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Home Blog Education Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Presentation Skills 101: A Guide to Presentation Success

Getting the perfect presentation design is just a step toward a successful presentation. For the experienced user, building presentation skills is the answer to elevating the power of your message and showing expertise on any subject. Still, one can ask: is it the same set of skills, or are they dependable on the type of presentation?

In this article, we will introduce the different types of presentations accompanied by the skillset required to master them. The purpose, as always, is to retain the audience’s interest for a long-lasting and convincing message.

cover for presentation skills guide

Table of Contents

The importance of Presentation Skills

Persuasive presentations, instructional presentations, informative presentations, inspirational presentations, basic presentation skills, recommendations to improve your presentation skills, closing statement.

Effective communication is the answer to reaching business and academic goals. The scenarios in which we can be required to deliver a presentation are as diverse as one can imagine. Still, some core concepts apply to all presentations.

We define presentation skills as a compendium of soft skills that directly affect your presentation performance. These are not qualities acquired by birth but skills you ought to train and master to delve into professional environments. 

You may ask: is it really that evident when a presenter is not prepared? Here are some common signs people can experience during presentations:

The list can go on about common presenter mistakes , and most certainly, it will affect the performance of any presented data if the lack of interest by the presenter is blatantly obvious.  Another element to consider is anxiety, and according to research by the National Institute of Mental Health, 73% of the population in the USA is affected by glossophobia , which is the fear of public speaking, judgment, or negative evaluation by other people.

Therefore, presentation skills training is essential for any business professional who wants to achieve effective communication . It will remove the anxiety from presentation performance and help users effectively deliver their message and connect with the audience.

Archetypes of presentations

Persuasive presentations aim to convince the audience – often in short periods – to acquire a product or service, adhere to a cause, or invest in a company. For business entrepreneurs or politicians, persuasive presentations are their tool for the trade.

Unless you aim to be perceived as an imposter, a proper persuasive presentation has the elements of facts, empathy, and logic, balanced under a well-crafted narrative. The central pillar of these presentations is to identify the single factor that gathered your audience: it could be a market need, a social cause, or a revolutionary concept for today’s society. It has to be something with enough power to gather critiques – both good and bad.

That single factor has to be backed up by facts. Research that builds your hypothesis on how to solve that problem. A deep understanding of the target audience’s needs , concerns, and social position regarding the solution your means can offer. When those elements are in place, building a pitch becomes an easy task. 

Graphics can help you introduce information in a compelling format, lowering the need for lengthy presentations. Good presentation skills for persuasive presentations go by the hand of filtering relevant data and creating the visual cues that resonate with what your audience demands.

One powerful example of persuasive presentations is the technique known as the elevator pitch. You must introduce your idea or product convincingly to the audience in a timeframe between 30 seconds and less than 2 minutes. You have to expose:

presentation skills an elevator pitch slide

For that very purpose, using engaging graphics with contrasting colors elevate the potential power of your message. It speaks professionalism, care for details, and out-of-the-box thinking. Knowing how to end a presentation is also critical, as your CTAs should be placed with care.

Therefore, let’s resume the requirements of persuasive presentations in terms of good presentation skills:

skills required for persuasive presentations

You can learn more about persuasive presentation techniques by clicking here .

In the case of instructional presentations, we ought to differentiate two distinctive types:

Lecture presentations appeal to the gradual introduction of complex concepts, following a structure set in the course’s syllabus. These presentations often have a similar aesthetic as a group of professors or researchers created to share their knowledge about a topic. Personal experience does tell that course presentations often rely on factual data, adequately documented, and on the theoretical side.

An example of a presentation that lies under this concept is a Syllabus Presentation, used by the teaching team to introduce the subject to new students, evaluation methods, concepts to be learned, and expectations to pass the course.

using a course syllabus presentation to boost your instructional presentation skills

On the other hand, training presentations are slide decks designed to meet an organization’s specific needs in the formal education of their personnel. Commonly known as “continuous education,” plenty of companies invest resources in coaching their employees to achieve higher performance results. These presentations have the trademark of being concise since their idea is to introduce the concepts that shall be applied in practice sessions. 

Ideally, the training presentations are introduced with little text and easy-to-recognize visual cues. Since the idea is to summarize as much as possible, these are visually appealing for the audience. They must be dynamic enough to allow the presenter to convey the message.

presentation skills example of a training presentation

Those key takeaways remind employees when they revisit their learning resources and allow them to ruminate on questions that fellow workers raise. 

To sum up this point, building presentation skills for instructional presentations require:

skill requirements for instructional presentations

The informative presentations take place in business situations, such as when to present project reports from different departments to the management. Another potential usage of these presentations is in SCRUM or other Agile methodologies, when a sprint is completed, to discuss the advance of the project with the Product Owner.

As they are presentations heavily dependent on data insights, it’s common to see the usage of infographics and charts to express usually dense data in simpler terms and easy to remember. 

a SCRUM process being shown in an informative slide

Informative presentations don’t just fall into the business category. Ph.D. Dissertation and Thesis presentations are topics that belong to the informative presentations category as they condense countless research hours into manageable reports for the academic jury. 

an example of a thesis dissertation template

Since these informational presentations can be perceived as lengthy and data-filled, it is important to learn the following professional presentation skills:

skill requirements for informational presentations

The leading inspirational platform, TEDx, comes to mind when talking about inspirational presentations. This presentation format has the peculiarity of maximizing the engagement with the audience to divulge a message, and due to that, it has specific requirements any presenter must meet.

This presentation format usually involves a speaker on a stage, either sitting or better standing, in which the presenter engages with the audience with a storytelling format about a life experience, a job done that provided a remarkable improvement for society, etc.

using a quote slide to boost inspirational presentation skills

Empathizing with the audience is the key ingredient for these inspirational presentations. Still, creativity is what shapes the outcome of your performance as people are constantly looking for different experiences – not the same recipe rephrased with personal touches. The human factor is what matters here, way above data and research. What has your experience to offer to others? How can it motivate another human being to pursue a similar path or discover their true calling?

To achieve success in terms of communication skills presentation, these inspirational presentations have the following requirements:

skills required for inspirational presentations

After discussing the different kinds of presentations we can come across at any stage of our lives, a group of presentation skills is standard in any type of presentation. See below which skills you must count on to succeed as a presenter.

Punctuality

Nothing says more about respect for your audience and the organization you represent than delivering the presentation on time . Arriving last minute puts pressure on the tech team behind audiovisuals, as they don’t have enough preparation to test microphones, stage lights, and projector settings. Even when discussing presentations hosted in small rooms for a reduced audience, testing the equipment becomes essential.

