I would think its weird and gimmicky. Oh, and a suggestion: I know several folks on here have commented on previous threads that they have had good experiences with their college career centers. PP presentations are fine if you actually have something worthwhile to present such as a portfolio of work in one of the art or communication fields. The laws help to ensure fair and open competition, recruitment from all segments of society, and selection on the basis of the applicants’ competencies or knowledge, skills, and abilities. But for a recent graduate who is using it as a different resume format it doesn’t work and it is strange. “Why yes, your master’s degree in folklore is incredible applicable to giving career advice to accounting students.”. Demonstrating your PowerPoint skills is essentially the same as taking a typing test at your interview. should PowerPoint experience be a determining factor in the hiring process? I think the best part of my college career centre was bringing alumni who had graduated from the same program and were now successful and their various fields. I’m not in a field or anything where portfolios are standard, but I have several project deliverables that look great and professional and were done in their entirety by me (so I’m not taking credit/usinganother’s work without permission). Hiring for fit, or more accurately, attitude, has become something I’ve espoused closely over the years. Apparently nothing has changed there since I left in 2000. When you have to choose between a candidate with experience and one without, it often makes sense to choose the former. Totally agree, Jen. Oh, and OP, why did you let the job applicant control the interview and instead, not take over and put a halt to this PowerPoint nonsense? Since career counselors do so much presenting in terms of workshops and class presentations, we require everyone to do a presentation. Provided by: JackD3. Using pre-employment assessments to find the hidden potential that you can't see in the traditional hiring process is key. ! Re my uni career office. They usually get hired because they already have experience working with students – but surely that doesn’t translate over to being able to advise about job searching. But wouldn’t the interviewer have to allow a person to hijack the interview? Same thing with Word/Excel/Outlook/Microsoft Office/Internet skills. 4. 2) The four most important PowerPoint rules for successful presentations. That way you can stick within a set theme. All those things should be the requirements for consideration, but not the determining factors for hire. This is especially true if you don’t have the budget or time to train new employees. Use the application to screen applicants-screen for skills and experience. Interviewer to recent grad interviewee: That’s a bad newbie! They need to use it quite often during appraisals, hiring process, induction of new recruits, policy change announcements etc. should job candidates bring PowerPoint presentations to interviews? I have used a career portfolio with some success. One slide has text that spins and bounces, another has bright blue text on a yellow background, each slide cuts to the next with a different obnoxious transition, and so on. Training sometimes, or if it’s a position where preparing such things are normal. Determine what is needed. My husband has a name-domain with his resume parked on it. Do you bring your own laptop and projector? It seems weird to base a power point almost entirely on the candidate’s resume and cover letter. Lastly, written tests are given to also determine job performance skills. Presentations can be useful when they (a) are requested, so you know the interviewer actually wants to spend part of the meeting time that way or (b) contain useful information that couldn’t be presented in any other way. thank you, college, for helping me dodge that bullet.). Every single piece of advice given to me was everything AAM advises AGAINST! It is a CD with all my publications, including a book, project deliverables (unless confidential), and some odds and ends. The goal of this stage in the hiring process is to determine if it makes economic sense to fill the position. A PowerPoint deck seems weird. No, this is not a good idea for most positions. The initial […] There are a few ways to help you decide. weekend open thread – December 19-20, 2020, update: I reported my sexist team to HR — and now they’re doing a much bigger investigation than I wanted, updates: the unreasonable hiring process, the blown interview, and more. Blind hiring can actually hinder diversity in hiring. I could see someone getting confused if they haven’t gone through the training and try to present the portfolio as a presentation. I’d have believed the silly professor too. It was great fun to make, I have to admit. Having worked in a mixed Mac/PC environment (shudder), I know how hard it can be to use Keynote on a PC. I worked at the career center as part of my work study and most of the focus for students (aside from the ubiquitous career inventories and personality tests) was getting basic resume, cover letter and interview skills without any of the gimmicks that I have read here. They come from a variety of backgrounds. Invest in an employee’s onboarding process to ensure they’re properly trained, educated and connected to the company from the onset. Our applicants for professor positions have to give a 45-minute lecture to the students and faculty, and most of them use PowerPoint or some other form of presentation software. There are hundreds of online tutorials that can help – make use of them! The average hiring process is 42 days long, according to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM.) Hiring Process Steps for 2020 | SmartRecruitersSmartRecruiters A recent applicant brought a PowerPoint deck to an interview that basically walked through a presentation of her resume, information about herself, and why we should hire her. The information in the form of scores or grades can then be used for hiring process. It didn’t replace the actual “interview”, it was in addition. 