Interview Presentation tips

[Greboth]

Hi all,

I've applied for a job in the Civil Service and been successful in getting an interview. As part of the interview, I have to give a 10 minute presentation on "Faced with a change to our processes that directly impacts our external stakeholders, what methods would you use to communicate this change"

I've done presenting and training in the past so I'm reasonably comfortable with doing it. But this is the first time I've needed to do it in an interview so is there anything specific I should consider with doing an interview presentation?

I've not worked for the team this job is but I've worked around it so I know who the stakeholders are and have a good idea of their processes already. So far, my timing for the presentation is about 7 minutes on the usual guff of communicating change; consider your target your audience and what will change for them, don't rely on emails alone, get feedback etc. with some specific example of previous changes the department the job is in has gone through as I'm assuming this is what the prompt really means than the literal method of communication being a list of email or speak to them on the phone or in person which would be a short presentation.

Lastly, most presentations I've done in the past have been on larger changes or training so a Q&A at the end makes sense. Part of the role is going to be presenting so I feel I should include a Q&A as I would normally though it kinda seems a weird addition for an interview giving the general purpose of an interview is to ask me, the interviewee, questions.

 

[HangTime]

Q&A is not weird, they will want the opportunity to ask/challenge you about something you've presented (rather than a stock interview question), and this is a good thing not a bad thing because it gives you an opportunity to show how you handle questions on the fly.

Remember the 5Ws i.e. explaining how you will address:
What is changing?
Why is it changing? [this sometimes gets overlooked - typically I deliver this as background scene-setting]
Who is impacted?
hoW are they impacted?
When is it happening?

Also keep in mind they are specifically talking about EXTERNAL stakeholders, so you might want to throw in something about understanding how those stakeholders typically interact with the organisation - if you are a random person they have never heard of you might need a slightly different approach [using channels they are familiar with] rather than just being contacted as a trusted partner you have worked with for years.

 

[Greboth]

@HangTime Thank you for the advice, you raise a good point about a time for specific questions relating to the presentation.

I had mostly covered the 5 W's but reading your post, I think I need to more clearly relay them.

Regarding the interaction with the organisation, One stakeholder is where all the work comes from them and in one form or another, they're contacted multiple times a day every day. Whereas the others are vary from every few months to once in a year or two. So my current plan is to focus on the one stakeholder for discussing the different ways to deal with proactive changes or changes we're reacting to. Followed by a 'most of this applies to other external stakeholders but here's some of the differences for other stakeholders' discussion.

 

[dlockers]

I think in interview you need to be on top form like you were during your driving test. If you were anything like me, those head tilts to check the mirrors were abundantly clear and quite exaggerated

Edit: For your stakeholder post above, you may want to refer to other things in your toolkit like persona mapping, behavioural science, a/b testing...

 

[Amplus]

Hi all,

I've applied for a job in the Civil Service and been successful in getting an interview. As part of the interview, I have to give a 10 minute presentation on "Faced with a change to our processes that directly impacts our external stakeholders, what methods would you use to communicate this change"

I've done presenting and training in the past so I'm reasonably comfortable with doing it. But this is the first time I've needed to do it in an interview so is there anything specific I should consider with doing an interview presentation?

I've not worked for the team this job is but I've worked around it so I know who the stakeholders are and have a good idea of their processes already. So far, my timing for the presentation is about 7 minutes on the usual guff of communicating change; consider your target your audience and what will change for them, don't rely on emails alone, get feedback etc. with some specific example of previous changes the department the job is in has gone through as I'm assuming this is what the prompt really means than the literal method of communication being a list of email or speak to them on the phone or in person which would be a short presentation.

Lastly, most presentations I've done in the past have been on larger changes or training so a Q&A at the end makes sense. Part of the role is going to be presenting so I feel I should include a Q&A as I would normally though it kinda seems a weird addition for an interview giving the general purpose of an interview is to ask me, the interviewee, questions.

Well done to get this far.

Out of interest any tips for the application stage? These civil service application forms are a nightmare. So much to fill in, unsure what exactly they are after. Each question is like an essay.