A solution for this is to arrive at least 30 minutes early. Ideally, one hour is a sweet spot since the AV crew has time to check the gear and requirements for your presentation. Another benefit of this, for example, in inspirational presentations, is measuring the previous presenter’s impact on the audience. This gives insights about how to resonate with the public, their interest, and how to accommodate your presentation for maximum impact.

Body Language

Our bodies can make emotions transparent for others, even when we are unaware of such a fact. Proper training for body language skills reduces performance anxiety, giving the audience a sense of expertise about the presented topic. 

Give your presentation and the audience the respect they deserve by watching over these potential mistakes:

Your voice is a powerful tool for exposing your ideas and feelings . Your voice can articulate the message you are telling, briefing the audience if you feel excited about what you are sharing or, in contrast, if you feel the presentation is a burden you ought to complete.

Remember, passion is a primary ingredient in convincing people. Therefore, transmitting such passion with a vibrant voice may help gather potential business partners’ interest.  

But what if you feel sick prior to the presentation? If, by chance, your throat is sore minutes before setting foot on the stage, try this: when introducing yourself, mention that you are feeling a bit under the weather. This resonates with the audience to pay more attention to your efforts. In case you don’t feel comfortable about that, ask the organizers for a cup of tea, as it will settle your throat and relax your nerves.

Tech Skills

Believe it or not, people still feel challenged by technology these days. Maybe that’s the reason why presentation giants like Tony Robbins opt not to use PowerPoint presentations . The reality is that there are plenty of elements involved in a presentation that can go wrong from the tech side:

We can come up with a pretty long list of potential tech pitfalls, and yet most than half of them fall in presenters not being knowledgeable about technology.

If computers aren’t your thing, let the organization know about this beforehand. There is always a crew member available to help presenters to switch between slides or configure the presentation for streaming. This takes the pressure off your shoulders, allowing you to concentrate on the content to present. Remember, even Bill Gates can get a BSOD during a presentation .

In this section, we gathered some tips that can certainly make an impact if applied to your presentation skills. We believe these skills can be cultivated to transform into habits for your work routine.

Tip #1: Build a narrative

One memorable way to guarantee presentation success is by writing a story of all the points you desire to cover. This statement is based on the logic behind storytelling and its power to connect with people .

Don’t lose time memorizing slides or reading your presentation to the audience. It feels unnatural, and any question that diverts from the topic in discussion certainly puts you in jeopardy or, worse, exposes you as a fraud in the eyes of the audience. And before you ask, it is really evident when a presenter has a memorized speech. 

Build and rehearse the presentation as if telling a story to a group of interested people. Lower the language barrier by avoiding complex terms that maybe even you aren’t fully aware of their meaning. Consider the ramifications of that story, what it could lead to, and which are the opportunities to explore. Then, visualize yourself giving the presentation in a natural way.

Applying this technique makes the presentation feel like second nature to you. It broadens the spectrum in which you can show expertise over a topic or even build the bases for new interesting points of view about the project.

Tip #2: Don’t talk for more than 3 minutes per slide

It is a common practice of presenters to bombard the audience with facts and information whilst retaining the same slide on the screen. Why can this happen? It could be because the presenter condensed the talk into very few slides and preferred to talk. The reality is that your spectators won’t retain the information you are giving unless you give visual cues to help that process. 

Opt to prepare more slides and pace your speech to match the topics shown on each slide. Don’t spend more than 3 minutes per slide unless you have to introduce a complex piece of data. Use visual cues to direct the spectators about what you talk about, and summarize the principal concepts discussed at the end of each section.

Tip #3: Practice meditation daily

Anxiety is the number one enemy of professional presenters. It slowly builds without you being aware of your doubts and can hinder your performance in multiple ways: making you feel paralyzed, fidgeting, making you forget language skills or concepts, affecting your health, etc.

Meditation is an ancient practice taken from Buddhist teachings that train your mind to be here in the present. We often see the concepts of meditation and mindfulness as synonyms, whereas you should be aware that meditation is a practice that sets the blocks to reach a state of mindfulness. For presenters, being in the here and now is essential to retain focus, but meditation techniques also teach us to control our breathing and be in touch with our body signals when stress builds up. 

The customary practice of meditation has an impact on imagination and creativity but also helps to build patience – a skill much needed for connecting with your audience in instructional presentations.

Having the proper set of presentation skills can be quite subjective. It goes beyond presentation tips and deepens into how flexible we can be in our ability to communicate ideas.

Different presentations and different audiences shape the outcome of our efforts. Therefore, having a basic understanding of how to connect, raise awareness, and empathize with people can be key ingredients for your career as a presenter. A word of advice: success doesn’t happen overnight. It takes dedication and patience to build communication skills . Don’t condition your work to believe you will be ready “someday”; it’s best to practice and experience failure as part of the learning process.

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presentation skill attribute in goal sheet answer

Important Presentation Skills for Workplace Success

Alison Doyle is one of the nation’s foremost career experts.

presentation skill attribute in goal sheet answer

Steps To Create a Presentation

Skills that help make an effective presentation, how to make your skills stand out.

xavierarnau / Getty Images

Whether you’re a high-level executive or an administrative assistant, developing your presentation skills is one key way to climb in an office-based job. Leaders make decisions based on information shared in presentation format, and hardly any business changes its mind without first seeing a persuasive presentation.

It is important for any office employee to know what steps go into creating an effective presentation and what presentation skills are most important to employers. Highlighting these skills will also help you stand out during your job search.

Key Takeaways

What Are Presentation Skills? 

Presentation skills refer to all the qualities you need to create and deliver a clear and effective presentation. While what you say during a presentation matters, employers also value the ability to create supporting materials, such as slides.

Your prospective employer may want you to deliver briefings and reports to colleagues, conduct training sessions, present information to clients, or perform any number of other tasks that involve speaking before an audience.

Giving engaging and easy-to-understand talks is a major component of the strong  oral communication skills  that are a  job requirement  for many positions. Not all presentations take place in a formal meeting. Many presentation skills are relevant to one-on-one consults or sales calls.

Any presentation has three phases: preparation, delivery, and follow-up. All presentation skills fit into one of these three phases.

Preparation 

Preparation involves research and building the presentation. Consider the audience you'll be presenting to and what most interests them. This may mean crafting the entire text (or at least writing notes) and creating any slides and other supporting audio/visual materials.

