Academic Job Talk, Slide Backgrounds?

I got my beginning manufacture job through networking.

I worked there for more one.5 years, simply realized I wanted something more challenging.

So, I started applying for jobs but didn't actually get anywhere.

As advised past the Cheeky Scientist Association, I started networking and doing informational interviews while simultaneously applying for open positions.

Before long, I got a notification for a position that I had applied for and they offered me a phone interview.

Since no 1 in this visitor knew me, how I interviewed was extremely of import.

It was really the first impression I would make on the people at this company.

To ready for the interview, I knew I needed to highlight my transferable skills and demonstrate how my goals align with the company'southward cadre values and mission.

I too knew I needed to practice, practice, practice!

This company's interview process had 3 parts.

My first phone call was with a recruiter who asked me questions such every bit:

Tell me almost yourself.
Why do you desire to work for this visitor?
Exercise you have experience in XYZ?
Are y'all willing to relocate?
Have you worked in a fast-paced environs?
How do you like to communicate with colleagues?

At the terminate, the recruiter said that she would like to set upwardly a Skype call between me and the hiring manager.

Aye! Function 1 complete!

My Skype telephone call with the hiring managing director was filled with both technical and behavioral questions, which I was gear up to answer.

It went well and within 2 hours, they invited me to an on-site interview!

Part 2 complete!

To learn more almost what the company was looking for in the onsite presentation, I reached out to the hiring managing director to see if they had any insights to offer.

From this request, the hiring manager was kind enough to offering to have a call with me to talk over her expectations and what she wanted to see in my presentation.

Now that I knew exactly what they wanted, I started to set up like crazy.

I would be giving a 50-minute presentation followed by one:1 interviews with eleven people from cross-functional teams.

I worked actually hard on the presentation to make sure I conveyed what they wanted to hear, that I highlighted my transferable skills, and that I made information technology clear why I am a skillful fit for the company.

The day of the interview, my presentation went really well!

All my preparations had paid off and I felt very positive afterwards meeting the team.

Part 3 was complete, and now I just had to wait!

Within a week, I received an electronic mail from a recruiter asking for my references.

I had them set up.

And, about a week later, I got the task offering!

My extreme preparations for the onsite interview presentation were essential to my getting this job offer.

Why Simply The Best Candidates Get An Onsite Interview

The contest to get hired in industry is fierce.

Only, as a PhD, you are a summit job candidate.

You just accept to know how to set yourself apart and communicate your value, because getting to the interview stage is difficult.

And, at present is a not bad time to be on the hunt for a chore.

According to a contempo study by CNBC, for the first time in nearly 20 years, there are more than job openings than people who are unemployed.

There are half-dozen.7 million task opening and 6.4 meg people looking for work.

At present, only a very minor percentage of those 6.seven meg will be competing straight against you, but that still leaves lots of competition.

Most companies receive hundreds of applications for a single position, while larger companies can receive thousands.

For example, Fast Company reported that in one year, Tesla received nearly 500,000 applications.

Submitting an application or getting a referral to hand your resume to the hiring manager is the very top of the hiring funnel and it narrows very quickly.

No thing how many job applications are submitted, a company will only call most a dozen applicants for the initial telephone screen or video interview.

And, at the finish of the funnel, there volition just be ii-3 candidates given the opportunity for an onsite interview.

That ways that if you become to this onsite interview phase, you will have already beat out hundreds or thousands of other applicants.

Companies are picky about who they bring out to a site interview because this is when hiring starts to go expensive.

On average, it costs a company about $4,000 to hire a new person, and much of that expense is incurred during the site visit, according to the Society for Human being Resource Management.

A visitor is investing in yous by bringing you lot out for a site visit, and so the pressure is on.

You are so shut to getting hired if you've been offered a site interview, so at present is the fourth dimension to dig in and give it everything y'all've got.

