presentation on career talk

Selection Criteria

Ideas for structuring your career talk.

You’ve been invited to give a presentation at a conference about your career. You have been chosen because of your particular profession, area of specialisation, track record of achievement.

What are you going to say?

One temptation is to give a talk based on a chronology of events. This is an abridged autobiography that covers all the details you consider important.

The talk is comprehensive. It creates a detailed picture of having done a huge volume of interesting assignments.

But is this the only way to organise your story? And is it the best way?

If you have been walking the planet for a few decades this version of events can be overwhelming for an audience. They may well be impressed that you have accomplished so much, but will it have the desired impact?

And there is the nub of the issue. Have you figured out what your purpose is for this presentation?

Your purpose will be based on what you know about the context of your talk (why you have been asked to present and the theme of the meeting/conference) and what you know about the audience. Is the audience informed about your profession? Are they likely to be uninformed? Do they want a snapshot? Do they want to know about the highlights?

This information will then guide your purpose. Your purpose might be some combination of informing, persuading, entertaining, educating.

Being clear about your purpose will then guide your speech structure. A detailed chronology may not educate, persuade, entertain or even inform.

So how else could you structure your presentation? Here are 12 questions to guide your content selection:

• Why did I get into this career in the first place?
• What keeps me motivated?
• What have been the highlights of my career?
• Who has helped me along the way?
• What have I learnt along the way?
• Why should others enter this career?
• What are some of the myths or misperceptions about this career?
• What was awful at the time but I can laugh about it now?
• What are the range of pathways to enter this career?
• What are some of the challenges I have faced?
• How do you balance the various components of your life?
• What are my main contributions?

Thinking through these questions will help you come up with a structure that is more relevant, is purpose-built, and likely more engaging than a detailed chronology.

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Your Keys to Selection Criteria

How to Present Your Career Journey on PowerPoint

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Talking about your career journey is a nerve-wracking exercise, whether in an interview or presenting to a large audience. You can make this process much more exciting by narrating your journey as a story.

A story that contains facts, figures, anecdotes, and more stories to illustrate your knowledge, experience, expertise, conflict resolution techniques, and insights. Here's how you can harness the power of PowerPoint to present your career journey as an interesting story:

1. Ask the Right Questions

Before you begin creating your presentation, you need to have a good idea about the content you will include in it. You can write down bullet points that act as the deck outline, or ask yourself pertinent questions. What kind of questions should you ask yourself? Here's a list to get you started:

• Who's my target audience; recruitment teams, college/school students, job fair attendees, or working professionals?
• What do I aim to achieve with this presentation?
• What professional events, stories, incidents, and insights should I include?
• What statistics, tips, and professional highlights should I mention?

Your presentation can go in widely different directions based on your answers.

2. Draw a Content Flow Chart

Now that you have a good idea about what to include, it's time to organize this information into a seamlessly flowing story. Draw a flowchart or a simple diagram to indicate what goes where. This is the storyboarding stage, where you'll order the content and fine-tune the details to the last fact and figure.

3. Choose Content Format and Media

Once you're done with the “what” and “where,” it's time to address the “how.” How do I present my career story as concisely as possible? Not every part of your journey needs a slide with elaborate textual content. You can use graphs and timelines to depict career trajectories and time spent in different roles. Use bolded numbers with labels or SmartArt and Charts to highlight critical statistics.

A short video can explain your work methodology with animations and voiceover. Concept images, tag clouds, and simple sketches can convey information more concisely than a slide full of text. Once you've decided how each part in the flowchart will take shape on the slides and have the media content ready, it's time to launch the PowerPoint app.

4. Pick the Right Template to Tell Your Story

Searching for story-based templates brings up lots of options on PowerPoint that have different slides to highlight stats, show graphs, depict growth, insert a video, etc.

You can insert your information in the appropriate slides, clone the ones that need repetition, delete the ones that don't fit in with your story, and insert slides from other presentation decks that cater to your requirements. Just make sure to edit the theme of this slide to match the main template.

Using a premade template to prepare a professional presentation . You'll not have to waste time deciding on fonts, colors, themes, and manually inserting diagrams and charts. You can also download or buy presentation templates from online resources like Crystal Graphics or SlideUpLift . These sites offer custom templates to showcase career journeys, with creative slides to present information concisely.

You can also use the Slide Master feature in PowerPoint to create a custom theme for your presentation.

5. Design Your PowerPoint Presentation

It's time to execute your vision. Use as many slides as you need without worrying about the length of the presentation. Here are a few quick PowerPoint tips to help you present your career journey in a stellar way:

• Use high-quality images, videos, and graphics.

• Use Animations and Transitions sparingly.

• Use Presented View mode to check how your slides look, keep an eye on your notes, and edit as needed.

6. Polish Your Stories

Your career journey would be incomplete without highlighting your professional growth and maturity, lessons learned, and insights gained. Use the STAR method—Situation, Task, Action, Results to avoid rambling and keep it short and straightforward.

When narrating stories, describe the situation or conflict you were facing, what needed to be done, what was done, what you learned from the experience, and how it has impacted your decision-making process. The STAR method touches upon all the crucial details of a learning incident, allowing you to tell more stories in fewer words.

7. Edit Your Slides

Now you need to step into the shoes of your target audience. Look at every slide critically. Think about the value each slide adds to the rest of the presentation, and decide whether it stays or goes.

Are all your stories helpful and needed? Are your statistics factually accurate? How long will it take for you to walk through the entire set? Use these and other relevant questions as markers to cut down the number of slides.

8. Deliver With Poise

Making a kick-ass presentation is just one part of depicting your career journey. The other part consists of being a good storyteller. Use the PowerPoint Speaker Coach to improve your presentation skills . Memorize your notes, pay attention to your hand gestures, make eye contact, and do not read from the slides. Practice with a timer until you can deliver it in the precise amount of time you've been allocated to present.

Present Your Career Journey With Aplomb

Look for Behavioral Interview related questions online and how to ace them before you sit down to create your career journey presentation.

It will help you channel your nervous energy into telling a good story accompanied by a presentation. Learn more about creating engaging presentations on PowerPoint to improve your story.

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20 Career Speech: Tell Them Who You Are and Why You Matter to Them

A very excited college senior came to me and said, “Dr. Meade, I have the opportunity of a lifetime, will you please help me?” She went on to tell me she was a finalist for a very prestigious internship with a major magazine in New York. They were flying her out at the end of the month where she and three other finalists would each make a 3-5 minute presentation. The prompt was, “Tell us about yourself.”  Her dream internship hung on the outcome of her three-minute speech. That was a lot of pressure. There wasn’t a lot of information out there on how to succeed at such as speech, so I pulled resources from career centers, from persuasion theory, and from models of good speech practice and created a template for her. It worked– she got the internship! Since that time, more students have come with similar speech tasks, and each time we have applied this template with great success.

There are many ways employers determine which person is the right candidate for a particular position. You are likely familiar with the cover letters, resumes, and interviews, however, the concept of giving a speech as part of an interview may be new to you.

Let me share a few examples of what this speech “looks like.”

Example from a Student

E-MAIL FROM A STUDENT:

I learned a ton last semester and I have my first chance to put your teachings to work in a real-world situation. I recently interviewed with a company (XXX Oil Services) and what do you know I got called back for another interview! They are flying me out to Houston, and they will hold interviews over two days. Part of the requirements for the interview process is that I give a 5-7 minute speech. Here is a little sample of the e-mail they have sent me, and I have attached a short PowerPoint© guideline they have sent as well:

Student Presentations As part of the interview process, you are required to do a 5 – 7 minute presentation about your life accomplishments. Please review the attached PowerPoint for details and bring your presentation on a flash drive to your interview. Please prepare a presentation (5-7 minutes) in which you

Summarize the accomplishments of your life so far,

Explain what your goals are and

Demonstrate that you are the ideal candidate for XXX  Services

Example from a Human Resource Manager Regarding an Oral Resume

We give candidates 30 minutes to prepare for the exercise, but we have already informed the candidates that they should put together an oral resume presentation ahead of time.  That is to say, a few weeks prior to the assessment center I meet with the candidates and tell them that they will have this exercise.  They should put together a presentation of about 8 minutes in length that presents their qualifications for the job.  I typically emphasize that a simple listing of every course they’ve ever taken or every certification they hold is not very effective.  Instead, they should focus on how both their educational and experiential backgrounds have contributed to who they are, how they perform in their current position, and how they will perform in their promoted position. During the 30 minute preparation period, candidates are given the instructions that tell them they will have 8 minutes for their initial presentation on their resume (this time varies depending on the overall length of the exercise and maybe as long as 15 minutes), and the remaining 12 minutes (or longer depending on the overall length of the exercise) will be devoted to answering the interview questions which are presented to them on the next page.  Typically, for a 12-minute answer period, we would provide them 4 interview questions. We inform them both during the candidate orientations and the instructions that the assessors will be asking follow-up questions.  I believe this is an essential aspect of a good oral resume and a good assessment center.  I encourage follow-up questions from the assessors.  So often it is not the initial response that is revealing but rather the candidate’s rationale behind the decision that is so important in evaluating the candidate.

Example from a Career Services Specialist

I interviewed Renee Clay Director for Career Services and Students Programs, Walton Career Services and she said companies are asking students to give speeches at follow-up interviews. She said she has even encountered situations where they ask applicants to give a ten-minute speech on a topic of their choice.

What does this look like in the “Real World”?

• Companies are using career speech by asking applicants to give a speech with the prompt: Why are you a good fit for this company?
• Religious groups (Mostly, Christian Churches) are using career speeches by asking the applicants to give a speech with the prompt: What is your ministry philosophy?
• Educational groups are asking future teaches to give a career speech with the prompt: Show us a lesson plan and talk us through the pedagogy.
• Not for Profits are using this career speech by asking applicants to give a speech with a prompt: Tell us how your ideals align with our mission statement.
• Internships are using career speeches by asking applicants to give a career speech with prompts such as the following: What do you hope to get out of this internship?

This Speech Is Important

This may be one of the most important speeches you have to give.  Most of you will spend four to six years in college and this is the speech that can make all that studying finally pay off.  Resist the temptation to under prepare for this speech. Don’t put it off and don’t let the fear of failure or fear of success stop you from giving the best speech possible. You should put more work into this speech than the papers and tests you did in college.  “Procrastination is the fear of success,” according to motivational speaker Denis Waitley. “People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the ‘someday I’ll’ philosophy.”

Let’s get started on building the speech.

Step One: Learn Everything You Can About the Company.

All good speeches begin with knowing your audience. Start with the job posting and write down the specific things they are looking for. What are the specific skills, what values are represented, what can you learn about the company from what they say about themselves in the job posting?  Go to the company’s mission and values statement and add it to your research. If it is a larger company, look at the individual division and research its mission and purpose. If you are a college student, check with your career services office and see what information they know about the company. Many career service groups keep databases on major companies and what they look for in candidates, who they know are alums, and many even have lists of the most frequently asked items in their interviews.

If possible, find out who will be listening to your speech. Lauren Rivera, Associate Professor of Management and Organization conducted 120 interviews of hiring professionals and found interviewers are looking for people who are similar to themselves. She suggests there are three reasons for this:  (1)  interviewers believe the person will be the best fit, (2) interviewers look for people who define merit the same way that they do because it validates their own self-image, and (3) interviewers get excited about candidates that share their same passions. The more you know about those doing the interview, the more you can make connections.

