How to give a successful job talk or teaching demo lesson
Congratulations! You have a job talk or teaching demo coming up.
That's a huge deal.
You’re probably feeling a mix of excitement and panic.
That’s okay. That’s normal and I’m here to help you through it.
Hi 👋 I’m Dr. Echo Rivera and I help academics, scientists, and educators create engaging presentations. The #1 reason clients book private training calls with me is for help with their job talk. That service is now only available to members of my online course, but I still wanted to help folks going through this process, so I decided to make a comprehensive guide publicly available.
This article will help you if you have:
Been invited to do your very first job talk or teaching demo.
Given a job talk/teaching demo already and want to do better for your next one.
Submitted your job applications and you want to be ready when you get your invite.
Are preparing your job applications now and want to be ready when you get your invite.
The advice in this article will help regardless if your job talk/teaching demo is going to be in-person or presented via webinar (e.g., Zoom).
This article is packed with strategies and tips.
I’ve also provided a bunch of resources to help you with your next steps after reading this.
This isn’t a quick 2-minute read because your job talk/teaching demo is one of the most important talks you’re going to give in your career.
And yet, graduate school does very little to prepare us for how to do this well.
In fact, everything you’ve learned about presentations up until this point has set you up to fail for a job talk/teaching demo. 😱
If you create a standard academic presentation (aka a #DeathByPowerpoint presentation), then you’re decreasing your chances of making a positive impact with your job talk or demo lesson.
That’s exactly why I put together this ultimate guide for giving an effective job talk/teaching demo.
You might also want to know that I have a FREE training about effective presentation skills you can take, too.
Here’s what you’re going to learn in this article:
1. Why your job talk or teaching demo is so important
2. Biggest mistakes candidates make with their job talk or teaching demo
3. What to do before your job talk/teaching demo (workflow and prep)
4. Tips for designing your job talk or teaching demo presentation slides
5. Tips for what to do when it’s time to deliver the job talk or teaching demo
This is a lengthy post, not gonna lie.
That’s why I made a free webinar version (it’s about 40 minutes) just in case you’d rather sit back and watch me explain most of it.
1. Why your job talk or teaching demo presentation is so important
Graduate school has done you a significant disservice when it comes to presentations.
My guess is that until now, you’ve considered presentations to be something you try to spend as little time on as possible.
Maybe you even feel that presentations are, generally, a waste of time.
Maybe you think that giving an engaging presentation isn’t something that helps your career.
You’re not a bad person for thinking this.
That’s the general attitude most people in academic and science fields have about presentations.
They’re wrong, of course.
Because, being able to create engaging presentations is great for your career.
But still.
The way you’ve been trained to approach presentations needs to change for your job talk and teaching demo.
Dr. Karen Kelsey, of The Professor Is In, said:
“The job talk is the highlight of the visit….You cannot bomb this and still get the job. You need to be a master of this format.” (book).
Dr. Kelsky is not wrong.
Boysen and colleagues (2018) said:
“surveys indicate that research talks are among the most important factors in deciding who search committees hire, especially in doctoral programs.”
Just like Boysen and colleagues said,
“in an ultra competitive job market, giving a successful job talk is one way that applicants can maximize their chances of securing a position.” So putting a lot of time and energy into learning how to do this well is worth it. None of that will be wasted time and you can absolutely do this.
On an abstract level, you probably know all of this.
The hard part is knowing what “bombing” means.
The hard part is knowing how to create an effective job talk or teaching demo.
Luckily, you found your way to this post because we’ll talk about that later.
2. Avoid these mistakes that most candidates make with their job talk or teaching demo presentation
Before we focus on what you should do, it’s important we talk about what NOT to do.
These are the types of bad habits or mistakes that will make it hard for you to follow the strategies in the rest of the article.
(A) DON’T wait until you get the invite
If you already have an invite, then you can skip to the next item.
But this is for those of you who have submitted applications and are waiting to hear back.
I have something scary and frustrating to tell you.
A couple years ago, it seemed that many candidates were given about 3-4 weeks to prepare for their job talk or teaching demo.
These days, candidates are getting about 1 week to prepare for their job talk or teaching demo!
Part of that, I think, is because most job talks and teaching demos are happening over zoom right now.
