As a career coach with 20 years of experience, I have worked with 1000s of people in job search teaching them interview skills. My basic belief is that the interview is a sales call . You would not expect a salesperson to go to a sales call and sit passively while the prospect asks a series of questions to elicit all the information they need to know to make a purchase decision. A good sales call is a combination of listening, asking questions, answering questions, making a presentation and engaging in a conversation.

The interview presentation is not meant to run the interview. It should take no more than 20 minutes to go through and, like a good sales presentation, it is designed to create a conversation which enriches the interview.

This whole issue of who “controls” the interview is an interesting issue. I believe the interview is co-owned with both the interviewer and candidate responsible for the success of the interview. The interview presentation helps the candidate “guide” the interview for a short period of time and communicate the information they think the interviewer needs to know about them.

As far as hiring managers liking the interview presentation, we have had a number of hiring managers who have had a candidate use a presentation in an interview with them develop and use a presentation when they were in an interview. Once they see the power and effectiveness of the presentation they would not go to an interview without it.

We have found that just going through the process of developing a presentation is the best interview preparation process available. Also after preparing a presentation, a job seekers confidence goes way up. How can it not when you feel prepared for the interview and have a professional printed and bound document to present and use as a leave behind.

An InterviewBest presentation can be printed at any Kinko’s, Staples, SirSpeedy, OfficeMax, OfficeDepot. Many of these “print shops” can receive the presentation electronically and have it ready for printing in a few hours. The presentation can also be sent to Mimeo; in fact we provide a link to Mimeo on our print page.