Once you’ve secured the interview and carefully chosen your portfoio pieces, it’s now time to turn to the presentation itself. You’ll need to carefully plan what you’ll say about each one and in what order you’ll present them. I’ve outlined a process for doing this that ensures some great results.
Write!
Once you’ve chosen the work to be presented, take the time to carefully evaluate each work. It’s obviously in the sequence for a solid reason already, but make sure to make a list of all of the things that this work represents for you. Include things you learned in the process, the process itself, skills, techniques, and any personal or client experience attached to it or situation you can share. Do this for each piece in the lineup.
Once you’ve gone through all the work, try out several options for sequencing. Set the list for each of the pieces next to or on top of each work so you can easily reference its significance. Work on a structure that gives the whole body of work a good narrative. Look for potential transition opportunities and write those down on a post-it note to put between pieces that make sense together. Document each sequence you try noting the pros and the cons of each.
Once you’ve established the strongest sequence, get to work writing the outline. What you are writing is essentially the script you plan to use when presenting the work. Some people will prefer to improvise, but if you are new to all this, you will never regret writing down everything you want to say. Even if later, you decide to lose the notes, having gone through the process of writing, revising, and rewriting the script, most of the information will be solidly placed in your brain for easy access. Also, the only way you will be able to know that you can present in the alotted time frame is to know what you will say and how long it will take to say it.
Most Important: Practice, Practice, Practice
I cannot emphasize enough how important it is that you practice your presentation. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been involved in hundreds of interviews and in almost every case (if not every case) I can tell how much preparation went in. Even the most nervous candidates, as much as they may be struggling, clearly project the amount of time and energy they spent preparing and that in itself goes a long way, often much farther than they even know.
Some people are naturally better presenters than others, but the most out-going easy breezy personality cannot pull a great interview from thin air. They can be charming and likable and even have a great looking portfolio, but the audience can feel the loss of the presentation that could have been when there isn’t adequate preparation. In these cases, the candidate sells both themselves and their work short and nearly always struggles to manage the time well. They often finish early, or more often, don’t get through even half of the work they have queued up.
You need to practice with your actual portfolio. It isn’t enough to just flip through slides or photos of the work while you think through the words silently in your head. You need to actually hold the book or boards in place while you talk aloud. You need to sit behind a propped up iPad or laptop and practice the experience of talking about the work while interacting with the portfolio. Will you be sitting or standing? Do you plan to use the trackpad or a mouse to navigate? Will your book be flat on the table or will you be holding it in front of you? These are very important things to figure out while you are practicing as are the countless other issues that will come up as you go. One particular thing I see over and over again that people didn’t account for is that their hands shake when they are nervous. If you are holding boards or a book, when this happens it can be very distracting to your audience and very embarrassing for you.
If possible, ask friends or family members to play the role of the interviewer and watch you present. Have them tell you what they observe. Even without any design background, they can easily point out any crutch words you may use like the ever popular, “um”. They can also point out any problems you may have with glare or image sizes. They are also a great resource for getting your timing together. Ask them to time you overall and on each piece. This will help you identify spots you need to work on.
Work particularly hard on the beginning and ending of your portfolio presentation. These are usually the most awkward parts, but also the best opportunities to show your level of preparation. What will you say when finally asked to present? How will you start? I would recommend giving just a little background about your self before diving in. Set the stage for you, your work, and your personality, and build it right into your portfolio. If you are using a book, it’s a great idea to have a title page that allows you to do this. If you are using boards or slides you can do the same thing. Not only will this give you a chance to inject a little extra personality and show off your masterful preparation, but it will allow you to settle into the spotlight a bit before you begin talking about your first project. It’s easy to rush at the beginning due to nerves and you should be able to more easily talk about yourself than the project while you are adjusting.
As for the ending, please don’t just stop or worse, say something like, “Well, that’s it.” Use the ending as your chance to transition back to actual conversation, prompt a discussion about a project or at the very least, ask if anyone would like to see any of the work again, or ask if they have any questions about anything you shared. Take charge of the ending, it a great chance to leave a positive impression about your presentation abilities. It is, after all, the closing of a pitch.
Have a Backup
When I say have a backup, I mean it in three different ways. The first is that I highly recommend having two identical presentations. This means two sets of boards (if you are using boards), two identical books, a backup flash drive if you are digital, or the like. There is always the chance that something unforeseen could happen to your work. Having an identical backup that is secured somewhere will not only save the day in a disaster, but will help with the nerves knowing that you are prepared in the event that something terrible does happen.
The second backup I’m referring to is a totally separate presentation method. Different situations will demand (or al least be improved by) different presentation types. You may walk into a situation where you had expected only 2 people, come to find there are actually 5 people sitting at the table. Suddenly the intimate iPad experience you had been planning is no longer a good option. Hopefully this doesn’t happen, but if it does, having an alternate presentation in your back pocket just might make all the difference.
In this situation, you might choose instead to use your prepared backup boards, or you could politely suggest that given the crowd, you might try your on-screen presentation. You’ll look like you’ve thought of everything and that will be a gold star on your application. It will demonstrate your planning ability, but will also really highlight your flexibility and ability to read a situation. These are valuable qualities in any employee.
The third type of backup I recommend is some additional pieces that you can pull out in a pinch. Let’s say you get nervous and blow through your whole prepared portfolio with time to spare? What if you could say, “Since we have a few minutes, left, I’ve also brought along X, would you like to see it?” It’s always great to have something up your sleeve.
Once in a while, you might be hit with a followup question like, “Is there anything else you’d like to share?” Of course there are endless ways to respond to this, but it never hurts to have another design piece in waiting for just this occasion. It can sometimes help to have this piece be different from the others in some way. This can mean that if you had shown boards or a book, maybe this backup piece is a physical product which can add a little extra dimension to the conversation, no pun intended.
Wrap Up
This concludes my three part series on design interviews. I hope you have found these articles useful and are able to put some at least some of the tips to good use in your own search. Best of luck!