You will also have to make sure that the appropriate venue is available, properly set up beforehand, and ensure the projector (if you'll need one) works and connects with your laptop.

You'll also want to practice your presentation as many times as you need to to feel comfortable delivering it with ease and confidence within the time allotted for the presentation.

Skills related to preparation include conducting research related to your presentation topic, devising charts and graphs depicting your research findings, and learning about your audience to better tailor your presentation to their needs. You'll also need to create digital slides, using statistics, examples, and stories to illustrate your points and effectively to persuade the audience.

Preparing handouts or digital references is an added courtesy that will help the audience pay attention because they won't be preoccupied with note-taking.

Your delivery is the part of the presentation that the audience sees. A good delivery depends on careful preparation and confident presentation and requires its own distinctive  skill set . 

Skills related to delivery include giving an attention-grabbing opening for a talk, providing a summary of what will be covered to introduce the presentation and provide context, and using  body language  and eye contact to convey energy and confidence.

Make sure you pause to emphasize key points, modulate your vocal tone for emphasis, and articulate your speech clearly and smoothly.

Don't be afraid of injecting humor or speaking with enthusiasm and animation—these techniques can help you in projecting confidence to your audience.

Summarize key points at the conclusion of the presentation, and be sure to have a plan for how you'll field any audience questions.

Presentation follow-up includes properly breaking down and storing any equipment, contacting any audience members with whom you agreed to communicate further, and soliciting, collecting, and analyzing feedback.

In some presentations, you may collect information from audience members—such as names and contact information or completed surveys—that you also must organize and store.

Skills related to follow-up include creating an evaluation form to solicit feedback from attendees, interpreting feedback from evaluations, and modifying the content and/or delivery for future presentations. Other follow-up skills include organizing a database of attendees for future presentations, interviewing key attendees to gain additional feedback, and emailing presentation slides to attendees.

To create and deliver the most effective presentation takes a variety of skills, which you can always work to improve.

You must be able to look honestly at your performance, assess the feedback you get, and figure out what you need to do to get better. That takes  analytical thinking .

More importantly, you need to have a firm grasp of the information you are about to communicate to others. You need to analyze your audience and be prepared to think quickly if asked questions that force you to demonstrate that you are fully aware of the material and its implications.

The kind of analytical skills you need to be an effective presenter include problem sensitivity, problem-solving , reporting and surveying, optimization, and predictive modeling. It also helps to be adept at strategic planning, integration, process management, and diagnostics. With these skills, you'll be better able to objectively analyze, evaluate, and act on your findings.

Organization

You do not want to be the person who spends half of their presentation time trying to find a cable to connect their laptop to the projector. Many things can and do go wrong just before a presentation unless you are  organized .

Presentation preparation also means keeping track of notes, information, and start/stop times. You will want to proofread and fine-tune all the materials you plan to use for the presentation to catch any mistakes. Make sure you time yourself when you rehearse so you know how long it will take to deliver the presentation.

A presentation that's finished in half the time allotted is as problematic as one that's too long-winded.

Some key organizational skills to work on include event planning, auditing, benchmarking, prioritization, and recordkeeping. Make sure your scheduling is on point and pay close attention to detail. Quick thinking is an important skill to have for when things inevitably go wrong.

Nonverbal Communication

When speaking to an audience, the way you present yourself can be just as important as how you present your information. You want to appear confident and engaging. You can do this through good posture, the use of hand gestures, and making eye contact with the audience.

Practice your  nonverbal communication  by filming yourself doing a practice presentation and observing your body language carefully. Your physical bearing and poise should convey a degree of comfort and confidence in front of an audience, while active listening , respect, and emotional intelligence will help you in facilitating group discussions.

Presentation Software

Microsoft PowerPoint is the dominant software used to create visual aids for presentations. Learn to use it well, including the special features outside of basic templates that can really bring a presentation to life. Even if someone else is preparing your slideshow for you, it will help to know how to use the software in case of last-minute changes.

Other software that is good to learn includes Microsoft Office, Apple Keynote, Google Slides, and Adobe Presenter.

Public Speaking

You need to appear comfortable and engaging when speaking before a live audience, even if you're not. This can take years of practice, and sometimes  public speaking  just isn't for certain people. An uncomfortable presenter is a challenge for everyone. Fortunately, public speaking skills can improve with practice . Some skills to work on include articulation, engagement, and memorization. You should be able to assess the needs of the audience and handle difficult questions. Controlling your performance anxiety will help you communicate more effectively.

Research is the first step in preparing most presentations and could range from a multi-year process to spending 20 minutes online, depending on context and subject matter. At the very least, you must be able to clearly frame research questions, identify appropriate information sources, and organize your results. Other useful skills include brainstorming, collaboration , comparative analysis, data interpretation, and deductive and inductive reasoning. Business intelligence is a skill that will help you evaluate what information you need to support the bottom line, while case analysis and causal relationships will help you parse and evaluate meaning.

Verbal Communication

Public speaking is one form of  verbal communication , but you will need other forms to give a good presentation. Specifically, you must know how to answer questions. You should be able to understand questions asked by your audience (even if they're strange or poorly worded) and provide respectful, honest, and accurate answers without getting off-topic. Use active listening, focus, and empathy to understand your audience. Skills such as assertiveness, affirmation, and enunciation will help you restate and clarify your key points as it relates to their questions or concerns.

You may or may not need a written script, but you do need to pre-plan what you are going to say, in what order you will say it, and at what level of detail. If you can write a cohesive essay, you can plan a presentation.

Typical writing skills apply to your presentation just as they do to other forms of writing, including grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and proofreading. The ability to build outlines, take notes, and mark up documents will also be useful.

More Presentation Skills

In addition to the skills previously mentioned, there are other important skills that can apply to your presentation. The other skills you need will depend on what your presentation is about, your audience, and your intended results. Some of these additional skills include:

Include skills on your resume. If applicable, you might mention these words in your  resume summary  or  headline .

Highlight skills in your cover letter. Mention one or two specific presentation skills and give examples of instances when you demonstrated these traits in the workplace.

Show your presentation skills in job interviews. During the interview process, you may be asked to give a sample presentation. In this case, you will want to embody these skills during the presentation. For example, you will want to demonstrate your oral communication skills by speaking clearly and concisely throughout the presentation.

PennState. " Steps in Preparing a Presentation ."

Harvard Division of Continuing Education. " 10 Tips for Improving Your Public Speaking Skills ."

Northern Illinois University. " Delivering the Presentation ."