4) For the last time, Google is NOT our competition in libraries. I don’t know if that’s common in consulting or not, but I think it may be. It started when one job asked for examples of prior work and I’ve been tweaking it since. PowerPoint just happens to be more accessible and/or user friendly to those who don’t know how to create a proper presentation. Organizations hope to find strong talent that fits the culture and will work well with existing teams. ... Checklist for Hiring Employees . The recruitment process should be streamlined so each staff member has the tools and resources they need for their step in the process. Look at the actual value of previous experiences. If I need to make a hiring decision I’d much rather have a succint 1-2 page résumé and cover letter in front of me than a ppt presentation up on the wall or a booklet of ppt slides. So I’m not surprised – but sorry -that you had a less than stellar experience at your ivy league school. All those things should be the requirements for consideration, but not the determining factors for hire. Factors Influencing Recruitment Process. Here in Ireland, I’ve seen job postings here requesting Powerpoints for media/advertisting/marketing vacancies, FWIW. I would just say no if someone tried to pull that one on me or launch into a Kevin Hart-inspired rant: “see, the way our presentation room is set-up….”. Don’t hire me because I am the cheapest or the most expensive or anything in-between. What was interesting was that all of the answers boiled down to five main hiring challenges. My husband works in advertising and he’s interviewed people who put together a powerpoint of their work and shared that and he’s done that for jobs he’s interviewed for. 6) A file format decision tree for saving PowerPoint presentations. would be able to ask questions about which slide you are on, if they had any. interviewer asked what I’d do with a live elephant, coworker doesn’t think I should take vacation, and more, updates: the treats, the fake tooth, and more. The interview process will determine communications skills as well as job performance abilities. Should PowerPoint experience be a determining factor in the hiring process? Looking at the process as a whole and find the steps that can be eliminated. We also sometimes experience a challenge attracting candidates with managerial/recruiting backgrounds who want to transition to working in a higher ed environment, especially given the likely pay cut to do so. What other explanation is there for them giving out bad advice about things they have little to no experience with? Oh good lord, were they useless. Or similarly, what about the whole making the resume super fancy now… with graphics… is that something you think will sweep all industries as we move towards more enhanced visual capabilities (in regards to computers being able to generate the resume v. a typewriter if you go way back, or even just MACs with superior graphic capability compared to say… an older Windows machine…). ;) It demos my deliverables; it doesn’t reproduce my cover leter/resume except in that it demonstrates things discussed in them and contains my contact info. But what’s key for this type of work is having a lot of experience managing and hiring. Certainly not for positions that most recent grads would be applying for, and certainly not if all that’s in the presentation is a summary of the person’s resume and why they think they should be hired. We also have someone with a law degree and someone else with a PhD in French Lit! PowerPoint is a 23 year old program. There are certainly those who believe that blind hiring is just a fad and that, in the long term, it will not have staying power. There is nothing modern or cutting edge about having skills with PowerPoint . The Cons of Blind Hiring. Of course, outside the science industry and academia, this would not be especially helpful or sane to do. The possibility for massive disaster in both of these styles wold probably be bad for interviews though. For example, cost per hire depends on hiring … It makes my day that you got that reference! As a psych major, this comment made my morning. do job-seekers really need an elevator pitch? Though I should point out that PhD also has a counseling degree. There’s actually quite a bit of counseling in our roles and tends to go beyond the most obvious job search pieces, including choosing/changing majors, using career assessments and inventories, facilitating decisions, helping students work through values/interest conflicts, and similar topics. Explain your reasoning. It can feel overwhelming and some key factors may slip through the cracks. If a presentation was a part of the interview, it would be included as well. I would hire her just to keep me amused. But I was given an assignment for the second round interviews at my current job and completed the assignment using pp and gave a brief presentation at the interview. Yeah – I have to say that this is common in academia and therefore probably why the professor suggested it. Between the expectation that we were capable of creating power point presentations for my interpersonal communications class (it was a requirement to pass but wasn’t listed as a prerequisite for the class or anything else! I am currently hiring for a new career advisor and the applications that I received were horrible. If you google my full real