You have three goals at this point:

• Research the company so you can make direct references to it in your speech.
• Familiarize yourself with the core competencies they are looking for so that you can match them to your skillset.
• Learn enough about the company and interviewees so you can find similarities.

Step Two: Brainstorm What You Have to Offer

They liked your resume, they interviewed you, and now they are inviting you back to see if you are a good fit for the company. At this point, it does not benefit you to stand and reread your resume to them.  You are qualified or they would not ask you back for another interview.  They want to know you will pull your weight in the company, but they also want to know if you are someone they would want to spend time with at the office and after work. Now, they are trying to decide if they LIKE. Y ou should pass the  Airport, Holiday Party, and Convention Tests.

• Would the interviewer want to be stranded in an airport in a snowstorm with you?
• Would the interviewer want to introduce their family to you at the holiday party?
• Would they want to have dinner with you at the three-day business convention?

Your goal is to be MEMORABLE, LIKABLE, and to DEMONSTRATE you have characteristics they NEED. In order to do that, you need to take a good, hard look at what you have to offer and I’m not talking about your previous jobs or even your GPA.

1. Take Personality, Leadership, and Career Assessment Tests

I suggest taking a version of the Myers-Briggs, Jung Typology. http://www.humanmetrics.com/personality.  *  Use the results to highlight some strengths you might not have thought of in your brainstorming. Once you get your results, cut and paste them into a document and highlight everything that applies to you that might be of value to the employer. For example, when I look up my type it says that I am creative and I like to come up with original solutions. Yes, that fits.

Let’s work with that for now. If I am trying to think of attributes that stand out about me, my creativity and ingenuity might be something that I want to highlight. I would check that attribute against what the company looks for and if it were something that the position would require, then I might decide to develop that. I will write that on my list of possible things to focus on–CREATIVITY and INGENUITY.

Take a variety of tests that you have access to.  Consider taking a leadership test and a personality test. If you are a college student, your career center likely has paid for those tests so you can take them.  If you have access to Strengths Quest© ,  Enneagram©, or the Myers-Briggs© Test, take them.  Use whatever test you can access to complete a worksheet of your strengths.

2. Ask Your Friends, Family, and Coworkers

Find those who know you and ask them a series of questions. Resist the temptation to disagree or defend when they share, just listen, and write the responses.

What could I bring to ___ company? Why would someone hire someone like me? What would set me apart from other candidates? What do you think is my strongest attribute?

3. Figure Out What Gets You Up in the Morning

A career advisor for the Walton College of Business asks students, “What gets you up in the morning?” and “What is your why?”  Think about what really drives you and make it part of the story you tell.

Step Three: Match Your Strengths to What the Company Needs

Now comes the deep thinking. Look at some of the words that came out from your personality tests and from the words that your friends used to describe you.  Look at what special qualities you have to offer. How can you match those with what the company is looking for? How do they relate to the core competencies that the company needs?   Try to find three strengths about you that will be valuable to the company.

Most speech prompts (and interview questions) can be answered with “these are my three strengths.”

Question: Tell me about yourself.

Answer: These are the strengths that set me apart.

Question: Why should I give you the job over someone else?

Question: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Answer: These are the strengths that set me apart and where they will take me.

Question: Why do you think you are a good fit for the company?

Answer: These are the strengths that make me a good fit.

Question: What is your leadership style?

Answer: These are the strengths that make me this type of leader.

Most of the time, you can develop your career speech by highlighting your three main strengths. It is worth mentioning that when colleges poll employers and ask them what they are looking for, they list problem-solving skills and the ability to work as a team at the top of the list. If these would be considered valuable where you are interviewing, you should talk about those.

Figure 1: Attributes Employers Seek on a Candidate’s Resume

Source:  Job Outlook 2020 , National Association of Colleges and Employers

Step Four: Develop Your Strengths into a Narrative

Let’s face it. Most of the time, the answers people give whether in an interview or speech are boring, they lack substance, and they sound like a form letter. “I am a people person who demonstrates good customer service. I believe in hard work and ….bla, bla, bla.” Meaningless words bounce off the ears. Nothing memorable.

If you want to be remembered, tell a story. First, start with your attribute. I had a student who said he was hard-working. He was worried because he didn’t have any “real” work experience they might not think of him as hard-working. Once we brainstormed, he realized that he spent every summer on his grandpa’s cattle farm. He was out mending fences before the sun rose and many days he would work until dark. He said, “Cows don’t care what day of the week it is.”  He told a story about how his grandfather taught him to work hard and how it was a family legacy to take pride in the work that was done–hard work was a badge of honor. By the time he was done with his story, I would have hired him for just about anything. By storytelling, he convinced me that he would give it his all. He didn’t tell me he was a hard worker, he proved he was a hard worker. His story was detailed enough that we could see him in our mind’s eye. He told a story we could remember. The added benefit of storytelling is that stories make us feel something. When your story is done, the audience doesn’t just know something about you, they feel something about you.

Anytime you apply for a position, think about the people tasked with listening to interviews all day long.  Get into their heads. The fact they need to hire someone means work is not getting done. Maybe, they are having to do extra work until you are hired. Maybe this is a new position, and they are hoping to make changes in the company once they get someone hired. The fact they are hiring often means they have a lot going on and they are eager to get it going, but they also may be feeling cautious because they need to find the right person.  In addition, to meeting with you, they have to do their own job, answer their own emails, deal with customers or coworkers, and figure out what to make for dinner. They may even have to coach the soccer team or volunteer at the food bank.  You get it– they are busy. They are busy, they may be stressed so do them a favor and make it easy for them to listen. Be interesting. Do not waste their time.

Imagine when you are writing this speech, that in addition to listening to you, they must listen to at least three other speeches. Imagine after hearing all these speeches that they are going to do their job, go home and do their home time, listen to the news on the way to work, and then come back 24 hours later to make their decision. After time and all those distractions, will they remember you and your strengths? If you only said, “I’m hardworking,” then probably not. If you told a story proving you are hardworking, they will remember your story; they will remember you, and they might even tell someone about this incredible presentation they heard.

When building this story, it can be one big story that hits on the three strengths that you want them to remember, or it can be three stories–one for each strength. I once had a student who took the three main ideas from the company’s mission statement and told one story of how she exemplified each of those. It was very direct and very audience-centered, and she used that speech to start a new career with her dream company right out of college.

If you are successful, any person listening should be able to repeat your main strengths and repeat your story.  Most importantly, they should feel you are competent and motivated.

Step Five: Start Writing and Write it Bird by Bird

It is hard to write about yourself and you are going to have to summons the courage to do it well. Writer Anne Lamont writes about this struggle.

Every writer you know writes really terrible first drafts, but they keep their butt in the chair. That’s the secret of life. That’s probably the main difference between you and them. They just do it. They do it by prearrangement with themselves. They do it as a debt of honor. They tell stories that come through them one day at a time, little by little. When my older brother was in fourth grade, he had a term paper on birds due the next day, and he hadn’t started. So my dad sat down with him with an Audubon book, paper, pencils, and brads — for those of you who have gotten a little less young and remember brads — and he said to my brother, “Just take it bird by bird, buddy. Just read about pelicans and then write about pelicans in your own voice. And then find out about chickadees, and tell us about them in your own voice. And then geese.” So, the two most important things about writing are bird by bird and really god-awful first drafts. If you don’t know where to start, remember that every single thing that happened to you is yours, and you get to tell it.

You too should write your really terrible first draft and you should tell a story in your own voice. With all your research in front of you, you should start writing bird by bird, story by story.

Step Six: Begin Strong

The very first sentence of your speech should be powerful. You should pluck that sentence out and you should test it on a trusted mentor. Each word in that sentence should be intentional. Soon after that strong first sentence should be your name. You want them to link the strength of those words with your name. You should memorize your opening so you can deliver it with strength.

I didn’t choose teaching, teaching chose me.  When I came home from kindergarten, I set up school in the back yard and taught the neighborhood kids their ABC’s. I guess you could say, I’ve always been a teacher. Good morning, my name is Frankie Lane, and I want to tell you why I am a good fit for the teaching position. As a teacher, I am enthusiastic, innovative, and encouraging and I would like to demonstrate those attributes to you today.  The regional manager flew into Northwest Arkansas to meet with me. He flew in so he could ask me face to face how my sales strategy resulted in 12% increase in computer sales. He brought with him a team that was ready to listen.  My name is Bob Smith, and I would like to share with you what three things I shared with them that day.  If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, and become more, you are a leader. John Quincy Adams.  I believe this quote summarize my leadership philosophy that I want to share with you today. Good morning my name is Frankie Lane, and I would like to tell you how this quote defines my leadership style and why I am a good fit for Amazing Example Company.

Not only should that first sentence be written to have an impact, but it should also be delivered well. Memorize your opening. Know it so well that you could recite it easily. Practice it in the car, practice it in the shower, practice it while talking to your pet.  Resist the temptation to start with “ok so” or “um.” You have been working up to this speech all your adult life, you spent hours studying for tests, writing papers, and completing assignments so you could get to this moment. You owe it to yourself to put in the work and to make this speech work for you.

Step Seven: Refer to the Company Throughout

Remember,  this is not really a speech about you, it is a speech about them and what they need.  Because of this, it is important to talk about the company throughout your speech. “As I was researching your company, I came across a headline that said you were developing one of the largest interactive art displays in the area. As a consumer of outdoor art, I…” or “Your organization’s commitment to the environment is inspiring. I became active in environmental issues as part of a collegewide initiative…” A career services specialist suggests, “Don’t tell me who you are, tell me why you matter to me.”

A common mistake is when speakers act as if they are informing the audience instead of talking to an audience that is familiar. Let me explain. I had a student say, Walmart’s mission statement is “to save people money so they can live better.” This sounds like the speaker is informing the audience of something they should already know. Instead, they should say “as you already know…” or “we can agree on a key component of the mission statement.”

Step Eight: Practice Your Speech

You have researched the company and decided on how to present yourself.  Make yourself brief notecards outlining your presentation and begin practicing. You need to practice your speech enough that you could say most of it without notes. Memorize the opening and the closing because those can be the most difficult parts and tend to be the places where the audience is most likely to build impressions of you. If you are required to use presentation slides, be sure to practice with your slides, and perfect the timing. ( For more help on slides refer to the chapter: Making Presentation Slides)

In addition to practicing by yourself, you should practice your speech in front of a trusted professional and ask them for honest and detailed feedback. You should also record your speech and watch it as if you were the hiring team. Oftentimes when I practice, I will draw a smiley face on a piece of paper and put a name under it President of the company, and then another with a smiley face and a name, future co-worker. It reminds me that I’m not delivering to a wall but to people. When you practice, tape your smiley audience around the room and speak to them directly, “The director of development will be happy to know that I have successfully…”

For more: Refer to the Chapter on Delivery Advice: Do Not Imagine the Audience Naked! Managing Eye Contact, Movement, and Gestures

Step Nine: End Strong

The very last sentence is where you “seal the deal.” Most of the time, this sentence will not come easily. I once read a book where the writer talked about sitting on the floor rocking back and forth wondering why she even bothered and why nothing good was coming to mind. Maybe writing the closing, is not quite that hard for you, but it will be for the rest of us. We will feel self-doubt and inadequacy and will even question why we are bothering in the first place.  If that happens to you, walk away and do something you love, and remember your “Why.” Why are you pushing yourself? Remember how hard you worked to get here. Remember what gets you up in the morning. After you walked off the self-doubt, come back and write that perfect ending. Look at the last three words and make sure they are words with power.