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Teamwork super-power: 40 self-appraisal comments that flex your skills

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Performance review phrases for excellent teamwork skills

Performance review phrases for satisfactory teamwork skills, performance review phrases when teamwork skills need improvement, feedback to improve teamwork skills, 8 self-appraisal questions to assess your teamwork skills.

Teamwork makes the dream work. 

At least, that’s what they say. But when it comes to teamwork, feedback and guidance are just as important as collaboration. There are plenty of types of feedback — and knowing which feedback lever to pull is important. 

If you’re managing a team (or in a self-managed team ), consider ways you can use communication and feedback to unlock your team’s potential. 

Use these practical examples of phrases, sample comments, and templates for your performance review , 360 feedback survey, or manager appraisal. The following examples relate don't just relate to teamwork. Use them for relationship-building, peer relationships, motivation , building enthusiasm, and employee engagement .

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If you’re wondering how you’re doing with your teamwork skills, try asking yourself some of these questions . With a self-evaluation , you can gain insight into your teamwork skills. 

Fine-tune your collaboration skills 

It’s rare (and dare we say, impossible) to have a successful career without teamwork. The secret to high-performing teams lies in a team that works well together . 

In the workplace, teamwork is a muscle that we all need to build. But for most (if not all) of us, it takes practice. 

BetterUp can help fine-tune your teamwork skills. At BetterUp, we’re here to help everyone live with purpose, clarity, and passion . And to unlock your team’s potential, you have to understand the whole person . You have to understand who your teammates are as people, what their strengths are, and how to empower them. 

Get started with virtual coaching . With BetterUp, you can help your team thrive in an ever-changing world. 

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Madeline Miles

Madeline is a writer, communicator, and storyteller who is passionate about using words to help drive positive change. She holds a bachelor's in English Creative Writing and Communication Studies and lives in Denver, Colorado. In her spare time, she's usually somewhere outside (preferably in the mountains) — and enjoys poetry and fiction.

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Goal-Setting: 20 Templates & Worksheets for Achieving Goals

Templates for goal setting

We wish to become a painter, to move to a new house, to write a book, to eat healthily, to exercise more, to become less anxious, and to run a marathon.

The list is endless, if ill defined. And yet, how much do we really want each one?

If something is vital to us, we need to make plans.

So, how do we do this?

Goal setting is widely accepted as the most effective way to focus our attention on the right activities, energize us, and increase our commitment (Sheard, 2013).

And yet, unless the goal is well formulated, the strategy appropriate, and the actions directed, it will lack purpose, relevance, direction, and accountability (Ogbeiwi, 2017).

Thankfully, this is an area that has received considerable scientific attention.

Goals are most effective when we use well-formulated frameworks that provide a logical, reliable platform to plan and monitor their completion.

Use the techniques and tools that follow to inspire you and find out what you want to achieve, why, and how you are going to do it.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques to create lasting behavior change.

This Article Contains:

3 ways to set achievable goals, our 5 favorite goal-setting worksheets, what are smart goals a template, goal-setting tools for therapy and coaching, 2 templates for cbt and dbt, worksheets for teachers and students.

2 Templates for Businesses and Employees

Worksheets for achieving life goals, a look at daily and weekly goal planners, a take-home message.

There are many types of goals. But ultimately, all goals boil down to one thing:

We need to move from one state to another, from where we are now to where we want to be.

Firstly, what sort of goal do you want to achieve?

The type of goal will influence your approach.

Discomfort zone

Goals should be meaningful. They should challenge us, change us, and sometimes lie in the discomfort zone .

In Your Best Year Ever , Michael Hyatt (2019) outlines four steps (modified below) for defining goals that stretch us and help us overcome our built-in resistance.

Meaningful goals

Humans have a set of innate psychological needs, one of which is to add meaning to life (Ryan & Deci, 2018).

Does this goal align with your overall life goals?

Use the steps below to focus on becoming more aware of the most meaningful things in your life (modified from Ivtzan, Chan, Gardner, & Prashar, 2011; Ivtzan, 2016):

As you refine your goals, make sure they continue to align with the picture you have created of a meaningful life.

write down your goals

The more vividly they are captured, the more likely you are to accomplish them.

The GROW model (Goals, Reality, Options, and Way Forward) is a simple but highly effective method for setting goals, recognizing where you are now, and identifying what to do next (Whitmore, 2014).

Complete the four worksheets as follows:

Goal setting

What is your current reality?

What options do you have?

What is the way forward?

The Wheel of Success

What abilities do you have or need to deliver your goals?

The Wheel of Success identifies the skills and abilities that promote your very best performance (Whyte, 2015).

For example, a runner training for a fast marathon time may have the speed but lack endurance.

By scoring where you are now (blue) and where you want to be (green), it is possible to focus time, energy, and resources, on improving areas where you fall short.

wheel of success

Improving your skills

How do you improve the skills you have identified?

Thankfully, we know the answer.

Research has confirmed that deliberate practice results in expertise.

The quality and the form the deliberate practice takes are more important than the number of hours devoted to performing the task (Ericsson, 2007; 2012).

What motivates you?

Identify and connect with the motivation behind each goal.

Intrinsic motivation – being driven by internal rewards – increases engagement and the likelihood that you will reach the goal (Ryan & Deci, 2018).

Michael Hyatt (2019) has the following suggestions:

Goals that align with your values – personal growth, contributing to the broader community, etc. – are strong intrinsic motivators and increase vitality.

The flow of success

Are you ready to begin setting clear and defined SMART goals?

Follow the steps in the diagram below (adapted from Whyte, 2015):

Flow of Success

If you answer ‘no’ to any of the questions, then you must revise the challenge or the environment before setting the goal.

Once you have answered ‘yes’ to all three questions, you are ready to define the goal to meet the challenge head on.

Goal setting not only helps you to complete the task, but also impacts wellbeing, represents your strive to achieve personal change, and enhances your meaning and purpose in life (Sheard, 2013).

To achieve something big, you need to break it down into a set of smaller, manageable tasks. Each time you complete one, you move nearer to the overall goal.

The widely used SMART, or slightly extended SMART ER , template ensures that each goal or sub-goal is realistic, achievable, and time-bound.

Specific – Goals should be clear and concise.

Measurable – What does success look like? How is it measured?

Achievable – The goal or task must be challenging but possible. Gently pushing the limits encourages improvement and growth.

Relevant – Does the goal fit with your overall life goals and core values?

Time-bound – When will you finish?

Exciting – What excites you? The benefits should be worthwhile to maintain commitment.

