Hints and Tips for Effective Public Speaking

Here are just a few hints, public speaking tips and techniques to help you develop your skills and become far more effective as a public speaker.

Mistakes

Mistakes are all right.
Recovering from mistakes makes you appear more human.
Good recovery puts your audience at ease - they identify with you more.

Humour

Tell jokes if you're good at telling jokes.
If you aren't good, best to leave the jokes behind.
Gentle humour is good in place of jokes.

Tell stories

Stories make you a real person not just a deliverer of information.
Use personal experiences to bring your material to life.
No matter how dry your material is, you can always find a way to humanise it.

How to use the public speaking environment

Try not to get stuck in one place.
Move around.
One way to do this is to leave your notes in one place and move to another.
If your space is confined use stronger body language to convey your message.

Technology

Speak to your audience not your slides.
Your slides are there to support you not the other way around.
Ideally, slides should be graphics and not words (people read faster than they hear and will be impatient for you to get to the next point).
If all the technology on offer fails, it's still you they've come to hear.

You can learn to enjoy public speaking and become far more effective at standing in front of a group of people and delivering a potent message.

Interview Skills

People say:

• People decide about you in the first 10 seconds
• You have to make a good first impression
• Learn as much about the company as you can
• They will ask questions to trip you

Its not about these questions, but presenting yourself in the most authentic way

Your first opportunity: Getting the interview

Your CV has to stand out since a million other people also want the job.

Some tips:

• Use good paper
• Make it easy on the eyes
• Don’t put in too much detail
• Put who you are now
• Leave education and qualifications at the end
• Write a short paragraph about yourself
• Highlight the good points in your present job

Preparing for a job interview

• Think that you are the man they want
• First impressions are important
• Be yourself from the start
• Never lie. It shows
• Show that you know how to relate and communicate with people
• Tell about your skills, like if you know some other language

Seven Laws of Presentation

The Seven Laws of Presentation

• Audiences sleep!
• Repetition is death!
• Feelings are a poor indicator of how you are doing!
• The job is to get them to want more of what you've got!
• When you're on, you're in charge!
• There is always a message!
• Passion is mandatory!

Soft Skills

6 soft skills for every professional

i. Interpersonal skills

ii. Team spirit

iii. Social grace

iv. Business etiquette

v. Negotiation skills

vi. Behavioural traits such as attitude, motivation and time management

Do you have these? If your answer is yes, good for you.

But if your answer is no, then you know it is time to approach either a training organisation or a training consultant.

If you dont have them acquire them and be your own trainer!

While organisations are definitely investing in augmenting their staff's people skills, here are some inputs for professionals and students who would like to initiate the process themselves:

i. Be a part of team activities

ii. Ask family members or close friends to write down your best and worst traits.

iii. How well do you manage your time?

iv. Introspect on how you react to feedback.

v. How good are you at critiquing?

vi. Live consciously

Soft skills on your CV

Soft Skills in your Resume

Examples of soft skills that you could integrate in your resume

• problem solving
• communication team player skills
• conflict management
• interpersonal skills
• planning and organization
• leadership and motivation skills
• initiative

Employers are realising how a candidate's soft skills can help them determine which potential employee should be offered the job. When you are short listed and there are two or three remaining candidates, your soft skills can give you that extra push that will win you the race.

Most job candidates do not emphasise their job skills nearly enough. Communication, team leadership and planning are all transferable skills and very useful to the candidates who are changing careers. Most job adverts specify 'soft skills' in their requirements.

When writing your resume for a specific job, include the soft skills required in the job description and design your other work accomplishments around them.

When marketing your soft skills, be sure to identify the specific soft skills the employer is requesting then build your resume around them. For example, when you begin describing your soft skills ask yourself questions like this, 'What are my specific problem solving skills? How do I use problem solving on the job? Why is problem solving important in my job?'