Because there is no on campus site visit, there is less for the hiring committee to coordinate.
Lately, it’s been breaking my heart how many people reach out to me in a panic for help with their job talk or teaching demo presentation slides because they only had 1 week (or less!) notice before their talk.
This means you need to be prepared to whip together the best presentation of your career in less than a week.
So what I want you to do is read this entire article, and then do as much of it as possible before you even get an invite.
Most job talks follow the same format of:
A formal research presentation of your existing data
A plan for your future research agenda
Teaching demos are more unique to the interview, so those are harder to prepare in advance.
But that means you can start to think about:
What research data will I share during my job talk?
What is my future research agenda?
If your dissertation is the strongest research project you have, then this becomes even easier—that’s going to be the research presentation portion.
If you have several different research projects to pull from, then what I recommend you do is this:
Write down your top 5 (or up to 5) strongest research projects.
For each, write down what IMPACT each project made for (a) the field or discipline and (b) the public.
For each, write down what SKILLS it took for you to complete that project successfully.
Have this ready to go, so when you get the job talk invite, you’ll be able to quickly identify which projects will be most likely to impress the hiring committee.
If you have multiple ideas for a future research agenda, then complete that activity for each of those, too.
“Department heads are looking for faculty who can sustain their research for 20 to 30 years...As part of that effort, candidates should learn about specialties of other faculty and be able to describe how they could collaborate with them.”
Either way, before you get the campus visit invite you can usually get some elements ready.
p.s. if anyone on a hiring committee is reading this, please give your candidates a full 4 weeks to prepare.
(B) DON’T procrastinate
When should you start working on your job talk or teaching demo slides?
The same day you get your invite.
Or, at the very latest, the day after.
No exceptions.
You’re going to need all the time you can get. Trust me.
If you were extremely lucky and you were given a full 2 months of notice, then use the entire 2 months to create the best job talk or teaching demo they’ve ever seen.
That’s the benefit of being able to start so early. You can do little chunks here and there.
If you were extremely unlucky and you were given 7 days, then you need to use all 7 of those days to create the best job talk or teaching demo you can possibly make with such short notice.
(C) DON’T use templates
Nothing screams “I’m the same as every other candidate” like using a template.
Don’t use any of the slide templates that are built-into PowerPoint
Don’t spend money on slide templates or download them from the internet
Don’t use PowerPoint SmartArt
Don’t use PowerPoint Design Ideas
You need to create your own design for your job talk and teaching demo. I talk more about that later.
(D) DON’T get cute; this is a FORMAL presentation
A job talk is not the time to share a poem, an emotional personal story, or some other sappy strategy.
Don’t use memes or funny gifs.
Pretend like your audience is congress.
That’s how formal you want to be.
And just in case you’re new to my blog, this means a lot coming from me because I love gifs and memes.
But this isn’t about what I like—this is about what will impress the hiring committee.
(E) DO take professional development on presentation skills
As I’ve mentioned a few times already, most graduate schools do not train us to create engaging presentations.
It’s quite the opposite, really.
So even though the hiring committee probably makes ineffective, #DeathByPowerpoint presentations, you will be a more competitive candidate if you make better presentations than the status quo.
How do you do that?
With training.
And if you’re short on time (e.g., you have less than 6 months before your job talk or teaching demo), then realistically it’s the only way for you to create an engaging job talk or teaching demo on time.
You’re smart enough to DIY your own training — but that’s the slowest route. That takes years, and you don’t have years.
I can give you a jumpstart and help you create better presentations fast.
3. How to prepare for your job talk or teaching demo presentation
(A) Get the information you need to create a tailored job talk or teaching demo
You need a lot of information to tailor your presentation to the situation.
Here are some of the most basic things you need to know:
Is this a job talk, a teaching demo, or both?
Are they separate presentations, or do you need to combine them into one?
What is the length of the talk, and what is the expected amount of time for the Q&A portion?
Who will be in the audience?
What is the technology setup?
Are handouts expected?
Just about every article that includes tips for giving a successful job talk or teaching demo tells you to know your audience.
I’m a professional presentation trainer, and this is probably the hardest piece of advice to follow.
Telling speakers to “know their audience” is far from a simple or quick tip.
So here’s the best way to apply that advice for your job talk.