Reviewable – Circumstances change. Revisit the goals, and revise them if needed.

The SMART Goals Worksheet offers a valuable tool for defining and documenting a SMART goal.

therapy tools for goal setting

Goals should target the problem to be explored and outline the time available.

Setting new goals in therapy

What do you want to achieve? How do you want things to be different?

The following steps (modified from Wilding, 2015) help you set appropriate therapy goals:

Well done! You are well on the way to having a set of goals.

Prioritize your goals

Some goals are urgent but do not need analysis.

Acting upon them will immediately make your life better.

I would like to get the car fixed. I would like to visit my mother; she is unwell.

Prioritize your goals and tackle the urgent ones first.

Act or think differently

Are the goals achieved through action or a change in the way you think?

Label your goals as either:

Labeling each goal will confirm whether you need to work on how you think, behave, or both.

Coaching needs to be goal driven to maximize its benefits.

The following two worksheets will help:

Coping Styles Formulation

If your coping strategies are not effective against the problems you face, then a set of actions are needed to direct the best way forward.

The Coping Styles Formulation worksheet identifies a list of problems, potential coping strategies, and the advantages and disadvantages of each one.

Mindfulness meditation

Mindfulness is often taught as part of Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). Clients are helped to gain awareness of their thoughts and feelings and eliminate behaviors that interfere with goals (Soler et al., 2012).

Being in the right state of mind and grounding yourself in the present can help you identify and deliver your goals.

The 3-Step Mindfulness Worksheet is deceptively simple but provides a valuable way of practicing mindfulness throughout the day and bringing awareness to the present.

Goal setting is crucial to maximize and direct limited resources in education.

However, the teacher’s and student’s states of mind are equally important.

Motivation to learn

Like all of us, students and teachers need to be motivated to meet their goals.

This Self-Directed Speech Worksheet can help you change your self-directed speech and increase voluntary, or autonomous, motivation, which is linked to goal fulfillment (Ryan & Deci, 2018).

There are four steps to this exercise:

Changing our inner narrative can be an effective way to motivate ourselves toward achieving personal, exciting goals.

Mindfulness in schools

Focus and attention are hugely important to the completion of goals. The absence of either will lead to an environment of distraction.

The Teaching Kids to Thrive worksheet discusses what mindfulness is and is not.

It helps to provide sufficient distance from disturbing or unwanted thoughts to act and deliver on outcomes.

Goal Planning with Children

goal planning and kids

Lack of focus, ease of distraction, and failing motivation are all possible challenges to overcome.

And yet, children asked to engage in a goal they value are likely to expend more effort and perform better (Koufoudakis, Erwin, Beighle, & Thornton, 2016).

Meaning and Valued Living

An excellent starting point for setting goals with children is to identify what inspires a sense of meaning in their lives.

Start by downloading and working through the three Meaning and Valued Living Exercises .

Self-awareness

Children need to gain an understanding of their strengths, along with what they find difficult.

The Self Awareness Worksheet is written for young children but is valuable at any age.

Through helping a child understand what they are good at, what they find hard, and what they like and don’t like, it is possible to define a set of goals that mix strengths and weaknesses.

Goals at any age should be challenging to encourage growth, but not beyond the child’s ability to complete, or they may become disillusioned and give up.

SMART for children

SMART goals are an effective way to direct focus in children.

The Student Goal Setting Worksheet is simple to complete, even for young children. Here is an overview of the questions and statements to consider:

presentation skill attribute in goal sheet answer

Download 3 Free Goals Exercises (PDF)

These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients create actionable goals and master techniques for lasting behavior change.

Download 3 Free Goals Pack (PDF)

By filling out your name and email address below.

Goal setting templates can be a useful base from which to start planning. We share two templates especially applicable to business and employees.

SMART goals for businesses

Many employees are comfortable with the idea of setting SMART goals.

However, despite the familiarity, their value within the work environment is often underestimated.

When taken seriously, SMART goals can motivate employees to succeed beyond their current level of expertise and identify future opportunities for training and development (Clough & Strycharczyk, 2015).

Visualization of your future

Focusing on positive mental images can prepare and protect our minds, help us cope with change, and increase self-belief.

Mentally working through each step in as much detail as possible—imagining sounds, smells, touch, thoughts, emotions, and physical responses—on our way to hitting goals can feel as real to the mind as actually performing the activity (Clough & Strycharczyk, 2015).

Imagine feeling confident, in control, and enjoying the challenge and the moment.

How to design your life (my process for achieving goals) – ModernHealthMonk

What are your dreams? What is important to you? What do you want to accomplish in life?

Document your life goals to provide the focus you need to make hopes and dreams real.

Martin Seligman’s PERMA model helps us to understand the elements of our lives that promote happiness.

Download the PERMA worksheet to understand your five core elements of wellbeing:

P – Positive emotions

E – Engagement

R – Relationships

M – Meaning

A – Accomplishments

weekly goal planners

Review and change the goals over time, in line with your situation, your feelings, and what you want.

The Create a Legend Life Planner is available from Amazon and provides a high-quality home for your life goals.

The 90 Day Smart Goal Planner Calendar & Journal is also available from Amazon and uses SMART goals to target what you want to complete and change over the next three months.

Imagine acting on the dreams that you keep tucked away, the ones that seem too big or too personal to share.

Make them real. Write them down as goals.

Let them inspire you and transform the world around you. Use goals to become the best possible you.

So, go ahead, take the resources from this article and identify significant goals that excite you. Break them down, define them as SMART goals, and turn them into something realistic and achievable.

By crafting them into something tangible and working through the individual actions, you will grow into the person you need to be to complete them.

Goal setting provides you with a means to navigate through a complex world and will encourage your long-term persistence.

Don’t let your goals remain a list of wishes.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Goal Achievement Exercises for free .

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Tom

This article is well-structured and science-based, with useful templates. Generous, helpful, practical and informative. Thank you Jeremy! (Now I need to put it to use..)

Jill Pride

Thank you this is exactly what I was looking for, today I started my journey on facing my obstacles head on and not creating diversions. Your templates will be valuable guides to help me acknowledge, get to the root of, work through and grow from the process of whatever I am seeking to improve. Just along writing this response was a start for me, thank you.

John

Do you receive some type of follow up?

Sharolyn, working mother and family motivator

Exactly what I was looking for in the first search!!! Dr. Sutton summarizes a HUGE amount of literature and proven techniques in one go. That is a huge time saver. I was looking for a template for doing weekly goal-setting as a family. We, as parents, have professional and personal goals and we want the children to begin thinking about goal setting for managing themselves, their schoolwork, sports, etc. This is a wonderful resource.