Example from a Career Speech

SPEECH OPENING

A job isn’t just a job. It’s who you are. I’m Kelsey Gomez, and today, I’m not going to tell you why I think I’m best suited for this job—I know I am. Instead, I’m here to prove to you that this isn’t just a job to me, it’s a position that I feel best brings out what I was born to do in life. Company’s Name is working to make America a better place to be a child and raise a family.  To do this, a person needs to have passion, strong communication skills, enthusiasm to learn and gain experience, and the flexibility to thrive in a dynamic, fast-paced environment—and here’s how I possess all of these qualities.

She told 3 stories to prove her attributes

SPEECH CLOSING

  My whole life, I never dreamed of success—I worked for it.  I did this by helping others, educating myself, and handling everything that came my way with poise and determination. A job isn’t just a job, it’s who you are. And, who I am is a passionate, flexible, and driven person who yearns to make a difference in people’s lives.  The best way to predict the future is to create it.  And I believe, if you hire me, Company’s Name and I can create something worthwhile.

Step Ten: Present the Total Package

Your speech begins the moment they see you. Your “speech” begins whether you are speaking or not. I once worked for a firm that would have candidates wait in a waiting room before the interview. The administrative assistant would offer them water while they waited. Little did the job candidates know that the assistant was taking notes on their behavior in the waiting room. Were they polite when offered a drink? Were they poised while in the waiting room? Were they prepared? Another strategy I have witnessed firsthand is a business that had applicants write something, if they had to borrow a pen, they clearly weren’t prepared. I’ve even heard of interviewers who watched the applicant pull up to see if the person’s car is clean. It does little good to say you pay attention to details and drive up in a dirty car.

Potential employers begin sizing you up immediately. Are you dressed properly? Are your shoes clean?  Are you sitting attentively? Are you preoccupied with your phone in the waiting room? Are you walking with confidence? Are you picking your nails? Are you listening respectfully? Everything they see you do or say is part of the interview.

In nonverbal communication terms, trappings are those artifacts that enact stereotypes–a stethoscope around the neck means the person is a doctor or nurse, a briefcase means the person is a business professional.  It will benefit you to consider trappings and what yours say about you.  Think about the difference between a sports watch and a fancy watch and the message it sends. Depending on the job, one may be preferred. For example, I had a student who researched the group she was interviewing with and realized that high fashion handbags seemed to be important. She borrowed a friends’ name-brand bag and then was delighted when someone in the group commented about it in the interview meeting. She wrote me a message afterward that said, “They hired me over other candidates who had higher GPA’s and more experience and I think it is because I researched them so well that I knew what they were looking for. I really think my bag helped close the deal.”

It is worth noting that many career specialists suggest not carrying a bag–in this situation it was an intentional decision based on her research. 

Dress the part. Research the standard dress for the organization. Be cautious, however, because they may wear athleisure wear to work each day, but they expect job candidates to wear a suit for interviews. As a college student, you have a big advantage because you likely have a career center that keeps records of the clothing suggestions for interviewing and many will even have places that will loan you professional clothing items for interviews.  Pay close attention to your shoes–they are very important. If at all possible, buy new shoes.  Yes, it may be an expensive item, but so was your education. Time and time again human resources directors and career specialists tell me that the way that people know whether you pay attention to important details is to look at their shoes.

Handshake Matters

In American business, you should shake hands with the interviewer and key members of the group. Several things go into a good handshake. First is the condition of your hand.  You should have neatly manicured nails and clean hands. If you are prone to have sweaty hands, it is a good idea to keep a napkin in your pocket to wipe the sweat off your hand before you shake.

Next, have a firm but not overly aggressive grip. When you reach for someone’s hand, you should open your hand wide enough that the web of skin between your pointer finger and thumb is aiming for the web of their hand. Hands should be so neither person’s hand is on top. Pump your hand two to three times.  When you shake hands, look them in the eye and try to say the person’s name and something nice. “Mr. Jackson, I am so glad to have the opportunity to talk with you today. ”

When you shake hands with someone that it gives them a positive feeling (if it is an appropriate handshake). When you attach that handshake with their name, you activate even more positive feelings. Research even suggests that other people in the room who see you give a nice handshake will get positive feelings about you. Before an interview, it is a good idea to practice your handshake with friends.

Finally, handshakes vary by culture, so if you are interviewing in a different culture, you should research greeting traditions.

Career speeches are always about you being the best version of yourself. I never have more self-doubt than when I’m doing a job search. I usually have to remind myself that I am smart enough and good enough to apply for this job.

I want you to know, you are good enough. You have worked hard to get here, you are ready.  I give you permission to be powerful and confident–it’s time to shine.

Bonus Feature Presenting Academic Research at Conferences or at Job Talks

MIT Professor, Patrick Winston talks about the basics of public speaking and then gives his students advice on how to give a research talk or job talk. If you are headed to a conference or if you are showing your research at a conference, watch this talk for some great advice.

Key Takeaways

Remember This!

• A career speech is not the place you recite your resume, but rather it is where you prove your strengths.
• Telling a story helps your audience remember you.

åström, J. (1994). Introductory greeting behavior: A laboratory investigation of approaching and closing salutation phases. Perceptual and Motor Skills ,  79 (2), 863–897.  https://doi.org/10.2466/pms.1994.79.2.863

Barrick, M. R., Swider, B. W., & Stewart, G. L. (2010). Initial evaluations in the interview: Relationships with subsequent interviewer evaluations and employment offers.  Journal of Applied Psychology, 95 , 1163–1172. doi:10.1037/a0019918

Chaplin, W. F., Phillips, J. B., Brown, J. D., Clanton, N. R., & Stein, J. L. (2000). Handshaking, gender, personality, and first impressions.  Journal of personality and social psychology ,  79 (1), 110–117. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.79.1.110 Available online: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/psp791110.pdf

Clay, R.  Director for Career Services and Students Programs, Walton Career Services. (2020). Personal Interview.

Ellis, D. A., & Jenkins, R. (2015). Watch-wearing as a marker of conscientiousness.  PeerJ ,  3 , e1210. https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.1210

Renee Clay Director for Career Services and Students Programs, Walton Career Services. Personal Interview. November 22, 2020.

Dougherty, T. W., Turban, D. B., & Callender, J. C. (1994). Confirming first impressions in the employment interview: A field study of interviewer behavior.  Journal of Applied Psychology ,  79 , 659–665. DOI:  10.1037//0021-9010.79.5.659

Interviewing Skills. Walton College of Business Website. https://walton.uark.edu/career/students/interviewing.php 

Lamont, Anne, Twelve truths I learned from life and writing. TED Talk Feb 12, 2019. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.dailygood.org/story/2187/12-truths-i-learned-from-life-and-writing-anne-lamott/

National Association of College and Employers. (2020). The top attributes employers want to see on resumes. https://www.naceweb.org/about-us/press/2020/the-top-attributes-employers-want-to-see-on-resumes/

Rivera, L. (2013). Hirable like me. https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/hirable_like_me

Winston, P. (2019). How to speak by Patrick Winston. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Unzc731iCUY

* (I could write an entire chapter on how a test can never tell you who you are, and I could debate the validity of most of these tests, but that won’t be necessary, because the way that I have you use it, it will be valuable. I don’t want the tests to tell you who you are or who you can be. I want you to look at the results of these tests and look at what you think fits. )

Media Attributions

• Man carrying a briefcase © Marten Bjork is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
• tom-rogerson–PYkAUIVi_M-unsplash © Tom Rogerson
• Professional in front of a whiteboard © ThisisEngineering RAEng is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license
• Two women professionally dressed © Christina is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license

Advanced Public Speaking Copyright © 2021 by Lynn Meade is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• Career Advice

Tips for a Successful Job Talk

By  Stephen J. Aguilar

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Job talks are high-stakes professional presentations that can make or break your chances to land your dream position. It is unsurprising, then, that they are frightening experiences. Given how important a job talk is, I have outlined a few tips to help you avoid common pitfalls. The list is by no means exhaustive. It’s intended to serve as a good place to start.

Before the Talk

Know your audience. Sometimes you will know who is on the search committee, and sometimes you will not. Regardless, you can safely assume that many (if not most) members of the search committee will attend your talk, as will other faculty members in your discipline. Your audience is not limited to faculty, either -- staff and Ph.D. students may also be there. Everyone in the room is a potential colleague, so you should try to anticipate what aspects of your research they will have questions about and what they might not understand. Knowing your audience is especially important because there will be differences in methodological expertise among those who attend, and you can anticipate what those differences are. Members of the audience may be qualitative researchers, quantitative researchers, theorists, etc. Your talk should be accessible to everyone while still having enough methodological rigor to impress peers who use similar methods.

Know your data. You are the expert in the room when it comes to the content of your talk. That means that you should know your data well, and know it in a way that is both deep (i.e., you can get into the nitty-gritty of the methods), and broad (i.e., you can tie your methods and findings to the broader conversations the field is having about your topic). Plus, the better you know your data, the more confident you will feel during the talk itself.

Avoid using complicated slides. Your slides should be simple and robust against technological mishaps. Generally, this means using static slides that have zero animations. “Fancy” presentation elements such as animations, slides that move to a set timer and/or videos that require audio have a way of going wrong. For instance, you might become nervous and stop an animation, or you may get to an animation too early. You may have incorrectly built the transition to begin with. Audio might not even work (as was the case during my own job talk). Thus, it is best to avoid complicated slides entirely. Static slides that build (i.e., add elements over time) are your best bet. If you use an animation within a slide, consider using a .gif image file -- they tend to be smaller and are self-contained. Static slides enable you to cycle back and forth within your presentation easily. This is especially helpful during the question-and-answer period, since your audience might refer to a specific slide.

Make supplementary slides. It is advisable to avoid the “methodological weeds” during your job talk, but it is also advisable to have slides ready to get into the weeds should the need arise. Build slides you can use to discuss the details of your method, analysis, data, etc., just in case you need to, and put them at the end of your slide deck. (A good place for them is after the obligatory thank-you slide.) Having a few slides with more data at the end of the presentation will let you address questions that you may have anticipated.

Someone, for example, may want to know what model you actually ran or see a table with results. Having those slides ready is helpful because it shows that you had similar thoughts as the person who asked the question. Supplementary slides may also give you something to reference if a relevant question is asked. Will you present only one part of a multiple study/experimental design? You can use extra slides to showcase findings from the other studies, if the question comes up.

Be mindful of your color scheme. Your university should have a PowerPoint template somewhere. Ask for it and modify it as needed. This will help you keep a consistent color scheme. If you build your slide deck from scratch, avoid common mistakes that make your presentation hard to read (like dark-blue backgrounds with black text). Many universities have brand guidelines that will help you use colors that go together. An aesthetically pleasing and well-structured presentation isn’t an end in and of itself, but it will help mitigate against misunderstandings from your audience.

