Episode 06

Daniel and Sarah make their presentations. Will they impress the interviewers?

Do the preparation task first. Then watch the video and do the exercises. You can also read the transcript.

Preparation

Transcript

Daniel: When I was asked to do a presentation on 'Where WebWare is going and what I can do to help it get there', my first thought was simple: me! As you've already seen, I've got a lot of skills and the right kind of personality needed to do a job like this. Here's a slide I made! You see that? That's my sales team. They love me! Certainly going to be sad to see me leave. Outside-the-box thinking – that's what I've got!

Sarah: OK. To start with, I did a careful SWOT analysis using the data I had available, which is obviously only partial. I looked at aspects such as competitors, online visibility, changing technologies and R&D. On the basis of this, I believe WebWare should carry out some careful market research, strengthen its brand awareness in secondary markets and improve the flexibility of its offer. If this produces positive results, I think it should be possible to maintain the premium pricing policy.

Daniel: Here's the sales figures for the last job I did – all down to me. Blue-sky thinking! Finally, to finish my presentation, I'd like to play you a song I wrote ...

Philip: OK, OK ... that's enough. Thanks, Daniel.

Daniel: Great! So, does that mean I've got the job?

Marcia: Erm, we'll be in touch over the next five days to let you know.

Daniel: OK, great. Thank you.

Sarah: This is how I predict a sales pattern would go. I have to emphasise these are only speculative results at the moment. The key words are caution, adaptability and consolidation of main product lines – WebWare's 'cash cows', if you like. It's important to be flexible, yet reliable. Oh, and another thing is you need to improve the delivery times on your online orders. I hope all that's clear. Do you have any questions?

Philip: No, thank you, Sarah. That's all very clear. You've given us quite a lot to think about, there!

Marcia: Yeah, thanks a lot, Sarah. We'll be in touch over the next few days to let you know about the appointment.

Sarah: Thank you both for your time. It's been a pleasure meeting both of you.

Marcia: Bye bye!

Sarah: Bye.

Philip: Bye.

Sarah: Bye.

Task 1

Exercise

Task 2

Exercise

Discussion

Whose presentation impressed you more, and why?

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Worksheet84.42 KB

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Language level

B1 - Intermediate

B2 - Upper intermediate

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These two interviews are totally different from each other. It is obvious that Sarah's presentation is good example of how good presentation should look like. Sarahs's presentation is relevant and important for company's goal. On the other hand, Daniel Talks lacks careful market analysis and he did not researched organisation goals. Instead of focusing on organisation and demonstration of his work skills, he spoke about himself and delivered formal and casual speech. Meanwhile, Sarah demonstrated professionalism, his works skills and ability to conduct SWOT analysis as well as delivering speculative market result. Furthermore, he was confident and his speech were professional and business relevant. She is good embodiment of how good candidate for job should be.

Obviously Sarah impressed more with her presentation. She was professional and seemed prepared. Daniel, on the other hand, was informal, and he didn't investigate about the company or took a time for questions.

I am sure that Sarah has made a very interesting research over the company. She mentions "complains" over un-respected delay for the delivery times of the online orders

I don't understand why the CEO is remaining sitting down on his chair while he gives the hand to the candidates. In Belgium it's very impolite to do so.

Through the presentation of the two candidates, we can see the difference between them. While Daniel didn't respond to the expectation of the panel, that is how he projected to take them to the best objective, Sarah gave a fascinating presentation, showing that she spent time to learn about the company and made a serious analysis on the market relating to her further job. Daniel talked about himself and his competence without giving any pieces of evidence. At the standpoint of a candidate, I find these two aspects are a real lesson that needs to remember if I wanted to get a convincing argument in an interview.

Daniels's presentation did not answer what Marcia asked. He did not mention anything about the businesses.

Sarah presentation and interwiev is better than Daniel's.

I liked video, it was very instructive, especially for me and my zero experience in business presentation

if I were CEO I would hire one of available staff resources for such important position...

Daniel says in his presentation about his sales team: "Certainly going to be sad to see me leave...". One the sentences of the Coomprehensive task says: "Daniel thinks that the sales team will be upset if he leaves" and it's given like true. My question is: Do the adjectives "sad" and "upset" have similar meaning?