Gary Will's WORKSEARCH:
Selling Yourself To An Employer
Chapter 18: (continued)
Using written materials and presentation visuals
From the book How to Prepare for an Employment Interview.
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[Chapter 18: continued from here
]...What kind of materials can you prepare? It depends on the kind of work you do, but there are endless possibilities.
Like writers and TV hosts, you could bring in examples of any work-related materials that you've created in previous jobs. These could be from volunteer work or any other experience you have-they could even just be examples you've made up showing what you could do, if you've never actually done something similar previously.
Another possibility is to bring in any promotional materials for organizations you've worked with, particularly if 1) it's a company the interviewer probably hasn't heard of and 2) it's similar in some key ways to the interviewer's company. This gives the employer the context that's needed to understand and evaluate your resume and provides some additional evidence that you'll fit in.
The most effective visual materials might be anything you can put together to show the employer that you've made an effort to consider how you might be able to make a contribution to their organization. That's what you want to focus on during the interview, so anything you can do to help these points make more of an impression on the interviewer is going to be worthwhile.
Try putting together something like the presentation graphics that speakers often use. Instead of using an overhead projector or slides, you'll just bring copies to give the interviewer. The research and analysis that we've already gone through in preparation for the interview will be useful here, since so much of it revolved around identifying how you could add value to the employer's organization.
Don't write up dense paragraphs of text. Keep it simple to read at a glance with lots of white space and bullet points-like a presentation slide. You don't want to hand them a reading assignment in the middle of your interview. You just want them to have some tangible support for the points you'll be making. Make sure your name is on anything you give them.
Unfortunately, you won't be able to tailor your presentation materials to reflect information you gain during the interview. However, you can choose whether or not to use any particular material based on what you hear in the interview, and customize how you present it verbally. If any material turns out to be irrelevant, or you decide for whatever reason that you don't want to use it, just leave it in your briefcase or folder. No one will ever know. You can't lose.
[Next: Chapter 19: How to prepare your references ]
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