Practice it. Practice it alone, practice it with your family, practice it with your peers, practice it with your adviser(s). The more practice, the better. Practice will help you work out the kinks, gain confidence, and help you prepare for questions that your audience may ask. Practice it from beginning to end, and practice individual sections by themselves. Practice it at least as much as I’ve written the word “practice” in this section (11 times).

During the Talk

Don’t get rattled if something goes wrong. Always move on from mistakes quickly. Never linger on the failure or hiccup, and do not tell your audience what was supposed to happen (e.g., “Right now you should have been seeing/hearing …”). Your audience is not in your head, so they will not somehow imagine that perfect animation that you built to demonstrate your point. Drawing more attention to a hiccup is a waste of time. The show must go on! It is more impressive to see a candidate take a setback in stride.

Avoid overusing dissertation or study-specific language. It is important to realize that your audience may not catch your first explanation of technical terms. Did you create a category and/or variable for the study that only you understand? Do not use it, or, if you use it, make sure to remind your audience what it means every so often.

Move around. Avoid standing in one place during the talk. It makes it hard to engage with you.

Demonstrate expertise. Having notes to refer to your work is fine, but do not rely on them. It is painfully obvious when a candidate is reading their talk. You do not need to memorize what you plan to say, but you should be so comfortable with the material that you can talk broadly or go deep effortlessly. On a related note, avoid looking at your own screen too much. Otherwise, you may lose your connection with the audience.

Build up to your research . The first part of your job talk should communicate who you are as a scholar, and ideally include examples that show your research agenda or trajectory, such as previously published papers. If you launch into a study right away, it will be decontextualized. It is OK to spend a slide or two on a personal story that motivates the work, but avoid telling the audience your life history.

Discuss implications. The implications section is the part of the presentation where you have to sell your ideas, approach or findings as novel and/or important. No one remembers the details of your methods, but your audience will come away with a sense of whether or not the research you presented is important/interesting/novel. It is fine to really sell it here. Is the study the first that did X? Make sure to say so. Has the method never been used in the way you used it? Mention that. Does your research have policy/practical implications? Spell them out confidently. Your audience will not know any of what makes your study interesting unless you tell them.

Discuss future work. End with where you plan to take your research. Your audience will want to know that you have a plan for future studies that will examine the phenomenon your presentation highlighted. Include future areas of research, funding sources for that work and the like.

The Question-and-Answer Period

If a question is not clear, ask for clarification. My go-to approach is to say, “What I understand you to be asking is …” as a way to confirm how I understand a question with the person who asked the question, or to ask, “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that -- can you repeat/clarify?” After you answer the question, it is sometimes appropriate to also ask, “Did that answer your question?” That gives the person who raised the question an opportunity to further clarify if you missed the mark.

Answer the question that was asked. You do not have to launch into an answer right away -- go ahead and take a moment to collect your thoughts. Avoid “hand-waving” answers that completely avoid the question, such as “I didn’t think about that; that’s a good question,” followed by not actually answering the question. Similarly, if you are questioned about a decision you made, avoid saying anything resembling “because that’s just how I did it.” Your audience wants to know why you made a decision. Also, don’t simply say that you were wrong and/or “did not think of that,” since doing so will communicate that you did not think the method through or do not have the confidence to defend your decision.

Remember, every question is an opportunity to demonstrate -- or fail to demonstrate -- competence. The way that you answer a question reveals if you have thought about your topic deeply or are capable of engaging with unfamiliar territory in a thoughtful way. Take the opportunity to communicate that you understood the reason the question was asked.

You only get one shot at your job talk. Once it’s over, it’s over. Do not linger on aspects of it that you felt went poorly, and do not pat yourself on the back if you think you did exceptionally well. Your job talk, while incredibly important, is just one aspect of the entire interview experience. The suggestions I have outlined above will help you put your best foot forward.

Scott McLemee interviews Paul Reitter, translator of a new English edition of Marx’s Capital .

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The Dynamics of Interesting Careers 64 Games that Your Life & Work Are and 64 Ways to Play Those Games Well from People Having Superb Careers Abstract: Research Question 1 WHOSE CAREERS ARE MOST INTERESTING: Who are the people having the most interesting careers? What makes their careers interesting? Research Question 2 HOW DO PEOPLE CREATE INTERESTING CAREERS: What do people do that makes their careers more interesting than careers of others? Research Question 3 DO PEOPLE ACHIEVE INTERESTING CAREERS BY THE SAME OVERALL MEANS: Do people with interesting careers share a significant number of steps and means for making their careers interesting ones? Research Question 4 ARE CAREERS OUTSIDE OF BUSINESS AND LARGE ORGANIZATIONS DIFFERENT: If we look beyond business and large corporations do we find more interesting careers than there? why? This is a study (questionnaire and interview) of 150 people nominated as having "very interesting careers" by 315 eminent, highly accomplished, nominators distributed across 63 strata of society (5 for each stratum). Large, well ordered, categorical models of the components of such careers not found in less interesting ordinary careers were built, resulting in fractal concept models. These categorical models present dimensions of "interesting" careers both self-reported by the 150 nominees and other-reported by the 315 nominators as not found in ordinary careers. The models constitute a map of phenomena to be investigated later causally. At least mention by 12 nominees was required for all items included in the models presented here. The ten types of career components induced from subjects in the above way are organized causally in a path model at the end of the article and six hypotheses of evolution among relations on that model as "interesting" careers develop (suggested by subject responses to research instruments) are mentioned on that model. Method 1 IMPROVE CAREER RESEARCH USING FELDMAN'S RECOMMENDATIONS: Apply all 8 of Feldman's published recommendations about how to fix what is wrong with usual career research. Method 2 FOCUS ON CAREER SKILLS NOT JUST CAREER INTERESTS: This is one of Feldman's recommendations--here we emphasize career skills found shared among 150 people having highly interesting careers (as selected/reported by others). Feldman in a well written comprehensive review of the current state of career research (2002) recommended moving study of career away from business careers and MBA careers, studying career development changes within individuals as they progress in their careers, examining the role of career skills not just career interests, plotting the interplay of career stages with life stages by investigating extreme misfits between them in certain cases, and looking at careers as coping mechanisms and emotional support havens when family-life decays as a social support mechanism in modern industrial societies. He noted how sample bias in career research thus far (and hence generalizability) could be improved by moving beyond MBA and business career populations, how constructs like age (chronological, subjective, and relative) can be operationalized better when studying career development changes, and how reactions of research subjects to objective career conditions cannot be understood or even investigated if journals continue to reject articles based largely on self report data. This study fulfills all eight of the attributes of future career research listed above from his call for research improvement (it omits several of his requested improvements, however, due to inevitable limitations of time, resource, and method). Method 3 CAREER EXTREMES EXAMINED: By seeking "most interesting" careers, dimensions not reported by prior research were found, career: types, rules, tools, constraints, topographies, dynamics, approaches, and creativity. I n particular, this paper excels at the broad scope of non-business careers it includes and the substantial level of detail of career skills and skill use obtained for its research subjects. Also, by studying "highly interesting careers" extreme conditions, methods, skills, goals, personalities, results, lifestyles were investigated, nearly never encountered in usual publishings of the field of career research. Eight types contents of interesting careers were identified: career types, rules, tools, constraints, topographies, dynamics, approaches, and creativity, Causal relations among them were suggested by the data (though of course not proved). Six ways, suggested by respondents, that relations among these types, taken as career variables, develop through time, stated as hypotheses, close this article. RESULTS---10 Career Dimensions, 6 Hypotheses---all arranged in a causal diagram ordering, testable by future research. For occupational therapists, young people entering the world of work, and organizations attempting to attract and hold exceptional people, the dynamic contents of "highly interesting careers" offer practical, specific, attainable conditions that already attract and hold such people now in various organizations and good facsimiles or improvements on which could be set up in other organizations.

In this moment the policies on lifelong guidance, recognition of learning and skills certification seem more working on who should do what and not on how make. It would be desirable to create links between the various providers of training, education and business, allowing for a reframing of orientation processes and of identification and certification of skills. All these practices can reduce distances for those who are likely to remain at the margins of education, training and work (Neet and over fifty).

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Summary This article has the dual purpose of expanding an understanding of the relationship between subjective and objective careers, and describing one condition under which the subjective career takes on particular salience: when the person feels a sense of calling in his or her ...

What determines career success? This question has occupied careers research, professional and career counselling, as well as individuals for decades. There is consensus amongst careers researchers that to develop oneself professionally, there is more needed than simply finding a job that matches one's strengths and interests. The current world of work is increasingly characterised by individual, self-directed careers over an ...

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Career Presentation for PowerPoint

This Career Presentation for PowerPoint is a comprehensive slide deck for career orientation and guidance discussions. Career guidance is a required field that helps newcomers and beginners understand everything about their chosen career or profession, like the scope, future opportunities, or the necessary skills & talent. In a usual career path presentation, professionals explain everything about a particular career, from skills, thorough roadmap, and development options to multiple transitional plans. This PPT template carries 100% editable slides for presenting these aspects of a career path. Professionals can customize each page for their requirements.

Our Career Presentation for PowerPoint has a decent color scheme and theme that can fit every presentation requirement. Users can change the color scheme, alter the placeholder images, and manage other graphical settings easily from the PowerPoint toolbar. All slides have a sidebar containing a general tagline and slide numbers on the bottom. The first slide is to showcase the title; it can also include the career name, presenter details, and other information. Next is an image placeholder slide for writing introductory details and a creative numbering bullet page for personal interests. Likewise, there are two similar slides for presenting the skills and talents. The placeholder text can be edited with a simple click. Following is a slide with four segments circular chart showing the career exploration stages, e.g., internship, job shadowing, networking, and research. The slide has a meaningful infographic icon in the center. 

Professionals can also use our creative slides to discuss career planning goals, multiple-step career roadmaps, continuous learning and development points, career advancement levels, and career transitioning plan. These slides carry engaging diagrams, replaceable images, and well-arranged text boxes to prepare an easy-to-understand presentation. All slides can be customized using all PowerPoint versions. Grab this PPT slide deck and prepare your career development plan presentation in moments!

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[Updated 2023] 25 Best Career Planning PPT Templates To Design Your Future

Malvika Varma

“Where do you see yourself in the future?” 

This question comes up at almost every stage of life, be it school, college, or corporate life. Whether you are fresh out of college or planning to start a career in a different field after several years, no matter where you are in your professional journey, this question is often an intimidating one to answer.

Choosing the right career path inevitably plays a huge role in our lives . It determines how many working hours one will have to devote, if or when one can retire, and the financial security the chosen career provides. A good career decision can either make your life worth living or full of disappointments. The choice is yours! 

Personal and professional goals become achievable with a carefully crafted long-term career strategy. Career planning puts us in a position of advantage by leveraging our strength, building confidence, and making the most of our talent and experience. The future can give us a bumpy ride with situations like economic recession and a solid career plan can help in keeping us afloat. In the rapidly evolving market trends and demands, enhanced self-knowledge and a focused aim is the need of the hour which are attainable only with pre-planned career moves. Career planning also helps in smoothly entering into retirement down the road.