Thank you Dr. Sutton.

ROY DAVID

Thank you sir, Really its helped me.

Nicole Celestine

Hi Roy, So glad you found these templates helpful. Thanks for reading! – Nicole | Community Manager

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Presentation skills can be defined as a set of abilities that enable an individual to: interact with the audience; transmit the messages with clarity; engage the audience in the presentation; and interpret and understand the mindsets of the listeners. These skills refine the way you put forward your messages and enhance your persuasive powers.

The present era places great emphasis on good presentation skills. This is because they play an important role in convincing the clients and customers. Internally, management with good presentation skills is better able to communicate the mission and vision of the organization to the employees.

Importance of Presentation Skills

Interaction with others is a routine job of businesses in today’s world. The importance of good presentation skills is established on the basis of following points:

How to Improve Presentation Skills

Development of good presentation skills requires efforts and hard work. To improve your presentation skills, you must:

Job profiles that require this skill

presentation skill attribute in goal sheet answer

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Presentation Skills: Examples & Tips to Improve Yours

Presentation Skills: Examples & Tips to Improve Yours

In this guide, we go hard on presentation skills, with tips, examples, and strategies to help you prove yours in practice—and on your resume.

Christian Eilers, CPRW

As seen in:

Presentation is key.

Michelin-starred chefs and Broadway actors alike know this.

It’s true whether you’re preparing for a job interview, company meeting, or promotion to the position of a public relations manager.

Well, no problem, because…

This article will show you:

Want to save time and have your resume ready in 5 minutes? Try our resume builder. It’s fast and easy to use. Plus, you’ll get ready-made content to add with one click. See 20+ resume templates and create your resume here .

sample resume templates

Sample resume made with our builder— See more resume samples here .

Here are some other skills guides to help you along:

Presentation Skills — Definition & List of Main Presentation Types

First of all, what are presentation skills?

Presentation skills are the abilities one needs in order to deliver compelling, engaging, informative, transformative, educational, enlightening, and/or instructive presentations. Central to effective presentation skills are public speaking, tone of voice, body language, creativity, and delivery.

That said, there are several types of presentations:

Main Types of Presentations

Persuasive presentations are those given to arouse the audience to make the decision which the presenter hopes for. An example might be a startup founder delivering a presentation to an angel in the hopes of getting investment or a salesperson pitching a product to customers.

Instructional presentations are those given to guide the audience on a new policy, law, etc. For example, an HR manager might hold an onboarding presentation to instruct new employees on the rules of the company.

Informative presentations give information about a new procedure, benefit, etc. One example might be a company HR presentation where the manager gives information about the new bonus requirements.

Inspirational presentations are similar to persuasive presentations, but here the speaker aims to boost morale or increase brand pride, for example. Another example would be the rousing conclusion of a TED Talk speaker as they wrap up their speech.

Here’s a beautiful example of an inspirational presentation about, well, presentations:

And, there are several presentation delivery methods:

Presentation Delivery Methods

Pro Tip : What’s the difference between a speech and a presentation ? A speech is just plain ol’ spoken word read or delivered based on a written draft while a presentation gets creative with interaction, videos, slides, etc.

Skills in general are broken down into soft skills  (those you develop throughout life, like communication skills) and hard skills  (those you study, such as computer skills ). For more on this, check out: Soft Skills vs Hard Skills for a Job: What Employers Look For

How to Improve Your Presentation Skills [25 Steps]

Some people are born entertainers or have an innate eidetic memory (the ability to recall things from memory with great clarity from just a moment of exposure).

The rest of us always have room for growth.

No matter what the situation—

Here are the best ways to improve presentation skills:

1. Prepare Your Presentation in Advance

There are various methods of preparing for a presentation, and they’re all very similar to preparing for a job interview.

Run lines with a mock audience or friend, like actors and actresses auditioning for movie and stage roles. Give yourself plenty of time to prepare for an upcoming presentation or speech, especially when you are less experienced.

And, the last part of preparation—always be prepared with answers to follow-up questions once your presentation is over.

2. Practice Your Presentation As Much As Possible

As with anything, practice makes perfect.

Hopefully it doesn’t come down to Gladwell’s “10,000 hour rule,” but practice of some length is always required to hone your presentation skills.

Practice alone. Then, practice with a friend or family member. Then, always use each live presentation opportunity as a practice round for the next presentation.

3. Learn How to Skip Around

Poor presentation skills for most people involve a monotonous, robotic delivery.

And, sure, that isn’t so compelling.

However, what’s equally lackluster is a presenter who is unable to be dynamic and find real-time solutions to questions asked during the presentation. If an interruption or news update mid-presentation throws you off, then you need to practice and learn how to handle them.

Likewise, imagine giving a breaking news update to the public. If an advisor comes up to your podium to whisper in your ear, you have to take this new news into consideration, altering your presentation to fit.

Like improv sketches, knowing how to handle changes is an important part of a performance.

4. Speak Passionately About Your Topic

When you are passionate about the topic of your presentation, the audience senses it. It leaks through your pores and reflects from your eyes.

Show passion. Show enthusiasm. Be slightly crazy—

Or learn how to fake it.

Audience members who feel it on a visceral level, rather than only intellectually, are much more inclined to pay attention and find agreement with you.

And, bonus: they tend to fall asleep less!

5. Tell Stories in Your Presentations

Storytelling is one of the most effective presentation skills.

Crowds love stories. They give great examples of what the presenter is talking about, and they earn that rapt attention which any presenter aims for much more easily.

6. Understand What You Should And Shouldn’t Do

On your first presentation, you’d be forgiven for having a coffee to clear the fog from your mind. If and when it increases any pre-PowerPoint jitters, you know never to drink coffee prior again.

Same goes for the way you breathe, and the food you consume beforehand. You don’t need the added discomfort of a gassy stomach, so know what foods, if any, cause that for you.

On the opposite side, exercise, for most people, is a great way to relieve any built up tension the night prior.

As you practice, practice, practice, you’ll get signals from your environment, audience, and body as to what does and doesn’t work for you.

7. Know Your Audience

This one requires research in advance (remember: prepare!).

Let’s say you were hired to deliver several motivational speeches to various members of a large company. You nail your first presentation delivered to an audience of interns.

Do you give exactly the same performance to the senior-level executives, your next stop?

You wouldn’t, hopefully.