name, you get a certified secondary English instructor. You may also look at whether the team's workload merits a new hire. PowerPoint is a 23-year old program still used extensively in the corporate world. Would you recommend creating one? I’m considering going for a higher degree. (Meymbrose,2016) (Smith,2016) No, this is not a good idea for most positions. That would be impossible, especially given the number of majors/programs at our institution and potential jobs in the world. (I think this is referred to “I am the world” thinking). My husband is in PR as well, and he does interview with a PP presentation for the reasons you listed above. I have offered to send portfolios after interviews as part of my followup, and one time did it before instead of trying to do a screensharing session. No, I don’t think PowerPoint should be a key factor in the hiring process. But can reviewing someone’s social media put you in a difficult legal situation? This will be related to the job itself, though, not just a PowerPoint version of your resume and/or talking points. ... How long should the hiring process be? I would think you’d be more interested in hiring someone with a successful and diverse background in hiring and managing. 3. Thankfully, good leadership changed that culture at the institution before I got there, but it was recent enough then to still be mentioned to me when I started. As you answer this question, think about the consequences for a company when information is presented with issues and slides are misused. Every single interview that professor has participated in probably involved a presentation. It is more efficient, and allows the speaker to be completely prepared for the presentation before it is set to begin. :-(. As someone with an advanced degree in college counseling (not career advising though), I think the rationale is that career counselors do more than tell students how to format their resume and what to say during an interview. Original, huh. that have had to do presentations. Everyone who interviews at my company does a presentation (does not have to be Powerpoint). The interview process will determine communications skills as well as job performance abilities. I think the biggest detriment, though, was the terrible formatting, use of graphics, etc. If you’re assuming that a tight job market means that an employer doesn’t have to exert much effort to fill its open positions, think again. !”, That presentations are the standard for the academic world and thus *obviously* must be standard everywhere? Don’t hire me because I am the cheapest or the most expensive or anything in-between. Here are those five biggest hiring challenges we all seem to be facing today, along with what each expert specifically shared about each challenge: 3. Also, they. The hiring process is, in a way, like dating. You need to have searched the Internet and compiled every piece of bad career advice in the universe that you then are required to pass on to students. You may have heard the old saying “hire for fit, teach skills.” And, it’s genuinely true. I’ve sat in on an interview for a PR Director where he did a great powerpoint on his experience, his PR philosophy and highlights of his best work. It’s possible he/she has heard it not only from the school but also a parent or older sibling who’s in the creative world and thought it would be a good way to make extra impact since things are so competitive out there. Candidates also don’t present their “resume” but more technical details on projects they’ve worked on in the past. Creating a PowerPoint presentation is an important process for businesses looking to produce a presentation once and make it available infinitely. People seem to like it, which did surprise me. Look at the actual value of previous experiences. The career centre, specifically, was only helpful in finding on campus jobs. But I have to say – and I work in a college career center – what are students doing asking their professors for job search advice anyway? I’d never heard of it, and I don’t know if I’m a fan or not. The only time I’ve heard of a company asking for a presentation, was for a training position, they asked someone to prepare a 15 minute class on one of 5 subjects. 1. Maybe it’s because I used to hire in industry before I moved to higher education, but the practice of asking faculty for job search advice really doesn’t make much sense to me at all. You clearly need to be totally unqualified to hand out career advice in order to get a job as a counselor there. Slideshare, Google Docs, and Keynote are the low end. I thought so too. Money is (another) point of consideration, but (again) should not be the determining factor. Our interns are either graduate students or individuals making career transitions, we do not use undergrads to provide any services. Do you ask the employer for those? Also, to give PowerPoint its due, even the best program is going to come off looking bad if someone decides to use poor grpahics, illogical movements and 10 different fonts with too many words on a page. There are two types of non-executive positions in the federal government: 1) those that are in the competitive service, and 2) those that are in the excepted service. Why can't you just hire people and get going, and encourage them to learn on the job? I have found this to be very true. For most people, public speaking is akin to visiting the dentist: it’s unavoidable, though avoidance is preferable. It’s a way to show your presentation skills and a way to prove you can concisely show your research. During a job interviewing process don’t be surprised if you are asked to use PowerPoint presentation. Faculty, yes, but not staff. 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