The Most Critical Part of Presentation

You may think the most critical part of presenting yourself professionally is dressing the part or speaking with confidence. While all that is helpful, telling a clear story about yourself is most important. For example, in an interview context, do you explain why you are interested and how your past naturally leads you to this point? Or is your story a complicated jumble? To make an impact on your listener, you need to:

1. Consider what 3 things your listener should remember about you. Those 3 things should be linked either to each other or to your goal.
2.  Think of short stories or vivid examples so that the listener can remember those things about you. You must provide the content to control your narrative.
3. Make your story resonate. Identify clear themes, and skip the irrelevant portions. For instance, if you graduated in the Great Recession and made multiple moves, explain an over-arching theme, e.g., you have always been interested in Y. Even though you started in X, you made changes, took classes, and finally gained expertise/professional success in Y.
4. Present yourself consistently. Does what you say in person line up with your resume and your online presence (firm bio, LinkedIn profile, Twitter account, etc.)?

Remember: your goal is to tell a clean story about how your past leads to this job. Do not make the interviewer wonder why you applied or why it makes sense to hire you.