Assume your job talk audience will include:
Both first year and ABD graduate students from the department you’re applying to
Post-docs from the department you’re applying to, and maybe other departments within the same school
Faculty from the department you’re applying to
Faculty from other departments within the same school
This means your job talk must be understandable and accessible to BOTH a broad audience and niche audience.
Most people make the mistake of creating a job talk for their niche audience only.
So, in that sense, this is helpful advice because it’s a reminder that your goal with the job talk is to demonstrate your skills as an effective communicator to people beyond your niche field.
In other words, if you can deliver a job talk that those grad students can at least follow along with AND that those faculty understand well, you’ll make an extremely positive impression.
Luckily, this might be easier for your teaching demo/demo lesson.
If you’re doing a separate demo lesson, then that usually means you’re giving a lesson to a real undergraduate or graduate class.
That means your audience is more narrow and focused, and you can tailor your demo lesson based on that.
Ok.
Now let’s talk about the technology setup.
For an in-person job talk or demo lesson, you need to know things like:
Is the projector/screen widescreen or 4:3?
Can you use your own laptop?
If you have to use their computer, how do you get your presentation file onto it?
How much time will you have to setup?
For a virtual job talk or demo lesson, you need to know things like:
What platform will they use?
Does that platform allow you to control moving your own slides forward?
Hopefully, they’re using Zoom Meetings. If so, then you don’t need to do much.
If, however, they’re using something like Microsoft Teams then that’s bad news, I’m afraid.
Because, at the time of writing this article, Microsoft Teams won’t let you control your own presentation. That means you’ll have to say “next” when you need the slide to change, or you need to activate an animation.
Use this information to practice the platform until you’re comfortable using it.
(B) Start early and use a system or a workflow
Like I mentioned earlier, you do not want to procrastinate on this presentation.
You want to start as early as possible, and I recommend that you use a system or a workflow.
Most academics, scientists, and educators work a bit haphazardly on their presentations.
This is part of why it feels like it takes forever to work on your presentations.
But over the years, I’ve developed a workflow that breaks the presentation design process into distinct, logical steps.
I recommend you learn more about this workflow and try it for your job talk or teaching demo.
The workflow is based on a conference presentation where you have 2 months to work on it.
Even if you don’t have that much time to prepare for your job talk or teaching demo, then you can just condense the timeframe to whatever you have. Focus more on the order of tasks and less on the timeframe.
(C) Script and practice
Yes, you need a script and you need to practice.
A good script and practicing the right way is what prevents you from sounding like a robot.
A good script and practicing the right way is what makes sure your job talk or teaching demo is organized and easy to follow.
Most academics, scientists, and educators think a script means a word-for-word written document that you memorize.
They also think practice only means a full “dress rehearsal” style of practicing.
Not true.
When done right, scripting and practicing is actually the same task.
And, there are 4 types of scripting/practicing:
Talk (or whisper) to your computer while writing in the notes section of your slides
Do short bursts of practice here and there
Do a timed practice, using a stopwatch and taking strategic notes
Full dress rehearsal
I have a comprehensive article about how to do this effectively.
If you follow my strategies for scripting/practicing, you’ll speed up the entire presentation design process.
And, more importantly, your presentation will sound significantly better and will be more coherent and organized.
While you're scripting and practicing your job talk and teaching demo, another thing you need to do in this stage is to remember the Q&A.
You want to make sure that you have the right amount of content in your talk and that you leave the right amount of time for the Q&A.
Most job talks are about 60 minutes and you'll want to leave about 10 to 15 minutes for the Q&A.
I recommend that you plan on 15 minutes because they're going to want to see how you handle the Q&A session, so you don't want to cheat them of that opportunity.
You have to fit it within that time frame because you cannot expect anybody to stay late.
They probably have other commitments, so you need to make sure that you're using that 60 minutes, and 60 minutes only (or whatever amount of time that they told you in advance).
So you really need to build practicing into your workflow.
You need to make sure that you're practicing so you do not go over time and that you have enough time for that Q&A.
I share more specific tips for the Q&A section at the end.
4. Tips for designing your job talk or teaching demo presentation slides
Alright, so it’s time to work on your slides — what do you do here?
(A) Have a balanced presentation
That’s the question Boysen and colleagues (2018) set out to answer with a survey.