21-Point Checklist For PhDs To Give The All-time Industry Interview Presentation

Before your presentation, phone call and discover out what type of presentation the company wants you to give.

Ask what yous should talk about and who will be there.

Don't exist scared to ask nigh the topic of the presentation or afraid you will look featherbrained by asking.

The reality is that you lot will expect ridiculous if you fix a presentation of your enquiry, but they wanted you lot to do a presentation about one of their products.

Always inquire for clarification.

And, once you know what they desire, it's fourth dimension to prepare.

Here is a 21-point checklist for PhDs preparing for an industry interview presentation…

i. Know your audience and tailor your talk to them.

Are you presenting to scientists, non-scientists, or a mixed audience?

Do they take a background in what you will exist presenting?

Are they who you will work with, or are they supervisors?

It is key to know who y'all are presenting to so that you tin can tailor the content and delivery of your presentation appropriately.

2. Empathize the purpose of your presentation.

What does the visitor want to learn about you from this presentation?

There are a few purposes for interview presentations.

1. Presenting your research

two. Pitching i of their products

3. Presenting about yourself

Merely, across these broad topics, it's also important to effigy out what they are looking for in the presentation in terms of skills that you take and to make sure you cover those items.

three. Know the one thing you want them to recollect from your presentation.

About people will only call back i thing from a presentation.

Just ane.

So, think about what this should exist.

Do you want them to call up a particular upshot you had in your research?

Practice yous want them to remember that you are really awesome at a particular skill?

Or, something else?

Once you figure this out, make sure that it is conspicuously communicated.

4. Talk, don't read.

Do not read what is on your slide.

This is awful.

And ho-hum.

And a waste material of slide infinite.

Use your slides to evidence things that are hard to describe with words, such every bit data or images.

This will go along the audience'south attending much better than a wordy slide that you are reading to them.

They know how to read, you don't have to practise it for them.

5. Practice your presentation out loud.

Simply saying your presentation to yourself in your caput is not enough practice.

For an interview, you need to be at your very best.

Call back about how much you prepared for your thesis defense presentation and apply that level of effort.

That is how yous volition impress your potential employer and become hired.

six. Ready the context of your research.

In academia, we tend to get hyper-focused on our specific area of expertise.

When giving your interview presentation, you need to realize that your audience does not take the same background as you.

They need yous to provide context for your research.

Enquire yourself, "Why should these people care about my project?" and so apply that to set the stage.

7. Don't overwhelm the audience with too much data.

Yes, you have spent the last v-7 years researching the same project and you have lots of information.

Practice not testify all this data in your interview.

Less is more.

Choose the nearly of import, virtually impactful, and nigh relevant data, and show only that.

eight. Monitor your breathing.

Are your breaths shallow?

Are you breathing chop-chop, or very rarely?

Practise taking slow and deep breaths every bit you give your presentation.

This will calm your nerves and make y'all appear more than confident.

9. Don't brag, but connect to the audience through failures and how you overcame them.

The primary purpose of your interview is to persuade your potential employer that they should hire you.

You need to demonstrate that you lot are competent without sounding big-headed.

A peachy way to do this, is to talk about the minor failures within a projection and how you overcame them to accomplish the desired outcome.

This makes y'all seem both relatable and proficient.

10. Link your project to the company'south focus.

Always bring the focus dorsum to the company y'all are interviewing with.

Do your research beforehand to effigy out how y'all can connect your research to the visitor'due south focus in a meaningful way.

This could be highlighting a product of theirs that was essential to your project, or demonstrating how the overall goals are similar.

You lot want to evidence that yous are invested in the company and this is a great way to practise that.

11. Take a slide that introduces you in a fun manner.

Again, remember that the master point of this interview presentation is to convince your potential employer to hire you.

Then, tell them a fiddling bit about yourself with your presentation.

What do you like to do, besides piece of work?

Adding in some fun details will brand you more relatable and likeable, which will increase y'all chances of getting hired.

