I’ve listened to a few job presentations recently. These are talks – usually fairly short, say 15 minutes – that candidates for academic jobs are asked to give to the department they’re hoping to join, as part of the selection process. Sometimes you’re asked to talk about your current research and future plans, and sometimes you’re asked to give an example of how you’d teach. Sometimes the interview panel is in the room, sometimes they’re not and they get feedback on your talk from the audience via a rapporteur. The talk is usually followed by a question and answer session. They are tricky to get right, so I thought I’d share a few tips.
As with my other post about how to write your cv and covering letter when applying for jobs, which I’ve recently updated, these comments are based on my experience at research-intensive UK universities. So, here are my top tips for giving a presentation in that context. With a few personal preferences thrown in for good measure.
attend some job presentations before you need to do one yourself. Go and listen to presentations on any topic, and listen for how the talk is structured and delivered. While you listen, take some notes about what the different candidates are doing well and what they could improve on. Jot down any really good things that you think might work when you’re the one up there talking too. Look at those notes before you start working on your own presentation.
do what you’ve been asked to do. If you’ve been asked to talk about your research, don’t talk about your teaching, or your hobbies. (Ok, a brief research-related remark about the former is alright, but the latter might come over as a bit unserious.) If you’ve been asked to talk about future research plans as well as your current work, talk explicitly about your future research plans – have a slide in your presentation titled ‘future research plans’. Conversely, if you’ve been asked to demonstrate how you’d introduce a key disciplinary concept to an audience of first year undergraduates, do not give a summary of your research (yes I’ve seen that happen).
if it’s a research presentation, describe a research trajectory. In a research presentation, try to give a sense that you’re on a trajectory with it. That you started somewhere and now you’re somewhere a bit different and that there’ll be future developments too. Conveying a sense of energy and ongoing creativity always helps.
stick to time. Rehearse and rehearse and make sure you come in a minute or so under time. Do not go over time then ask the chair “how am I doing for time”. (Yes, I’ve seen that happen too.)
pitch your talk to your audience, actual or requested. If it’s a talk to first year undergraduates, make it simple and engaging. If it’s a research presentation, remember that there’ll be people in the audience who won’t know much about your area of research, so begin with some basic orientation explaining what your topic is about and why it matters to your subdiscipline or specialism, or why it has significant non-academic impact. This is not about metrics: it’s about ideas and findings and why they are important. Then you can get more detailed (and mention metrics if you have to). But try to be clear about what your core interests are and how they are significant – don’t get too caught up in empirical findings or long lists of specific grant projects. It’s the ideas that matter for the presentation, I think – your cv is the place for lists.
design a good powerpoint. The presentation gives you a chance to demonstrate your communication skills, so spend time on the powerpoint. Make it clear, not overloaded – remember you might be presenting on a fairly small screen. Images are good but only if they are relevant to your talk – random stock images are distracting.
use notes if you need to but make eye contact with your audience (at least a key moments). A script can help you manage nerves and keep to time – but write it to perform it. If you can, don’t just stand there and read it out in a monotone – make it lively and make sure you look at your audience sometimes. And I know we all do it, but try not to talk to the screen showing your powerpoint. The screen is not on the appointment panel and in any case does not care what you say to it.
do make it sound like you know what the job description is asking for. Often a job description will specify a particular teaching or research area, and maybe you framed your research in a particular way to land the interview. Make sure that your presentation continues that framing. Mention the research/teaching area specified in the job description explicitly.
say something that suggests you know something about the department you’re applying to. You might mention a research grouping or a strategic priority that you think your work aligns with, or some individuals whose work you admire and you’d like to collaborate with. But don’t overdo this. Unless you know the department and its work quite well, you might characterise it wrongly. But just indicating that you know something about the department you’re applying to is a nice touch.
don’t mention the REF. This might be just a bugbear of mine, but: the last REF is done and dusted, no-one knows how their research was evaluated for it, and the next REF is too far away to pre-empt.
think about what to wear. This is not the most important aspect of the process, and you need to feel authentic and comfortable, and clothing choices are massively loaded in all sorts of ways… so I’m not going to be prescriptive about a particular kind of clothing. The only recommendation I would make about dressing for an interview is: don’t wear anything you haven’t worn before. I went to an interview once in a dress I’d only worn in the changing room of the shop I’d bought it in, just standing there looking the mirror at it and thinking, great, that’ll do it. It wasn’t until I was on the bus to get the train to the interview that I realised just how far up the dress rode when I was sitting, which was well out of my comfort zone…
And finally, get more advice. Rehearse your presentation with your mentor or a supportive colleague who has experience sitting on interview panels, and see what they think. Get them to ask you a few questions and practise concise and thoughtful answers.
In general, the interview is going to be more important than the presentation you give. Nonetheless, you want to come over as strongly as possible to your potential new colleagues. I hope these tips are useful for achieving that.