They surveyed 303 faculty in psychology in a range of universities, from teaching to research universities.
They gave faculty a list of 13 or 15 attributes (e.g., good visuals, having good speaking skills, interacting with the audience, showing the data).
I get why they asked these questions.
Wouldn’t it be great to know how to prioritize your slide design?
Should you focus on having great stock photos? Or maybe you should focus on those graphs.
Who wouldn’t want to know which ONE thing to focus on!
So for each one of those attributes, they asked faculty to rate how important that thing was for a successful job talk (research talk) and for a teaching demo.
The scale ranged from 1 to 6 (1 was ‘not at all important,’ 3 was ‘somewhat important.’ and 6 was ‘of highest importance.’)
What do you think was most important for teaching demos and for job talks?
For teaching demos, the lowest average across all factors was 3.0 and the highest was 5.57.
For job talks, the lowest was 3.64 and the highest was 5.21.
So… that means…
…everything was “somewhat important?”
🤣 Helpful.
But you know what — this is exactly how I teach effective presentation skills.
One of the first things you learn in my training is that you should never hyperfocus on one element of presentation design.
For example, everyone is focusing heavily on data visualization skills right now.
The problem with that approach is even if you have great graphs, your presentation won’t be successful if the rest of it isn’t engaging.
You still might be interested in which presentation attributes did the best on the survey.
Fair enough.
So here are the presentation qualities that had an average of 5 or higher.
Strategies for RESEARCH JOB TALKS that had an average of higher than 5:
Openness to questions
Basic public speaking skills
In other words, they just want to see an overall engaging presentation, and they want you to do well in the Q&A.
It’s not about the best graphs. It’s not about the fanciest animations. It’s not even about the most eye-catching stock photos.
It’s about all three, all at once.
It’s about delivering an effective presentation. Period.
That means balancing all the key factors of an engaging presentation at the same time:
Organized, well-paced, engaging content
Visuals that help make your point
Data visualizations that drive home your key points
Strategies for TEACHING DEMOS that had an average of higher than 5:
accurate content,
public speaking skills,
interacting with the audience, and
openness to questions.
Makes sense.
But notice what isn’t on the list?
A lot of academics who come to me for help with their teaching demos have heard things like, “you should really use technology in your teaching demo!”
But this survey indicates that might not be completely true — at least, not in all settings.
In fact, strategies like using visuals actually scored higher than using technology.
(B) Tailor your job talk or demo lesson
So the first thing is you have to tailor your job talk or teaching demo to the description, to the department, to the instructions, and to any secret advice you were given from someone on the inside (if you're lucky enough to have it).
Don't go in with a generic job talk that you're going to use in all interviews.
You want to tailor it to the audience. And one thing to keep in mind is that if you do have insight on that department, then trust that.
That study I talked about showed that for your teaching demo using technology was about equal to using the traditional lecture method.
However, if you have someone on the inside telling you the committee really wants to see you use technology, then listen to that advice.
Now, I'm going to ask you something that you're probably going to think is weird, but I really want you to think about the answer.
(C) Remember the true purpose of a job talk and teaching demo
What is the purpose of a job talk or teaching demo?
Don't say, “to get a job,” because yes, obviously, that is the goal.
I mean more along the lines of what is the search committee looking to see?
What are you being judged on?
What are you demonstrating to them through your job talk?
Now you might think, again, I'm being very weird for asking this, but just about every single academic I've worked with gets this answer wrong.
Did you think something along the lines of “to demonstrate my competence as a researcher?”
Well, that is actually not the main purpose of a job talk, because they already know you're competent.
That is why you got the campus visit in the first place.
This is from Dr. Rick Reis from Tomorrow's Professor. He said,
“The job talk is not another defense of your work. You don't have to prove your competence. Instead consider it a demonstration of your ability to contribute and collaborate as a potential colleague and as a clear communicator.”
That's what the committee is most interested in knowing. They’re also looking for evidence that you can teach—especially if you aren’t doing both a research talk and a teaching demo.
For example, Sura and colleagues (2019) said:
“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.” (Rule 6)
This is why everything matters in your presentation:
Engaging your audience,
using design,
using visuals,
presentation design basics,
public speaking skills, and
excellent data visualizations
All of that is important because that is what makes you a clear communicator—being able to balance those.
