Presentation Excellence: The Secret Skill Of Today’s Big Biller

As a recruiter, one thing is certain: at some point in your career, you will have to make a presentation. Chances are that you’ll make a great many— whether pitching for new business in a boardroom, giving a seminar about recruitment at a careers fair, or presenting a great opportunity to a reluctant passive candidate that you’re desperate to recruit.

When you think about it, to be a top biller, you need to present well every single time you pick up the phone or meet with a candidate. With so much presenting in everyday tasks, you’d be forgiven for thinking that all recruiters would have amazing presenting skills.

Yet many of us— even experienced recruiters—aren’t as strong at presenting as we should be. Whether you’re giving a formal presentation to a client or a chat over a coffee with a candidate, there are some key skills of presentation excellence that every biller must practice in order to succeed.

1. Show genuine enthusiasm.

There’s nothing more engaging than a speaker who has passion for what they do and the service they offer. Your enthusiasm will be infectious, and at the very least encourage people to listen to you with open minds.

2. Grab their interest from the get-go.

Don’t start slowly and warm up to your topic, as you’ll lose the audience’s interest before you’ve hit the second slide, or if you’re pitching on the phone you’ll hear the uncomfortable sound of a dial tone before you even got to the good bit. Always lead with something interesting, and drip-feed valuable information through the presentation until you arrive at the close.

3. Tell a story.

Humans love a good story, and great presenters know that. If you can incorporate a storytelling mechanism into your presentation- perhaps a case study from another client that you’ve produced wonders for, or the story of one of your passive candidates who tripled their salary through the placement, then you’ll have a much better chance of really getting through to that audience.
Top Tip: Be sure to make your story relatable to the client or candidate—and if you’re really clever, you’ll ‘book-end’ the presentation by returning to the story to finish up, giving the audience a satisfying sense of resolution.

4. Be organised and remain on-topic.

This one matters just as much if you’re meeting a candidate for lunch to discuss an opportunity as it does if you’re pitching a client. Practice your slides, have the necessary paperwork, and if you find yourself (or the audience) straying off topic then don’t be scared to pull them back.

You can always offer to talk to them about it after the presentation is done—that’s just an invitation for a follow-up call after all.

5. Remember to listen!

Many recruiters get so busy talking that they forget to listen. At the end of your presentation (or throughout, depending on how confident you are with interruptions) be sure to open up the floor for question-time.

If you’re nervous about this bit, why not practice beforehand with a list of likely questions you might face? Don’t keep to a script as it will sound forced, but you will feel more confident for having prepared.

6. Video your presentation and watch it back.

Once you’ve gotten over the initial squirm of ‘surely I don’t look/sound like that’, you can gain some amazing insights on the quality of your presentation skills by having the courage to watch it back on tape.

We’d advise doing this beforehand so you can nip any problems in the bud before the presentation, but it’s also a good idea to record a presentation live so that you can see if nerves make you talk faster or mutter, or if you move about too much or too little.

And watch out for telltale sounds and signs of boredom or restlessness in your audience- if you can hear papers rustling, pens clicking, or people starting to whisper, you know that that’s the point in the pitch that you lost them. Just like top performing footballers have to watch their matches back to see where they could improve, so do presenters!

Remember, being able to present well doesn’t only clinch the big clients and dramatically reflect in your billing numbers, but it also marks you out to upper management as someone who will go far.

You might even be selected for perks like travelling to conferences to present on behalf of the recruitment company, or be pegged for the management track. Being able to present with passion and charisma opens a whole world of opportunity to the clever recruiter.

Until next time,

Cheryl