Millennials are more likely to indulge in job-hopping than the older generations and this makes career planning an ongoing process that needs tweaking every now and then. SlideTeam professionals understand the significance of a career roadmap and have curated 25 Best Career Planning PowerPoint Templates. These PowerPoint complete decks showcase career advancement in the right way and help you outshine. 

So, what are you waiting for? That dream career, that fancy job switch or that promotion is just a click away! Download these pre-designed templates and grab the opportunity you have been waiting for.

25 Best Career Planning PowerPoint Templates To Download 

Template 1: Career Planning Outline

Grab the spotlight by featuring our pre-designed career planning PowerPoint template for elucidating your aspirations. List your career objectives, work experience, competencies, certifications, projects, and experience by utilizing this content ready career PPT presentation which can be used by students for applying for higher education or for internships. Job aspirants can elaborate on their career path in the company using our career progression PowerPoint complete deck.

Template 2: Succession and Career Planning

Career planning and succession keep us on track which can be elaborated with our professional journey PowerPoint template. Companies can download this content ready PowerPoint complete deck to highlight the process of talent development to meet organizational requirements. Employee competency and assessment grid can be effectively elucidated by incorporating this visually appealing career PPT layout. 

Template 3: Career Planning

Serious about career planning? Reflect your dedication towards your job by introducing yourself with our amazingly designed career planning PowerPoint template. Career counselors can also employ this career development PowerPoint presentation to educate students about the significance of yearly career roadmaps and a clear vision for achieving the goals. This PPT complete deck helps in giving detailed information about the career plans of the candidate and can be used for getting internships or projects.

Template 4: Career and Professional Development Plan

Impress your boss using our content ready career planning PowerPoint template. Showcase your skills and talents in an attractive manner by downloading this career PPT slide. Our PowerPoint slides can be incorporated for a job promotion or for the appraisal showcasing the achievements. This pre-designed complete deck saves your time as it can be tailored as per your requirements. Students can utilize this career path PPT layout to introduce themselves and give an educational background for a better understanding of the aptitude for applying for the internship.

Template 5: Career Planning and Development

Employee career progression not only adds value to the company but also boosts the morale of the candidate. Incorporate this career development plan PowerPoint template to discuss all the major aspects of succession at the workplace. The employee can download this content ready PowerPoint complete deck and simply edit the relevant information and present it to their seniors in an impressive manner. The detailed overview of your capabilities and achievements will multiply your chances of bagging the promotion in no time and hence makes this career PPT apt for office employees. 

Template 6: Career Timeline

Flaunt your achievements in the most engaging way possible with our career timeline PowerPoint templates. Job seekers can use this visually appealing PowerPoint complete deck to discuss their career plans and how they align with the organization’s objectives. This career PowerPoint presentation can be employed to present your short and long term plans which portray the career ambitions of the candidate. Career counselors and mentors can utilize this PPT layout to advise a career roadmap for the candidate.

Template 7: Career Planning Assessment

Organizations need to assess the employee capabilities and skill set from time to time in order to stay relevant and successful in the dynamic market. HR professionals can download our career planning assessment PowerPoint template to analyze the competencies of its workforce. This completely editable PowerPoint complete deck can be employed by career counselors and coaches to streamline the candidate’s expertise and make the best use of their skills. Companies can also incorporate this career PPT slide to showcase the employee assessment procedure of the enterprise.

Template 8: Career Planning and Management

Companies keep updating their workforce with the latest technologies and trends to remain prominent in the industry. Incorporate this career management PowerPoint template to elaborate on the key succession and career planning competencies of the company, employee assessment grid, succession planning modeling chart and other methods for the career development of its employees. HR managers can utilize this career planning PPT complete deck to showcase employee retention by focusing on the employees’ career growth. 

Template 9: Career Planning Analysis

Create an impactful career plan with our PowerPoint template and discuss the ways in which your competencies can contribute to overcoming the roadblocks of the organization. Highlight the factors involved in succession planning with the help of metrics and flow charts in our infographic career PowerPoint complete deck. This content ready PPT layout can be incorporated by organizations to give constructive career opportunities to their employees and enhance productivity.

Template 10: Strategic Career Planning

Career mentors guide us in our professional journey and help us excel in the chosen industry. Utilize this career PowerPoint template to elucidate the role of taking planned professional steps in one’s life. With the help of this pre-designed career progression PPT complete deck, counselors can educate students about the different employment options available. Students can opt professional path which aligns with their interests. The detailed analysis of every profession, gives students a vision about their employment timeline and helps them choose wisely among all career paths. 

Template 11: Career and Education Planning

Education gives an opportunity to explore your interests to establish ourselves in that field. Elucidate your skillset, educational qualifications, achievements, projects, work experience, personal goals, short term objectives, values and other essential factors for a distinguished career journey with our striking PowerPoint template. Career coaches can introduce this handy pre-designed PPT complete deck to illustrate the pros and cons of each career option and how they align with an individual. This comprehensive career PowerPoint layout is versatile and can be used by job seekers to discuss their career roadmap.

Template 12: Career Development Plan Goals and Objectives

A well-drafted career plan keeps us motivated and on track with our goals. Our professional development plan PowerPoint theme is a perfect fit for anyone who wants to climb the career ladder. Employ this creatively designed career PPT complete deck which is completely editable and covers a wide range of aspects such as factors influencing the choice of career, educational qualification, work experience, and other relevant details. Showcase your personal goals and values with confidence by incorporating this job progression PowerPoint presentation.  

Template 13: Career Planning Evaluation

Employee evaluation on the basis of methodologies can be introduced with the assistance of our career PowerPoint template. This career planning PowerPoint complete deck comprises identifying critical position,   succession plan sample flowchart, performance improvement plan, key development practices, and other crucial methods. Successful evaluation of employees on the basis of their career progression can be discussed by our engaging career PPT presentation.

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Showcase your mission and vision to your employer with an influential and impressive career planning PowerPoint template.  Introduce this career PPT complete deck to explain your short term and long term professional progression plans. Career mentors can employ this content ready PowerPoint layout to discuss the job prospects and evaluation process of choosing a profession. 

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Organizations can incorporate this content ready career management PowerPoint template to focus on the talents of its workforce. The various processes such as succession plan flowchart, modeling chart, career planning overview, employee competency, and assessment grid, etc. involved in evaluating the employees on different parameters. 

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Leave an everlasting impression on your audience with our pre-designed career PowerPoint template. Highlight the key tactics of your enterprise to improve employee career development with our content-ready PPT complete deck. This attention-grabbing career planning PowerPoint presentation is perfect to portray the methods adopted by the company administration for skill upgradation of its workforce.

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Depict your career-oriented approach in front of your employer by utilizing this professionally designed career planning PowerPoint template. Our career progression PPT complete deck is completely editable and you can insert the relevant details easily. The extensively researched content makes it handy for company administration to highlight the skill sets of its employees and time-to-time assessment for keeping up with the market demands.

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Stay focused..stay ahead!

FAQs on Career Planning

What is a career plan, what are the 5 stages of career planning.

The 5 stages of career planning are:

Self-assessment: This stage involves assessing your skills, interests, values, and personality traits to identify your strengths and weaknesses. This information helps you to identify potential career paths that align with your skills, interests, and values.

Career exploration: In this stage, you research different career paths to determine which ones match your skills, interests, and values. You may conduct informational interviews, attend career fairs, or shadow professionals in your chosen field to learn more about the career options available to you.

Goal setting: Based on the information gathered in the self-assessment and career exploration stages, you set career goals that align with your interests, values, and strengths. These goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).

Action planning: This stage involves developing a plan to achieve your career goals. This plan should outline the specific steps you will take to gain the skills and experiences needed to achieve your goals. It may involve obtaining additional education or training, building a professional network, or seeking out new job opportunities.

Implementation and evaluation: In the final stage, you put your action plan into motion and begin working towards your career goals. You should regularly evaluate your progress towards your goals and make adjustments to your plan as needed to ensure that you are on track to achieve your objectives.

How to choose a career?

Self-assessment: Start by assessing your interests, values, personality traits, and skills. This can help you identify the careers that align with your strengths and preferences.

Career research: Once you have a good sense of your strengths and preferences, research different careers that align with those traits. Look for information about the job duties, required education and training, earning potential, job outlook, and other factors that are important to you.

Consider your lifestyle: Think about the type of lifestyle you want to have and whether different careers can accommodate that lifestyle. For example, if you value work-life balance, you may want to look for careers with flexible schedules or the option to work remotely.

Gain experience: Try to gain experience in different fields through internships, volunteering, or part-time jobs. This can help you determine whether a particular career is a good fit for you and gain valuable skills and experiences.

Seek guidance: Talk to people who work in the careers you are interested in and seek their advice. They may be able to provide insights into the day-to-day realities of the job and offer tips for how to break into the field.

What is the importance of career planning?

Career planning is important for several reasons:

Helps identify career goals : By creating a career plan, individuals can identify their career goals and aspirations. This helps them to focus their efforts and work towards a specific career path.

Enables personal and professional growth: Career planning encourages individuals to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses, identify areas for improvement, and take steps to develop new skills and knowledge. This can lead to personal and professional growth and development.

Provides direction and focus: A career plan provides individuals with a clear direction and focus, helping them to make informed decisions about their career path and take the necessary steps to achieve their goals.

Enhances employability: Career planning can help individuals acquire the skills, knowledge, and experience needed to enhance their employability and competitiveness in the job market.

Improves job satisfaction: By pursuing a career path that aligns with their interests and values, individuals are more likely to experience job satisfaction and fulfillment.

Facilitates career transitions: A career plan can also help individuals navigate career transitions, such as changing jobs or pursuing a new career path.

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Check the Layout and Other Lessons Learned From Giving a Career Talk

Article summary

Know the layout., consider your presentation format., have fun with the questions and answers portion., take a breath when you finish..

In a recent post I was getting ready to give a talk on careers to 200 sophomores. I’ve now done the career talk, it went well. I also learned some lessons from it, which I’ll outline below.

I arrived half an hour before my talk. I was the only speaker, so I was able to familiarize myself with where I would be speaking and where the audience would be. With this quick pre-talk walkthrough, I was able to work out that the slides would be on a big screen behind me. This meant either having a quick glance behind me or moving to the side so I could see the screen and the audience.

The walkthrough also let me know that I’d be using a handheld microphone, so I was able to prepare myself for using that.

It also found a problem — using the remote control to advance the next slide didn’t work from the center of the stage. However, we were able to work out Plan B. I’d give a nod, and the event organizer would manually click to advance to the next slide. Finding the remote didn’t work in the middle of my talk would have made for a moment of panic, so the pre-talk prep was worthwhile just for this.

I had my presentation prepared using Keynote . The school, being a school, used Powerpoint. I checked with the organizer a few days beforehand and was able to convert to their format. But, that was something I should have checked at the start of my preparation.

The organizer gave me clear and specific details about the format of the talk when I initially volunteered. That meant I already knew about the expected time duration and how long to give for questions afterward.