That's what you need to demonstrate in your job talk or teaching demo.
(D) Have a well-organized narrative
So, how do you show that you are a clear communicator?
The first thing you need to do is to make sure that your job talk and teaching demo has a well organized narrative.
In my course I refer to this as a storyboard. Some people talk about this as storytelling.
Whatever you call it, it's just about making sure that your presentation isn't just a list of fact, after fact, after fact.
For example, Sura and colleagues (2019) suggest:
“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.” (Rule 5)
There needs to be some type of structure to it, and it has to be easy to follow so everybody always knows where they are in your job talk, why you're sharing certain information (i.e., how it’s relevant), and the main takeaway.
99% of the academics that come for help with their job talk slides make a mistake with this part.
Their slides are confusing, hard to follow, and have rough transitions from topic to topic.
So, make sure you audit your slides with this in mind.
(E) Don’t talk about other people so much!
Another huge mistake I see is a lot of academics like to talk about other people and promote other people, or other institutions, in their job talks.
There is a lot of time dedicated to talking about mentors, or students, or other researchers in their job talks.
It may be hard, but you probably need to do that less than you're doing now or less than you're planning on doing.
Just remember, this is about you.
You are the one who is up for consideration, not your mentor, not your students, not your institution.
This is about you and your ability to be a colleague and clear communicator.
Let’s be even more honest here.
Women: I'm mostly talking to you because the men that I work with don't really seem to struggle with this.
I mostly work with women, and I’ve noticed a clear pattern with spending too much time talking about others.
I'm not saying don't do it at all, it's just the amount of time spent doing it will probably need to be cut down for your job talk.
(F) Stay SUUUUUPER formal for your research talk!
Another super common question that I get is whether you should use jokes, and memes, and gifs and that kind of thing.
In full disclosure, I love using gifs in my presentations. If you take that free course, #StellarSlidesIn5, you're going to see a lot of gifs in there.
But are they appropriate for research talks?
NO.
No, they're not.
And in general, you need to be really careful about using humor in your research talk.
Show your sense of humor during other events for your campus visit, but be careful about using it in your job talk.
But most people know that.
The problematic thing I see in a lot of job talks is touchy feely personal stuff.
Like cheesy and sappy stuff, such as how much your passion is fulfilled by doing your research and how you truly just want to help human kind.
Don’t…do that.
Don't try to make anybody feel strong sappy emotions. It's super risky for your research.
And I'm not making fun of you for doing this.
I am all for taking risks and using those things. I have a flying unicorn in my earlier videos.
I love gifs. I love memes. But for this context, I strongly recommend that you don't take that type of risk.
Of course, it's your talk, you can do what you want.
(G) You can be less formal in your teaching demo, though
What about for teaching demos?
For teaching demos, I think that there's a little more flexibility.
However, If you're worried about it, don't do it.
Don't force yourself to use them.
But, if you're struggling with your teaching demo because you feel like a joke, meme, pun, or gif would enhance your teaching demo…then you might be okay.
This is very case by case, but in your teaching demo the audience is your students, which is why I think there's some flexibility here. If you’re interested, I made a video about using humor.
(H) All of your slides should be well-designed
The next piece of advice is that your slide design game needs to be on point.
It is crucial that you do not bore, confuse, or overwhelm your audience with your slides.
The frustrating part is that most academics present that way, which means you need a new strategy than you’re used to for your job talk.
What are some example #DeathByPowerpoint slides?
Graphs that are like this are full of junk. It's just the default settings. These are impossible to read.
Visuals that are cliche, outdated, kind of weird and formatted in all the wrong ways.
Walls of texts that overwhelm the audience and instantly leave you no choice but to read your wall of text to them,
Slides based on built-in templates, SmartArt, or PowerPoint’s Design Ideas.
If any of these resemble your slides, even a little bit, then I am sorry to keep bringing this up, but you really need some training.
Because those types of slides are going to set you up to fail. These are #DeathByPowerPoint examples and you can't clearly communicate with slides like that.
Speaking of slides, a really common question people ask is if they should use PowerPoint for their job talk or for the teaching demo, or should they do something really fancy like Prezi?
The answer is use PowerPoint. Don't jump to Prezi.