12. Vary the speed of your speech.

The main reason people audio monotonous is because they don't alter the speed of their spoken communication.

Talking at the same pace for your whole presentation is deadening.

Don't talk too fast, but make certain there is diverseness.

Slowing down when making a primal point is a proficient way to make sure you do this and to allow your listener to have fourth dimension to grasp the concept y'all are making.

13. Spark involvement through emotion and sensory details.

Let'south exist honest, research tin can be dry out.

Like… really dry.

And then, spice upward the story to continue your listeners' attending by describing things with sensory details.

This will allow the audience to visualize what you lot are talking about.

Too, talk about the emotions involved in what you are presenting, equally this volition keep the audience invested in your story.

14. Use lots of white space on your slides.

Your slides need to be aesthetically pleasing.

This means simple and clean, with lots of white infinite.

A presentation that is packed with words and information is distracting for the audience.

A clean and focused slide allows you to maintain the audience'southward focus on the important information and prevents them from looking at parts of the slide that you have non explained yet.

fifteen. Check your spelling.

This always needs to be addressed.

Spelling and grammatical errors brand you wait sloppy — and no one wants to hire sloppy.

Employ more than than just the default spell cheque.

Read over your presentation a few days afterward yous take created information technology, or have a friend wait it over for mistakes.

xvi. Utilise only one font.

Employ only one font and don't employ a weird font.

Stick to those tried and true fonts, such as Arial and Calibri.

Basically, you don't want the audience to notice your font.

Keep it basic and keep their attention focused on the information.

17. Spend about 1 minute on each slide.

Every bit a general guideline, when creating your presentation, know that you will spend about 1 minute on each slide.

And then, if you are required to give a 15-infinitesimal presentation, you should have most 15 slides.

This guide will help you lot prepare and should help keep you on track for time when you lot are giving the presentation.

18. Use high quality images.

Pixelated or stretched images are distracting.

But use loftier quality images of your data.

If yous are using a film to help make a point, over again, make sure this is high quality, and also remember attribution.

Demonstrate your understanding of this by either using attribution-gratis images or by citing the source for your images.

19. Address the required technical skills for the position.

If you are non sure what parts of your research to present, choose data that was acquired using the technical skills the visitor is looking for in a chore candidate.

Your interview presentation is a valuable opportunity to physically show your potential employer that you take the required skills.

You are not simply telling them you have these skills, you are showing them information you produced using a specific technique.

Don't ignore the importance of highlighting your relevant technical skills.

20. Include examples of you using transferable skills.

Simply like you lot did with your technical skills, your interview presentation gives you the opportunity to evidence how you have used your important transferable skills.

Are they looking for a leader?

Then talk well-nigh a project where you lot led and managed others to achieve the result.

Are they looking for high-level trouble-solving skills?

Then, discuss how you had to work through problems during your project.

Bear witness them y'all have the right transferable skills and would make an crawly employee.

21. Tell an engaging story.

No thing what yous are talking almost, the bottom line is that you need to tell an engaging story.

If your audition is bored or disconnected from what you lot are saying, you can buss the chore goodbye.

Exercise your presentation a lot and so that, when delivering information technology, you lot can focus on being engaging and non on trying to remember what to say.

Just think about all the boring talks you have sat through and endeavor non to exercise that.

If you have made it to the interview presentation stage, so you are one of the last few top candidates. So, this interview is the time to push further and show that you are the best person for the job. This means extensively preparing for the interview presentation. Outlined hither, are 21 things that you should prepare for leading upward to your presentation, so that you lot can "wow" your potential employer and get hired. Equally always, after the presentation, follow up with thank-you notes and convey your excitement. An interview presentation is tough, stressful, and takes hard work — but, if yous do it right, you will get hired.

If yous're ready to start your transition into manufacture, you can apply to volume a free Transition Telephone call with our founder Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists. Apply to book a Transition Telephone call here.

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