The Q&A at the end of the talk was fun. Be prepared for some wacky questions like, “What sort of tea do you drink?” or “How do you say ‘water’?” as well as serious ones. One thing I learned was to repeat the question asked so that all of the audience was aware of what the student had asked and wasn’t wondering why I had just said “water.”

I made two mistakes at the end of my talk, and I’ll do better at these next time.

1. Put your contact info on the end slide so that, if you want people to be able to follow up with you, they can.

2. Take a moment to calm down and relax when the talk and Q&A is over. I was so relieved and buzzed when my talk was over that I swiftly gathered all my stuff together and ended up taking the remote control from the school back home with me.

Doing a career talk is great. I think the students got something from it, and I learned a lot about myself — and how to give a better talk.

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The Professor Is In

Guidance for all things PhD: Graduate School, Job Market and Careers

Effective Slides for Your Job Talk and Beyond: 9 Myths To Stop Believing – Guest Post

By Karen Kelsky | November 10, 2017

Independent Research and Evaluation Consultant

Owner, Creative Research Communications, LLC

Hi! I’m Dr. Echo Rivera. My passion is helping researchers, academics, scientists, and evaluators become effective visual communicators. I love to teach people how to create astronomically awesome slide presentations for lectures, conferences, and workshops. Check out one of my free resources, available on my website , to help you get started. I also love to draw comics and want to see more comics used in research and teaching.

Website: echorivera.com ; Twitter: @echoechoR

[Karen:  I encountered the original version of this post originally published on Echo’s blog. I loved it and invited her to reprise it in shorter form here, for all of you planning your job talks.  STUDY #7 IN PARTICULAR!  TAKE IT TO HEART!]

Everyone hates boring presentations, but they’re everywhere. How can something so hated be so widespread?

The answer? Bad advice.

Here are 9 myths stopping you from creating effective presentations.

•  # Slides = X Amount of Time

This myth will. Not. DIE. It goes a little something like this:

“This presentation doesn’t need to be long. Can you create 10 slides?”

Take the 10-20-30 rule , which recommends 10 slides for a 20-minute presentation. I forgot what the 30 is but that’s not important.

We must disassociate time from the number of slides in your presentations. Pretend the correlation is r = .0002, p = .800 (Rivera, 2017, personal communication with myself). Otherwise, you get tunnel vision and cram your slides with text just so you can stick to an arbitrary rule.

If you did 10 slides in 20 minutes. That’s TWO WHOLE MINUTES per slide (at best)! In audience years, that’s forever. Even 1 minute per slide can be too long.

From now on, don’t worry about the number of slides. Instead, try to have only 1-3 points per slide. Yes, this applies when you have a complex topic, as you should be breaking it up into multiple slides to walk your audience through it.

I get why people believe this. Most people cram 50+ words on a slide, blabber forever, then repeat that for 20 slides. Telling people to limit their slides feels like low-hanging fruit. But the number of slides is not the root of the problem.

• It’s the audience’s responsibility to pay attention and learn

Some believe the responsibility of learning rests entirely on the audience. But effective presenters believe it’s the presenter’s responsibility to do everything they can to make learning engaging and memorable.

Is it your fault if a student zones out? Not necessarily. People are distracted, it’s hard to hold their attention. But chances are , there are strategies you could use to make your presentation worth paying attention to (e.g., storyboarding, visuals).

• Visuals are just a bonus

If you want your audience to pay attention, understand, remember, and use the information you share, then use visuals. Period. No excuses. Fin.

By visuals, I don’t just mean stock photos. Visuals also include: drawings, screenshots, icons, your own photos, and videos.

• “I have lots of data” is a legit excuse for bad design

Whenever I tweet about how you should limit the text on your slide, there’s always someone who says, “Yeah I mostly agree, except when I have to show a lot of data.”

That is not an acceptable reason to make ineffective slides. You do not have to show all your data at once. You should be walking people through your data in pieces and in a way that tells a story.

• “But I need to post my slides online” is a legit reason for using too much text

A lot of people also say, “Yeah I mostly agree, but what about slides that need to go online?”

There is a long answer for this one, but the short answer is: Online materials are consumed in a different format than live presentations. That means the material should be different (i.e., customized).

• Good dataviz is enough

Dataviz is hot right now, as it should be. But here’s the thing: good presentation design involves more than dataviz.

Good presentation design means:

• Good content (storyboarding)
• Good information design (contrast, fonts, colors, alignment)
• Effective visuals (placement, size, orientation)
• Data visualization

Presentations aren’t “good” or “bad” based on one slide or a couple of slides. Presentations are a package deal.

Dataviz is one of the last steps in a design package. If you don’t have a good story or your slides are walls of text, then your dataviz won’t have an impact.

• Your audience cares about you (or the facts) more than the story

Think about how we start our presentations. A huge mistake I’ve made in the past, and see almost every other presenter make, is that we save the good stuff for the middle (e.g., results) without giving the audience a reason to pay attention all the way through.

The kiss of death? Starting a presentation by talking about yourself.

Unless you’re a celebrity in your field, your name is not the most important thing to people. It’s better to assume that no one cares who you are. Get into the mindset that you need to convince your audience they should listen to you. Assume they have a problem and they want you to solve it. Your background won’t solve their problem. Start your presentations by reassuring them you’re going to solve their problem–even if it’s just a knowledge gap.

• It’s okay to take “baby steps” … for years

OK look. I believe that change is incremental. If your slides have 130+ words on them and contain no visuals, it’d be hard to make slides with 3 words and all visuals. But, the only time I’ve heard “cut me some slack, I’m taking baby steps” is when people are using it as an excuse to maintain their outdated practice.

It’s like watching someone sloooowly remove a big band-aid off their arm.

If you’re telling yourself that you’re just making change in “baby steps,” then challenge yourself to take bigger steps. You don’t need 30 years to start making stellar slides.

• I don’t need training on how to create effective presentations

Did you receive training on how to be an effective communicator? Probably not, because of the myth that effective communication can be “picked up” over time.

Were you able to pick up statistics just by watching other people do them? Nope. There are graduate degrees in communication, yet many of us assume we can learn the same strategies on our own.

Creating effective presentations requires training. To get started, check out my FREE email course, Countdown to Stellar Slides.

Similar Posts:

• How to Present Effectively
• How To Give a Teaching Demonstration (A Guest Post)
• Dr. Karen’s (Partial) Rules of the Job Talk
• Data Point, Data Point, Data Point…
• Why Your Job Talk Sucks

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August 7, 2019 at 7:15 pm

I wish this post applied some visual aesthetic rules to itself.

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Open Access

Ten simple rules for giving an effective academic job talk

* E-mail: [email protected] (SAS); [email protected] (JOLS)

¶ ‡ SAS, LLS, and MRA contributed equally to this work. CEGA, ACB, ACRG, MJ, GSK, JSM, JM, and ROM also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Human Genetics, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

• Shayna A. Sura, 
• Lauren L. Smith, 
• Monique R. Ambrose, 
• C. Eduardo Guerra Amorim, 
• Annabel C. Beichman, 
• Ana C. R. Gomez, 
• Mark Juhn, 
• Gaurav S. Kandlikar, 
• Julie S. Miller, 

Published: July 25, 2019

• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007163
• Reader Comments

Citation: Sura SA, Smith LL, Ambrose MR, Amorim CEG, Beichman AC, Gomez ACR, et al. (2019) Ten simple rules for giving an effective academic job talk. PLoS Comput Biol 15(7): e1007163. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007163

Editor: Fran Lewitter, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, UNITED STATES

Copyright: © 2019 Sura et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Funding: The authors acknowledge support from the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (to SAS, ACB, and JSM under grant #DGE-1144087, and to GSK and JSM under grant #DGE-1650604), the NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology (to JSM under grant #DBI-1812292), and NSF research grants OCE-1335657 and DEB-1557022 (to JOL-S and ACRG). ACRG was supported by the CAPES Science Without Borders Doctoral Fellowship. ROM and JOL-S were supported by the US Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (RC-2635). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Introduction

You’ve finally completed your dissertation research and have your PhD in hand—yay! Maybe you’re also in the middle of a postdoctoral position. If you’re reading this article, chances are you are actively searching for and applying for faculty positions. (Check out reference [ 1 ] if you’re early in the application process and [ 2 ] for additional advice!) Unfortunately, many graduate students and postdocs are not taught the skills necessary for acquiring a faculty position after passing the “looks good on paper” part of the application and securing an on-campus interview. One of the last crucial steps in earning a faculty position is your academic job talk. No matter how great of a scientist you are, if you cannot give a compelling job talk, chances are low that you will be hired. Yet many candidates receive little guidance on how to ace this unique and vital test.

To help address this gap, we have put together these ten simple rules that will help you give an effective job talk. To be clear, these are rules developed for the academic job talk in a research-heavy department, which is typically in a seminar format. These rules are not targeted toward other formats such as chalk talks or teaching demonstrations, although some pointers may still apply. We are a group primarily composed of University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) faculty, postdocs, and graduate students who participated in two recent job searches in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department. We evaluated ten job talks over the span of 2 months and discussed their strengths and weaknesses in a weekly seminar course. These ten rules are based on our discussions of what worked (and what didn’t) across the variety of job talks we observed, as well as our various experiences on the job market and search committees over the years.

Rule 1: Know your audience

As with any seminar or presentation, when preparing your job talk, you want to target your specific audience. Therefore, you need to consider the background knowledge and interests of the audience members. Learn as much as you can about the position and what institutional needs the position is meant to address within the department and broader university. If you’re applying for a position within a specific department, what is the scope of the research in that department? Does it have a mission statement? Are any strategic aims or future plans publicly available? Does the department work closely with other academic units on campus, and does the position you’ve applied for have any formal ties to other units? To answer some of these questions, you should read the job ad closely, read about the current faculty’s research, and look through the department’s web page (see also Rule 7 [Understand your potential new workplace] and 8 [Understand your new colleagues] from reference [ 3 ]). If you’re lucky enough to have network connections to the department, use them now to get insights before you visit. We also recommend that after you receive an invitation to interview, you consider setting up a phone call with the chair of the search committee to inquire about the job and ask any specific questions you have regarding the job or department. In particular, it is a good idea to ask what the search committee is looking for—it may have been a long time since the job ad was released, and the search committee’s focus may have shifted from what was initially stated. We recommend a phone conversation as opposed to an emailed list of questions because it saves time; also, people are often more candid and may provide more useful insights over the phone. Depending on when your job talk occurs during your interview schedule, you might even make small changes to customize your talk based on interviews and meetings with department members prior to your talk.

Rule 2: Sell yourself

The faculty and search committee are trying to choose the candidate they’ll be most excited to have as a new colleague, so you need to showcase the reasons you’re their best choice! It is smart to include an explicit introduction about yourself—i.e., the kind of science you do, your grand aims, and your approach to research. You want to communicate your identity as a researcher and, if appropriate given your career stage and research plans, how this differentiates you from your mentors (reference [ 4 ] is an excellent resource).