FYI: this is my training specialty and I’ve helped hundreds of academics, scientists, and educators improve their presentation skills.
5. Tips for what to do when it’s time to deliver the job talk or teaching demo presentation
So now we can talk about the last part, which is the actual presentation and making sure that when you're there you deliver an effective job talk or teaching demo.
(A) Find that “goldilocks” zone for your length
I mentioned this in the beginning, but you cannot go over time.
You cannot go under time.
You have to be perfectly balanced with your time to make sure you have enough Q&A time.
You're going to have to practice your presentation until you know you're not going to mess that up. Again, you want to leave about 10 to 15 minutes for the Q&A.
I think 15 minutes is a little better than 10, but do whatever you were told.
(B) Be prepared for the Q&A session
Speaking of the Q&A, I know it is really intimidating and you'll be tempted to minimize the amount of time for it.
Maybe you'll say “I'm going to leave only 10 minutes, so the Q&A period isn't too long,” but it's really important to do the Q&A period.
That’s why I recommend you lean towards more like 15 minutes for it.
Dr. Destenie Nock has a few sample Q&As in this post, plus a link to a document with a lot more.
Sometimes people might ask confrontational or inappropriate questions, or say statements that aren't really questions and might shock you.
And you might have an initial moment of like, “Oh my god, did you just ask me that?”
But the good news is that everyone else kind of knows when a question is sort of rude, or inappropriate, or not really a question.
So you just need to make sure that you handle it with poise, and grace, and respect, and professionalism, which you have learned how to do in grad school.
You really do have to do this part well, and hopefully you have some grad students or mentors who are willing to do mock job talks with you and who will throw these types of curve ball questions at you.
That way you get practice with answering both the friendly and unfriendly types of questions, and they can coach you through how to respond.
(C) Bring Extra Notes
Another tip I have for you is to bring extra notes for yourself.
I see a lot of people put extra slides at the end of their job talk, which they usually call supplemental slides, and that's a really good idea.
I think that having your presentation printed out is a good idea too, just in case.
It’s also good to just have some notes and extra information printed, and I think you'll feel more confident having backup information for that Q&A session.
(D) Hope for the best, but plan for the worst
Another tip is to plan for the worst, hope for the best when it comes to your presentation tech.
So when it comes to a job talk, you're going to want to think about some things while you're preparing your slides.
Think about what happens if:
the computer or the projector breaks.
you can't use your laptop?
they don't have a monitor for the presenter view so you can't see your notes in that view?
their version of PowerPoint is different than yours?
the internet isn't working?
their projector or display is the wrong size?
I'm not trying to increase your blood pressure and give you tons of anxiety, I swear.
But let's be real, you're probably thinking these things already.
So, I'm really just trying to validate that.
And don’t just think about that — use that to create a backup plan.
Here are some ideas to help you create a backup plan so you're not worried about all that stuff.
Backup ideas for virtual job talks/teaching demos >>
Good news! Doing a job talk and teaching demo virtually means you have a lot more control over how it goes.
That’s less things that can go wrong (phew!).
The bad news is that the biggest thing that can go wrong is your internet connection.
And that’s kind of a big thing.
So here’s what you can do for your virtual backup plan:
Do NOT rely on a wi-fi connection for your job talk or teaching demo!
Use an ethernet cord and be plugged in directly to the internet.
Look into your mobile plan for hotspot options
I do paid training webinars a lot, and I’m constantly paranoid about my internet connection failing.
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my Google Fi hotspot provided enough data for me to do a test Zoom webinar.
I haven’t had to do a webinar using it, but I practice the process before every webinar so I don’t forget what to do if I’m in a panic.
Backup ideas for in-person job talks/teaching demos >>
The main thing is bring your own laptop and have multiple cords and adapters that you might need to use.
Have a VGA and an HDMI adapter, because depending on the projector you might have to use one or the other.
It's just really hard to know for sure. If you bring your own laptop and insist that you use that, it's going to cover you for a lot of those potential problems.
Another thing is to be sure you have your presentation file on a flash drive and easy to find.
Assume there's going to be no internet when you get there, so don't have it just sitting there on Dropbox or in your email because what if you can't download it or access it?
So just have it on a flash drive and then you're good to go.