Executives will need to be spoken to in a different language, almost, with different vocabulary. Research your audience to deliver a presentation that speaks directly to them, not some other crowd, even if it was successful before.

8. Film Yourself

Try filming yourself delivering the presentation and playing it back. You can learn a lot just by seeing your own mistakes and working to improve them.

Later, give that same video to a friend and ask for further feedback and criticism. They are likely to spot something you might have missed, because, you know, two heads are better than one and all that.

9. Connect With the Audience’s Emotions & Inspire Action

Connect with the crowd on a gut level. The audience has to feel that what you’re saying is important, actionable, and true.

Here’s what the awesome social motivator, Simon Sinek , has to say:

When we communicate from the outside in, yes, people can understand vast amounts of complicated information like features and benefits and facts and figures. It just doesn't drive behavior. When we can communicate from the inside out, we're talking directly to the part of the brain that controls behavior, and then we allow people to rationalize it with the tangible things we say and do. This is where gut decisions come from. Simon Sinek social motivator

Be engaging. Be entertaining. This is how you truly speak to the audience. He sums it up like this:

Sometimes you can give somebody all the facts and figures, and they say, ‘I know what all the facts and details say, but it just doesn't feel right.’ Why would we use that verb, it doesn't ‘feel’ right? Because the part of the brain that controls decision-making doesn't control language. Simon Sinek social motivator

10. Tell Them You’re Nervous

This is one of my favorite presentation tricks, as I get super anxious before any kind of public speech or demonstration.

If you feel nervous, consider starting off by telling the audience such (“Forgive me, please, if my voice is wobbly, I’m a bit nervous…”). The audience is sure to empathize with your situation, and you don’t have to go through the entire presentation with some higher bar of confidence.

11. Use Humor

Add some jokes and humorous comments throughout your presentation. Like storytelling, it connects with the audience on a deeper level, and getting them to laugh helps to earn their attention back if you were losing it.

On top of that, you help cut any tension in the room, which is helpful if you’re nervous or have a fear of public speaking, but also helps to make any proposal or instructional presentation more palatable to the audience.

12. Remove Filler Sounds & Crutch Words

For example, do you, um , give, like , uh , sounds like this?

There’s nothing wrong with these in everyday speech. In linguistics, these are called filler sounds (or crutch words), and it is a common way to allow your brain to catch up with your words.

However, in presentations, these only make you look incompetent. Likewise, find other ways to improve your presentation delivery. Maybe your hand gestures look robotic, your jokes fall flat, or your voice cracks.

A compelling presentation depends on a compelling delivery. Check out this guide from Harvard Business Review for a great write-up on how to stop using so many crutch words.

13. Use the Right Visual Aids & Presentation Media

With some presentations, the medium of delivery is set (aside from the speech element). On a school project, for example, you may be required to use Microsoft PowerPoint.

However, when you have a choice, choose the right visual aid method. Even with PowerPoint, you have to choose between text slides, image slides, and infographic slides.

Not only is there not a single perfect visual aid medium for all presentations, but different sections of one presentation could benefit from a different media format. Maybe a 5-minute video would work great as an intro. Perhaps a set of image slides to wrap things up.

14. Improve Your Confidence

When trying to learn how to improve speaking skills or how to improve public speaking, work on improving your confidence. It’s one of the single most effective ways to boost your delivery, and thus your presentation.

Think positive thoughts . Make a SWOT analysis to boost your self-confidence. Work on your body language and stance.

A confident speaker is way more effective at how to give a presentation than one who isn’t, and this is true at job interviews, meetings, and negotiations.

15. Get Psyched

Sometimes the best way to get over those nervous jitters is to get yourself psyched.

Consider workouts, for example. How to get over that lazy feeling and get yourself to the gym? Think of the beach, think about how you’d like to look, play some heavy metal or hip hop.

Likewise, figure out what gets you pumped and excited before entering onstage. Music almost always helps, as does a bit of private dancing in an empty room. Maybe make faces at yourself in a mirror to immediately. Think of the post-show party after your presentation is over.

Invigorating yourself with these common routines is sure to prepare you for any type of presentations—including job interviews!

16. Focus on the Core

A great presenter may have many illustrious stories to help the audience understand the gist of the show.

However—

If you don’t use storytelling correctly, you’re liable to go off on tangents which will lose the audience. More disastrously, it could make you lose your own train of thought.

So, when you’re more of a beginner, focus on your core topic, and don’t stray far from its message. As you get more confident, you’ll be able to step further and further with your storytelling.

An added bonus: your presentation will be short, sweet, and over that much faster.

17. Engage an Audience Member

We’ve talked about connecting with the audience before, but this presentation trick works wonders, too.

Is everyone staring too intently at you and you are starting to get freaked out?

Turn the attention onto someone else for a moment to help you recollect yourself.

Perhaps make a joke about how your partner (“sitting right over there”) just ran three red lights to get you there on time. Or, if you’re on a panel, maybe you could give praise to that academic award your colleague behind you just earned.

Whichever way you do it, all eyes look away, giving you an instance to get your head right.

But be careful and always get permission! You don’t want to embarrass someone or say something not meant to be revealed just so you can have a 15-second reprieve. Always ask in advance.

18. Breathe

Breathing is so involuntary and commonplace that you likely wouldn’t consider it to be a potential presentation booster.

However, with the right breathing techniques, you can definitely lower your stress and anxiety, whether it’s on stage or at an interview.

Danny Penman, Ph.D. tells Psychology Today:

Momentary stress causes the body to tense and you begin to breathe a little more shallowly. A shallow breath lowers oxygen levels in the blood, which the brain senses as stress. Breathing then becomes a little faster and shallower. Oxygen levels fall a little more. The heart begins to race. The brain feels a little more stressed. It's a vicious circle. Danny Penman

Snap yourself out of that loop of despair by practicing some breathing exercises.

19. Reappraise Anxiety as Excitement

I used to always be nervous going to work each morning. Around the same time, I would also want to use the restroom.

That needing-to-go feeling always felt associated with nervousness. However, when I told myself that this feeling was just a normal morning urge, rather than anything to do with work—boy did that help!

As a Harvard study theorizes, you can use reappraisal of anxiety to help with presentations, as well:

“Individuals can reappraise anxiety as excitement using minimal strategies such as self-talk (e.g., saying “I am excited” out loud) or simple messages (e.g., “get excited”), which lead them to feel more excited, adopt an opportunity mind-set (as opposed to a threat mind-set), and improve their subsequent performance.”

Now, when I go to work each morning, I’m excited.