You also want to convey other traits as a scientist and potential colleague. Reflect on the qualities that make you an exceptional researcher (creative, persistent, thoughtful, rigorous, multidisciplinary, etc.), as well as the specific traits that your audience will be looking for, and try to demonstrate them subtly to the audience over the course of the talk via examples in your work. Consider ways to demonstrate your fundamental strengths as a scientist, such as the ability to question your methods and results to pursue deeper and more robust conclusions. If you have any particular successes on your record, such as big grants or markers of professional stature, don’t be shy about mentioning them (but don’t brag!). Having your publication citations and/or grants listed in smaller text at the bottom of corresponding slides is one way to show your accomplishments without explicitly mentioning them. Finally, you can casually highlight additional non-research skills (e.g., mentoring, outreach, collaborations) throughout your talk. For example, give credit to an excellent mentee who contributed to the data collection or to a gifted collaborator who added a component to your study. Your application materials likely included many of these things, but if you can find ways to incorporate them in your talk, a broader audience can see the full package of who you are.

Keep in mind Rule 1 (Know your audience) when deciding how best to showcase yourself, as different disciplines and subfields may vary in their perceptions of what makes a good scientist. For example, disciplines may vary in their appreciation for deep thought into specific mechanisms and experimental designs versus mathematical elegance and rigor. Others may prize applied over fundamental research or vice versa. This may be especially challenging if your research is interdisciplinary, so make sure to investigate what factors are valued most highly by the decision makers in the audience for your talk so you can design your talk to emphasize those aspects of your work.

Rule 3: Impress the in-crowd…

Likely there will be people in the audience who work in the same field as you. Make sure to impress these experts with your knowledge and convince them you are worthy of being their colleague. You want to show them you have the sophistication and skills necessary to tackle advanced problems. Therefore, it’s a good idea to do at least one “deep dive” during your talk in which you include one or two “muscle-flexing” slides. By this we mean slides with technical content that the general audience member may not be able to fully understand but for which you can flex your intellectual muscles and showcase your skills. Importantly, do not bluff or bluster in this section—a technical error in your deep dive would be fatal.

These deep dives shouldn’t be long, or you risk losing most of your audience. However, a glimpse into the more advanced aspects of your work will convey that you’re able to play in the big leagues in your field. Just make sure to reengage your audience after this show of prowess, ideally providing a big-picture summary of what you’ve just shown.

Rule 4: … but also appeal to the out-crowd

In addition to impressing the specialists in the audience, you want to make sure the people who work outside your discipline are able to follow and enjoy your presentation. When preparing your talk, consider how you can present and frame the material so that even audience members from far-flung disciplines are engaged and can appreciate the broader relevance of your presentation. Be attuned to the breadth of the department you’re visiting, as this can present various communication challenges. The diverse interests of faculty in a broad department (e.g., biology) can make it difficult to make your research program appealing to everyone. However, it can also be difficult communicating to a more focused department (e.g., molecular genetics) if your research is not exactly in line with what everyone else does. It helps to summarize the important findings of your research as you present them, in addition to their implications and why they are exciting, in case not everyone followed the technical aspects of your results. You can also make it easier for audience members from other fields to follow your talk by avoiding excess jargon and keeping your messages clear.

Emphasize the themes in your work that relate to the job and department you’re interviewing for. If applicable and appropriate, it can help to subtly highlight connections between your research to research of other members of the department who have different specialties. But be careful not to overdo this, as it can become distracting.

Rule 5: Play the hand you’ve got to optimal effect

Strategic choice of topics to include in your talk from among your entire research portfolio is critical for giving an effective and memorable job talk. Depending upon what career stage you are in (just finished PhD, postdoc, assistant professor, etc.), you may have a smaller or larger research portfolio. For an hour-long job talk, it is unlikely you will be able to effectively discuss everything you have ever done. And that’s okay, because that is what a CV is for!

For your job talk, you need to assess your portfolio of published work, unpublished but completed work, and ongoing projects to determine which projects showcase your work most effectively and best match what the department is looking for in a future colleague. The most effective talk structures we observed were ones that focused on 2–3 research studies and that combined higher-level information with a few “deep dives” into the nitty gritty of a particular study ( Fig 1 ). This talk structure will help you satisfy Rules 3 and 4 above, which discuss how you want your whole audience to understand and appreciate your talk, while also presenting the “meat” of your research and impressing those most familiar with your field. If you feel that this design doesn’t convey the breadth or quantity of your productivity, consider adding a slide or two on the conceptual structure of your full research program in which you can show (with all your best citations) how all the pieces fit together.

• PPT PowerPoint slide
• PNG larger image
• TIFF original image

You want to start broad during the introduction to get everyone on board and then go into more depth on a few specific studies, including some “deep dives” to show off expert knowledge. Finally, you want to conclude your talk on a broad scale similar to your introduction. The dashed lines indicate flexibility in how many specific studies you incorporate into your talk, based upon your own research portfolio.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1007163.g001

In addition to presenting on your past and ongoing research, you need to clearly articulate your plan for your future research program. Tell the audience (and your potential future colleagues!) about your vision for your research lab both in the immediate future (next couple of years) and in the long term (5–10 years from now). This should also help differentiate you and your research from your previous mentors and their research programs. A critical part of establishing and maintaining a research program is your ability to generate funding. If you have already secured funding for your future research plans or you have a track record of successfully acquiring funding, then this is a great opportunity to bring this to your audience’s attention. If you don’t have independent funding yet, you can still demonstrate your awareness of the funding landscape and which funding opportunities are likely to support your research program. For example, in your future directions section, you might briefly touch on how one (or more) of your research questions aligns well with promising funding opportunities in your field, such as open research grants.

In organizing the structure of your talk and your transitions between topics, strive for a cohesive narrative that will make your talk more enjoyable to follow and easier to recall afterwards. What’s the progression of your research? How did one study lead to the next, and what shaped your decisions about how to proceed? What ideas do you have for future research at this new job? Telling a story is always a great way to keep your audience engaged and makes your science more memorable.

Rule 6: Give a good talk

A classic early paper in this series [ 5 ] provides ten useful rules for giving a good presentation. Read it! Showing you are a competent oral communicator is a vital component of giving an academic job talk. In addition to the universal suggestions from [ 5 ] (such as practicing for fluidity without over-rehearsing, making eye contact with the audience, and being enthusiastic and excited about your work), there are a few other pointers to bear in mind for a job talk. First, be aware that your job talk will be judged as an indicator of your ability to teach. Teaching is a crucial element of most academic jobs, but interview schedules often don’t allow time to address it explicitly, so this doubles your incentive to give a clear and engaging presentation. Bonus points if you are able to expand people’s understanding of technical aspects of your work—for instance, with a lucid explanation of your deep dive. Second, the job talk is a direct measure of your ability to sell your work and to act as an ambassador for the department in your future speaking engagements. Third, Rule 4 from [ 5 ] is “Make the take-home message persistent,” and this is a particular priority in the swirl of an academic search in which four or five candidates may visit over the span of a few weeks. We found that a strong thematic structure, including outline and summary slides, was an effective way to emphasize and reiterate your key points and make them memorable for the audience.

Our next three pointers are more pragmatic, but they are still useful to consider. First, be sure to ask for guidance on talk length if you’re unsure. For an hour-long seminar, the actual presentation length is typically 45–50 minutes, allowing for the fact that your host may burn precious minutes introducing you, and being certain to leave time for questions. Second, you should also make sure you understand the audiovisual equipment setup in the room where you are giving your presentation. If there isn’t seminar preparation time on your schedule, ask for it! This way, you can ensure your presentation is loaded properly, your presentation slides appear how you expect, and you are able to navigate through them without glitches. It is a good idea to save your presentation in multiple formats in case you encounter compatibility issues with the primary format (e.g., if your presentation is in PowerPoint, also save a PDF backup version). Third, don’t give your presentation while hungry. You want to exude energy and confidence, which may be difficult if you give a seminar later in the afternoon after many meetings and haven’t eaten since lunch—so take note of your schedule and, if necessary, bring a snack to revive your energy levels before your talk.

The pragmatic pointers we mentioned are great for planning ahead, but overall, you should be adaptable. Problems can arise unexpectedly, and it’s possible you’ll be delayed by interruptions or a lengthy introduction. Do your best to not get flustered, to handle yourself with grace, and to end your talk on time. Make a note of places in your talk where you can go into greater depth if you’re running ahead of schedule or places (particularly toward the end) where you can skim over the details more quickly if you’re behind schedule.

Rule 7: Be kind to your audience’s eyes

Your slides should enhance your presentation, not distract from what you are saying. Make sure your slide aesthetics are appealing to the audience. Your slides should be clear and concise, without too much text. When you have text-heavy slides, you lose some proportion of your audience’s attention while they read the text instead of listening to your words. So only display text that emphasizes the key points you will say out loud. Also, since the figures and images you present are especially important, you will want to construct figures specifically for your slides, keeping in mind that formatting for a presentation is typically different from formatting for a published paper. Refer to Box 1 for additional advice on qualities of good slides and common mistakes to avoid. You should also check out [ 5 , 6 ] for additional advice, noting that the rules in [ 6 ] are not specific to figures for presentations.

Box 1. Qualities of good slides versus slide qualities to be avoided

Slide qualities to aim for:

• ○. Minimal text.
• ○. Figures that are readable and easily understood.
• ○. Figures created specifically for talks (rather than pulled directly from a paper). Talk figures are generally simpler than figure panels from a paper, with fewer items per plot, a focus on the key points, larger labels and axes, etc. Avoid having to tell your audience to ignore parts of the figure by remaking the figure without extraneous information.
• ○. If you have a complicated figure, you can animate your slides to build up the complexity as you explain it to the audience. For example, you can start by showing only a very simple plot and then layer on additional pieces of information as you explain them.
• ○. Clean background.
• ○. Consistent design throughout the talk.
• ○. Color-blind-friendly color palettes or alternative ways to distinguish differences on figures besides just color (e.g., using dotted versus solid lines to represent different measures in a plot).
• ○. Simple visual markers (silhouettes or clip art) that link ideas across slides and jog your audience’s memory (e.g., a human silhouette next to parameters estimated from human data and a mouse silhouette next to data estimated from mice).

Slide qualities to avoid:

• Too much text.
• Text that’s too small to read or overlaid on an image so that it’s not legible.
• Busy background (e.g., photograph) that distracts from the text and/or figures you’re showing on the slide.
• Figures with no or unreadable axis labels.
• Poor color combinations, including combinations that are difficult for color-blind viewers to make out (e.g., red/green, blue/green).
• Visual markers that don’t convey any meaningful information, such as changing fonts and background colors. Even minor inconsistencies are distracting and convey a lack of attention to detail.

Rule 8: Embody the future

Remember that you are the exciting next generation of scientists! Make sure to share your enthusiasm and your fresh ideas for research. Emphasize how your work is new and innovative, whether by showing new solutions to old problems or by describing ways to approach problems that have only recently been recognized. If appropriate, highlight how you will harness the latest technologies and methodological developments to advance your research. This will get the audience thinking about applications to their own research programs and how you’d be a valuable colleague to have around.

You can also emphasize other forward-looking traits you would bring to the job. Maybe you have developed a new online resource or are using a new mentoring or teaching style that helps make research more broadly accessible for students. Find ways to showcase how you are moving science forward and how you’ll be a dynamic force for years to come.

Rule 9: Don’t blow it in the question-and-answer session

You’re almost done with your job talk, so don’t blow it during the question-and-answer (Q&A) session! You want to leave your audience with the best final impression and show that you can think and speak clearly in unscripted moments.