It does not hurt to have a printed version of all of your notes for your presentation, even though they're in the PowerPoint file under the slides.
Sometimes just having it on paper can be really helpful. Again, maybe you won't have a second monitor to look at presenter view.
Then you'll have your notes printed out, no problem. And earlier I mentioned that I would talk about handouts again.
Well, if you're really, really worried that something will go wrong with a projector and you can't even use your slides (which I don't think I've really heard of, but we should think about that since we’re just doing backup plans here).
One thing you could do is actually create a handout for your presentation and just bring one copy, so then you still can use that to go through your presentation and they can make emergency copies to hand out that will replace your slides.
And remember, assume there's no internet. So when you're working on your slides, don't require internet for your content.
I see people who will link to YouTube and that is a big risk, because what if there's no internet or it's just really slow?
Maybe the WiFi connection is very unstable.
You might get yourself in trouble.
And I should caution you that if you want to use a third party polling app, maybe for your teaching demo to poll your students and that kind of thing, I have heard some scary stories about that breaking for an unknown reason.
It’s a risk, so you might want to think twice about using something like that for your research, job talk, or teaching demo.
Here's something that you pretty much only need to worry about if you have to use their laptop or their computer.
They're probably going to have a different version of PowerPoint than you, so when you're working on your slides, make sure you're looking up universal fonts and only using those.
And if you're really worried, you can look up features that are only in PowerPoint 2016 or 2010 and only use those, because some animations and transitions aren't on older versions of PowerPoint and you don't want to get in trouble with that.
But if you can just use your own laptop, it typically prevents this problem.
The last thing that people should think about is that they make their slides in widescreen, which they should be doing, but the projector is 4:3 or the screen itself is 4:3 (“standard”).
Most older projectors will just automatically adjust and this is a total non-issue.
So this generally isn't really a problem, but as part of your backup plan, it won’t hurt to learn how to change your laptop’s screen size or display size.
Your laptop is probably widescreen already, but you can actually go into the settings and change that to some other dimensions (e.g., 4:3).
That way you can make your laptop display size whatever it needs to be to fit on the projector, while maintaining the proportion of all your content.
And it's usually easy to do. It is not hard. You just have to look up how to do it on your own computer.
For Windows 10, you don't even need to download anything to do it, it’s just in the settings.
But on Mac I had to download an app from the App Store, but it's no big deal.
RECAP!
There's a lot about this process that you can't control, but your job talk, your teaching demo, that is something you can control and it's worth the effort.
I believe in you and I am rooting for you!
Here’s a recap of the key sections you learned about in this article:
1. Why your job talk or teaching demo is so important
2. Biggest mistakes candidates make with their job talk or teaching demo
(A) DON’T wait until you get the invite
(B) DON’T procrastinate
(C) DON’T use templates
(D) DON’T get cute; this is a FORMAL presentation
(E) DO take professional development on presentation skills
3. What to do before your job talk/teaching demo (workflow and prep)
(A) Get the information you need to create a tailored job talk or teaching demo
(B) Start early and use a system or a workflow
(C) Script and practice
4. Tips for designing your job talk or teaching demo presentation slides
(A) Have a balanced presentation
(B) Tailor your job talk or demo lesson
(C) Remember the true purpose of a job talk and teaching demo
(D) Have a well-organized narrative
(E) Don’t talk about other people so much!
(F) Stay SUUUUUPER formal for your research talk!
(G) You can be less formal in your teaching demo, though
(H) All of your slides should be well-designed
5. Tips for what to do when it’s time to deliver the job talk or teaching demo
(A) Find that “goldilocks” zone for your length
(B) Be prepared for the Q&A session
(C) Bring Extra Notes
(D) Hope for the best, but plan for the worst
If you want to improve your presentation skills, then your next step is to take my FREE training
Best resources to help you give a successful job talk and teaching demo>>
Our learning guide for presenting from your desk (for virtual job talks and teaching demos)
The ultimate guide to microphones (for virtual job talks and teaching demos)
Dr. Destenie Nock: 4 Phases of the Academic Job Market (includes Q&A tips)
Sura et al., 2019 article: Ten simple rules for giving an effective academic job talk
Heather Stringer’s article: How to stand out in your interview and job talk
with joy,
Dr. Echo Rivera