When does it make sense to require presentations in interviews?

It makes sense to require an interview presentation if you need to assess a candidate’s skill in one of the following areas:

• Public speaking
• Presentation design
• Sales
• Teaching/coaching

Public speaking

Even if the presentation lasts just two or three minutes, you can get an idea of how well the candidate uses verbal and nonverbal communication to get their point across. You can also use presentations in interviews to determine if a candidate excels at engaging audience members, answering questions and adapting to feedback.

For example, imagine you’re hiring an ambassador for a nonprofit organization. An important job duty is to go out and share the nonprofit’s mission with potential donors. Requiring an interview presentation makes it easier to determine if a candidate has the professional presence and public speaking skills needed to excel in the role.

Presentation design

It makes sense to require an interview presentation if you need to hire someone with advanced presentation program skills, such as PowerPoint. You could look at examples of each candidate’s previous work, but a good way to confirm their skills is by asking them to prepare a short presentation.

If you decide to require an interview presentation, look for evidence of solid design skills. The candidate should make appropriate font choices, insert visually appealing images and leave plenty of negative space to prevent audience members from getting overwhelmed with information.

If the presentation contains charts and graphs, review them carefully to make sure the candidate used appropriate data labels and chose the right format.

Sales

Whether your employees make outbound calls or head out on the road to make pitches, a sales pitch is really just another type of presentation. With this in mind, it’s appropriate to ask your top sales job candidates to develop and deliver a presentation as part of the interview process.

During each presentation, listen for signs that the candidate excels at conducting audience research, understands your company’s target market and knows how to overcome objections during the sales process.

Teaching/coaching

If you decide to use presentations in interviews, it’s helpful to assign a topic so that every candidate starts on an even playing field. Assigned topics are especially helpful if you’re hiring for teaching and coaching roles, as they give you insight into how a candidate approaches lesson planning.

For example, if you’re hiring a science teacher, you can ask each candidate to prepare a 15-minute lesson on using three common pieces of lab equipment. During each presentation, note whether the candidate gives clear instructions and pauses to make sure audience members understand one step before moving on to the next.

Tips for holding successful interview presentations

If you decide to incorporate presentations into your interview process, there are a few things you can do to make each presentation go smoothly.

Assemble a panel of audience members

It may feel unrealistic to deliver a formal presentation to just one person. To put candidates in a more realistic scenario, make sure you have at least two or three additional people in the room during the presentation portion of the interview. Try to include at least one person familiar with the job opening. They can use their knowledge to provide helpful feedback, making it a little easier for you to make a hiring decision.

Provide working equipment

If you expect candidates to use computers, projectors, speakers or other audiovisual equipment, make sure you have each item on hand. It’s not reasonable to require candidates to bring their own equipment, and you may also run into compatibility issues between what a candidate brings and what your office is set up to accommodate.

Before the presentations begin, test each piece of equipment and make sure each works properly. Do this a few days in advance, or you may not have enough time to replace broken equipment or make needed repairs. If you can’t get something working, let the candidate know they’ll need to adjust their presentations accordingly.

Assign topics, if possible

During interviews, it’s common to ask every candidate the same set of questions to make it easier to compare their responses. The same holds true for presentation topics. If everyone presents on a different subject, it’s difficult to assign an objective score.

Assigning presentation topics also takes some stress out of the process. Instead of having to think up a topic, candidates can work on designing their slide decks or outlining what they plan to say.

Give clear instructions

Give candidates plenty of information about the presentation, such as how long it should be, what topic it should cover and what visual aids, if any, you want them to use. If you don’t give clear instructions, you have much less control over the process.

Establish realistic requirements

When you establish presentation requirements, make sure they’re realistic. Base your expectations on the amount of time available for each presentation, the assigned topic and your company’s audiovisual capabilities.

If you ask a candidate to give a presentation interview two days later, it’s unrealistic to expect an hour-long exploration of current trends in your industry. To maintain your company’s positive reputation, you should avoid asking candidates to work on your business problems or deliver work that stakeholders could use.

Keep the room comfortable

For most people, giving a presentation is stressful. You can make the experience a little better by creating a comfortable environment. If the presentation is in-person, set the thermostat to a reasonable temperature, have bottled water on hand and take other steps to put candidates at ease before, during and after their interview presentations.

When should you use other assessment tools?

Requiring presentations in interviews makes sense when you’re looking for team members with specific skills. However, asking every candidate to do a presentation for interview sessions isn’t the best way to gather hiring data.

For example, if the role requires technical skills, it’s better to require a coding test or other type of skills assessment. If you’re hiring support staff who won’t be involved in teaching, public speaking or sales, you may benefit more from using one of these assessment methods:

• In-basket exercises: An in-basket exercise helps you assess a candidate’s ability to solve problems, delegate tasks and perform other critical job duties. For example, you may ask administrative assistant candidates to prioritize a list of tasks based on specific criteria. 
• Skills assessments: Skills assessments help you collect objective data about each candidate’s skills. For example, administering a typing test is a good way to determine if a secretarial candidate meets the job’s minimum requirements. 
• Cognitive ability tests: A cognitive ability test helps determine if a candidate can use cognitive abilities to perform the essential functions of a job. Cognitive tests may include questions related to logic, verbal reasoning and numerical reasoning.