Here are some tips for a strong finish. When someone asks you a question, it can be helpful to paraphrase the question before beginning your answer. This gives you some extra time to compose your own thoughts and make sure you understood the question and ensures the rest of the audience hears the question. Regarding your actual responses, one cardinal rule is to never bluff. If you don’t know the answer, you can say so, but then show how you would think through the question, or relate it to something you have done or know about. If somebody voices a fair criticism, then acknowledge it and discuss approaches to addressing it. If you can, convey enthusiasm in this situation—if it’s truly an idea you’ve never considered, then treat this as an exciting and valuable scientific exchange, not an oral exam you are failing.

Remember that your audience likely includes people from outside your area of expertise, so it is possible you will get questions that seem to have missed key ideas from your talk. As with all questions, make sure you understand what the questioner is asking, and then take advantage of the opportunity to address any misunderstandings in a respectful, productive way. This is a great chance to demonstrate your ability to explain concepts clearly and concisely.

If there are predictable follow-up questions to your presentation, it can be helpful to have a few extra slides prepared. For example, if you presented a mathematical model using a schematic diagram, you may want to have a backup slide that shows the actual equations in case someone asks for more detail. If there is an extra data set or analysis that you’d love to include but just don’t have the time, then a spare slide or two might enable you to deliver a home-run response if you get asked the right question.

Finally, remember to handle yourself with grace during the Q&A session. Be poised, calm, and respectful, and demonstrate your intellectual maturity—all of these are qualities people admire and are seeking in a future colleague. Another past article in this series gives rules for building your scientific reputation [ 7 ]; Rules 1, 2, and 3 are useful during both the Q&A session and the whole interview process! Which brings us to Rule 10.

Rule 10: Be professional

Throughout this whole process, remember you are asking the host department to hire you as a (hopefully) long-term colleague in a small, tight-knit unit. Therefore, it is important to present a good image of yourself. You should dress appropriately for your job talk (i.e., not too casually). Even if you end up being a bit overdressed, it is better to leave that impression rather than showing up underdressed and being remembered as not having taken the job talk seriously. Be conscious of your body language and use of slang throughout your job talk and in any interactions you have during your visit. Humor can be a wonderful way to humanize and enliven your talk, but don’t overdo it, and steer well clear of anything potentially offensive. While you are answering questions, or if you happen to be interrupted during your talk, remember to show yourself in the best light by being polite and calm, even if an audience member is being confrontational or rude.

You are an amazing and productive scientist (you wouldn’t have been invited to give a job talk if you weren’t!), but it’s important to be clear about your specific contributions to the various research projects you present, particularly when the research is part of a big collaboration. It’s essential to acknowledge your collaborators, especially junior mentees. This shows your audience that you are ready to mentor undergraduates, graduates, postdocs, etc., and most importantly, that you do not take collaborators’ contributions for granted or claim them as your own. It’s also good practice to acknowledge relevant previous work that your research and ideas are building upon, as you never know who is in your audience, and you don’t want anyone to feel you are uninformed about or taking credit for this prior research. Again, you’re asking to be hired into an academic family, and you want your new family members to be comfortable and excited about pursuing new research opportunities with you.

Finally, it is a nice touch to write thank-you notes after your visit (but see Rule 10 from [ 3 ] for an alternative opinion). These notes can be sent by email within a few days after the end of your job interview. How many you send is up to you, but we suggest sending follow-up notes to at least the search chair and the other key players in your interview visit. And don’t forget about all the people who helped coordinate the logistical details for your visit!

In summary, the academic job talk is unlike most other seminars in its goals, context, and aspects of its execution. We have outlined some rules to help you put your best face forward in the job market (and to help all of us get the most out of the job search experience). There are additional resources online (e.g., [ 8 ] and [ 9 ] as two examples), and people should glean whatever insights they can from these sources. So do your preparation, nail the talk, and go get that job!

Acknowledgments

This paper arose from discussions in a graduate seminar course jointly led by KEL and JOL-S. We thank other participants in the course including Katie Gostic, Natalie Lozano, and Bernard Kim for their thoughts on these topics.

• View Article
• PubMed/NCBI
• Google Scholar
• 8. Reis RM. Giving a job talk in the sciences. 30 March 2011 [cited 2019 May 15]. In: The Chronicle of Higher Education [Internet]. Available from: https://www.chronicle.com/article/Giving-a-Job-Talk-in-the/45375 .
• 9. Aguilar SJ. Tips for a successful job talk. 10 January 2018 [cited 2019 May 15]. In: Inside Higher Ed [Internet]. Available from https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/01/10/advice-giving-effective-job-presentation-opinion .

Blog » Best Posts , General

9 Career Day Speech and Presentation Ideas (2024)

Last updated: September 22, 2024

I was a speaker at an elementary school career day. When I received the invite, I had no idea what to talk about.

What should I say? What questions should I ask?

How should I structure my speech? What were some presentation ideas?

Now I know. And I will tell you everything that I learned.

These are the best tips, tricks, and advice for speakers at an elementary school career day.

The speech and presentation ideas are collected from educators, colleagues, friends, and my own experience. You’ll read in this article about my learnings from hosting a career day, including:

• How to write your speech
• What things to bring (props)
• How to interact with the kids, and more.

Table of Contents

Introduction

My girlfriend invited me to speak to her 2nd grade class at their Career Day.

I immediately thought: How do I speak to children? What do elementary school kids want to hear at a Career Day?

What I learned is that there are many differences in speaking to kids compared to speaking to adults .

You should be aware of the following:

• The kids were very participative. They gave many more questions and interactions and interruptions than I’ve ever had with an adult audience.
• If I was asking a question to the audience and getting answers from multiple people, I had to remind each student of the question. In a presentation to adults, if I ask a question, I can just point at different adults and quickly get multiple answers around the room. Today I found that I had to repeat the question each time I pointed at a new student in order to help them remember what I was specifically asking for.
• The kids all sat on the floor. To raise engagement levels, it was helpful for me to also sit on the floor or in a small chair.

Best Career Day Tips

Here are my best tips that you can use when writing your speech or presentation.

Write your speech with simple language

But don’t “talk down” to the kids in class, even at an elementary school.

Be prepared to answer questions.

The students will be very curious! They had a LOT of questions for me.

Have Good Stories Ready

You should also have good stories that you can tell about situations at work which describe your daily duties.

I received lots of tips and advice for my own talk from my network. Here at the best tips that I used:

• Sit At Their Level

Sit at their level. Either on a little chair or on the floor. Grownups can be scary! — Jason Hackett

• Bring Props

My friend Jarrod suggested that I bring some props. I brought large printed examples of some objects at the museum.

Props are a great way to keep the students engaged and allow them to look at and fiddle with something while they’re speaking with you. — Ecka

• Have High Energy / Be Excited

I think my girlfriend told me this: Get excited! Kids can feel the energy. Be animated and expressive with my body and face.

My friend Danielle said: “Be silly, yet firm.”

Ask the Students Questions

This was one of the best pieces of advice, and a lot of people suggested it.

Make sure there is a back and forth. Ask them questions, encourage them to ask questions. — Sarah Marsom

Ask tons of questions. I start by asking them if they have ever been on a field trip and then explain that I plan field trips for adults. — Theresa

Ask questions throughout!!! It will empower them to feel like they are part of the conversation and promote active listening throughout!!! — Camellia

Questions That I Asked

• Who here has ever been to a museum? (raise your hand)
• Who can name a museum in New York City?
• What are some things that you find inside of a museum?
• Entrepreneurship: If you were going to sell something to your friends, what would you sell and why?
• Interactive Play

Think about a game or activity about your job. Allow the children to role play as if they are in a day of your career.

• Bring a Box of Snacks

Check with the teachers beforehand to get approval or dietary restrictions, but this can be a big win! Kids love snacks.

Tell a lot of stories about your job

Kids also love stories. Imagine you’re telling a bedtime story: how would you talk about your career? What is one of your favorite memories from work? What was it like when you first started your job?

Give the students examples

One of the things kids can relate to is toys. Bringing up one of the best toys like SLIME can surely make the whole class excited! Ask them what type of slimes would they like to put if they have a Slime Museum?

Give out handouts or prizes

Do you have any brochures from your job that you can pass around, ideally with photos?

Are there objects that you could pass around the room?

Bring those to your career day speech to make it more interactive.

Sample Career Day Speech

Here’s what you could say for a sample career day speech. It is based on my own presentation to a group of 2nd graders when I introduced myself as a museum tour guide.

Hello everyone! My name is Nick Gray and I am a museum tour guide. Who here has ever been to a museum? Raise your hand if you’ve ever been to a museum before. My job is to be a museum tour guide. That means I walk people around as a guide at an art museum. I tell them about the works of art. Who has ever seen a paining before? Raise your hand if you have ever seen a painting. Keep your hands up. I am going to call on someone now to ask you about what painting you saw, or what you remember. (ask a few students about any painting they have seen before, and what they liked about it) The times that I work for my job are 10AM to 6PM every day. Sometimes I even have to work on Saturday and Sundays, because those are very busy days at the museum. Do you think you would want to work on the weekend? My favorite parts about my job are meeting new people, and doing research about the new works of art. To do my job, you have to be very good at talking to people. Who here likes talking to people? Raise you hand if you like talking to people.

Presentation Feedback

In two of the classes that I spoke to, I asked the teachers to fill out these “Comment Cards” for my career day presentation. I love to get feedback whenever I speak.

Class 1 — It was effective when:

• Positive narrating good behavior.
• Contextualizing your occupation with a fun launch that engaged kiddos.
• The harmonica was captivating!
• Introducing pieces from the museum, but pushing kiddos to inquir & think critically of the pieces.

Class 2 — It was effective when:

• You brought resources.
• You brought tons of enthusiasm!
• Gave many opportunities for the kids to speak and share.
• Good job sounds! (That was when I played my harmonica.)

Areas for improvement:

• Limiting students called on for each question in the interest of time (time conflicts that are not your fault, though). Nick’s note: I can certainly improve a lot here. There were just SO MANY kids wanting to participate. I didn’t want to make kids feel left out by not calling on them, so I think I tried to call on everyone. This wasted a lot of valuable time.
• I have lots more things that I could improve on! But the teachers were too nice not to critique me more.

Presenting at Career Day as an elementary school speaker was challenging, rewarding, and fun.

In summary, my best advice for career day speakers is:

• Ask Them Questions
• Tell A Lot Of Stories
• Give The Students Examples They Can Relate To
• Give Out Handouts Or Prizes

I have a newfound respect for teachers at all grade levels. To deal with so many active students for hours every day… wow. It was tiring after one hour and I can’t imagine a whole day of being “on” like that.

What advice do you have for someone who is presenting to elementary school kids on Career Day? Send me an email and let me know.

Thank you to KIPP Infinity in Harlem for inviting me to speak, Zach for organizing and managing the morning, Rachel for proof-reading this post and inviting me, and all my friends on my private Facebook who gave tips and advice.  

Video Example of Teaching Style

This is the best video I found online showing classroom management by a teacher. It was helpful to watch and try to emulate some of these things when I presented to the students for Career Day.

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