch overall.  Hope that is helpful!

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