20. Use the Toilet

As I stated in my story example above, that need-to-go feeling may become associated in your mind with nervousness.

So, go to the bathroom.

And go even when you don’t have to, just in case your portion of the presentation or the questions afterwards runs longer than expected.

21. Mingle Beforehand

You were probably going to shake hands and chit-chat with audience members after the show’s over, depending on the intimacy and nature of the venue.

Mingle with them beforehand, as well. For those of you who might be afraid of public speaking, chatting face-to-face with members of the crowd turn them from big, scary monsters to people just like yourself.

Even if you’re just generally nervous about public speaking, getting a few smiles and handshakes prior adds a “temporary friend” in the audience for you—sure to put you more at ease than if everyone were complete strangers.

22. Arrive Extra Early

You might have planned to arrive a few minutes early anyway, right?

It’s not enough.

There are likely dozens of things you can’t or won’t account for, from the projector malfunctioning to crazy feedback on the mic to curtains that just won’t recede.

While you don’t have to account for everything that could go wrong, it’s best to give yourself extra time just in case. And, hey, if everything is fine for you, then you just get a few extra minutes to relax yourself and rehearse once more.

23. Exercise

One of the best ways to have a relaxed demeanor and attitude right before a presentation is to exercise. Regular exercise is proven to reduce anxiety and stress, too.

Go for a brisk walk for 10–15 minutes, or do a few bicep curls. Like a shot of whisky, it’s sure to take the edge off. It’s just healthier and safer.

However, don’t go too hard—you don’t want your shirt to have visible pools of sweat.

24. Sit In on Other Presentations

Aside from your own public speaking and presentations, what better way to improve your presentations than by watching others?

Don’t just watch anybody, of course.

Find a person or two whose presentation skills you absolutely adore. Whether they’re online or at your local town hall, watch closely and take notes on what makes them such a compelling presenter.

This brings us to the next step—

25. Learn From These TED Talks (Videos)

Watch others and follow the best presentation practices to improve your skills. This means having active listening skills when your audience asks specific questions.

Here are some more presentations on how to give rousing presentations (how meta is that?):

These TED Talks give some great ideas on improving presentation skills, boosting confidence, and reducing stage fright.

26. Don’t Give Up!

As you continue to present and practice presentation skills training, you’ll get more and more comfortable. Your confidence will increase as your shyness and hesitance withers away.

On top of that, you’ll begin to learn what works for you and what pre-presentation rituals you should avoid.

Finally, you won’t get the practice you need if you don’t continue presenting!

Pro Tip : Toastmasters International is a unique club for members who want to develop presentation skills, confidence in public speaking, and leadership skills. There are thousands of clubs all around the world, and they meet weekly to improve.

When making a resume in our builder, drag & drop bullet points, skills, and auto-fill the boring stuff. Spell check? Check . Start building a  professional resume template here for free .

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When you’re done, Zety’s resume builder will score your resume and tell you exactly how to make it better.

How to Show Presentation Skills on a Resume, in Your Cover Letter & During a Job Interview

Since this is Zety, the premier career platform, it’s now time to connect presentation skills with your career.

You have three opportunities to highlight your presentation skills while you’re hunting for jobs: on your resume, in your cover letter, and during a job interview.

We’ll now go through it step-by-step.

How to Show Presentation Skills on a Resume

First and foremost, relevance is key. Always tailor your resume to one specific job opportunity.

Remember that meta tip from before (watching presentations which talk about presentations)?

Resumes get a bit meta, too.

If the job ad mentions presentation skills, not only do you need to list them on your resume, but your resume as a whole is a form of presentation, itself.

This is how to get it right:

1. Presentation Skills on a Resume

These days, more and more companies are using the ATS to assist in the hiring process.

The ATS, or applicant tracking system, is software which aids human resources staff by parsing each resume for the right resume keywords .

Don’t have the right keywords?

Start by bringing out the job description for which you are applying.

Here are several examples from various job listings requiring presentation skills:

As you can see, different companies need presentation skills in different ways. Specific ones, such as Microsoft Office skills , should be listed when necessary.

You’ve got to list them in a specific way.

To make the ATS happy, stick as closely as possible to the wording the job ad uses when adding it to your skills section.

And, to make it even more effective, quantify your presentation skill by turning it into a numbered professional achievement :

Were you a public speaker in the past?

Then you have an even better way to list presentation skills on a resume.

Instead of in the skills section, you’ll create an extra resume section specifically called “Presentations” or “Public Speaking.”

Here’s an example of how to include presentations on a resume:

Presentations & Talks

Not so hard, right?

This kind of section works great if you’ve given TED talks or been interviewed on a public talk show, for example.

Nothing shows presentation skills better than an actual presentation you’ve given in the past! And it boosts your employability skills even more so.

2. Presentation Skills on a Cover Letter

Just because you talked up your presentation abilities in your resume doesn’t mean you can’t include it on the cover letter, as well.

We always advocate for adding numbered achievements to cover letters, too.

So, include a win or two in the body of your application letter just as you did on your resume.

Here’s an example of presentation skills on a cover letter:

… During my career thus far working as the chief evangelist for Orion Tech, I’ve worked tirelessly on honing my presentation skills to perfection. I am proud to submit to you a few examples of my presentation abilities, including:

As you can see, I have the confidence and experience needed to conduct presentations at all levels …

Here, we used the body of the cover letter to talk up your presentation talents. You gave them a quick intro into your abilities, then fired off a few shots to prove it, and finally summed it all up for them.

Not so hard at all, right?

3. Presentation Skills at an Interview

Lastly, the interview.

The job interview is a make-or-break performance for you, and presentation skills will be needed in spades.

While most of our presentation preparation tips from before are relevant, here is a quick way to ace your interview:

Pro Tip : Presentation skills requested on a job description may not be obvious. Instead of asking for them outright, the job ad might seek someone able to use Powerpoint or Google Slides and is comfortable with public speaking. Make sure you spot this.

After the interview, there’s one more time to present yourself. Check this article out: How to Follow Up After an Interview

Plus, a great cover letter that matches your resume will give you an advantage over other candidates. You can write it in our cover letter builder here.  Here's what it may look like:

matching set of resume and cover letter

See more cover letter templates and start writing.

Key Takeaway

Here’s a quick recap of everything you need to remember about presentation skills:

Do you have any questions on how to make a presentation? Need help with creative presentation ideas, ways to present a project, or presentation tools? Give us a shout in the comments below and we will answer your question. Thanks for reading!

Christian Eilers, CPRW

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