This cast concludes our conversation on how to choose the right chart for your data and message in a presentation.

1. Never Put Excel Cells Into a PowerPoint Presentation - NEVER
2. Understand The Difference Between Slide Topics and Slide MESSAGES
3. Choose A Pie Chart To Show Parts of a Whole
4. Choose a Bar Chart To Show Rankings
5. Choose a Column or Line Chart To Show Time Comparisons
6. The Acid Test: Can We Understand Without Your Explanation?

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This cast describes how to choose the right chart for your data and message in a presentation.

There are so many things wrong with presentations today, it’s almost impossible to decide where to begin. We frankly hope that some larger firms will figure out that it’s worth the time (and therefore budget) to teach all incoming professionals how to give a presentation. The reason one training/HR executive gave for NOT doing this was that all it would do is make their employees more marketable elsewhere. Mark was stunned when he heard it – boy is that a reason never to train anyone. What’s more, there was no acknowledgement of the pain and suffering – and COST – of hundreds if not thousands of presentations every day at any large firm being terribly inefficient, let alone ineffective.

This cast is about one narrow but it seems widely unknown skill involved in developing any presentation: which chart should I use for this slide? We’ve seen too many managers and executives and professionals use charts that prove they’re not aware of how to choose. The right chart makes getting our point across easier. The wrong chart makes getting our point across harder, and can damage the audience’s ability to hear our next point, and potentially undermine the entire presentation.

Here’s how to do it right, for the majority of messages most managers deliver routinely.

1. Never Put Excel Cells Into a PowerPoint Presentation - NEVER
2. Understand The Difference Between Slide Topics and Slide MESSAGES
3. Choose A Pie Chart To Show Parts of a Whole
4. Choose a Bar Chart To Show Rankings
5. Choose a Column or Line Chart To Show Time Comparisons
6. The Acid Test: Can We Understand Without Your Explanation?

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In this cast, we conclude our recommendations for being effective at a Career Fair.

1. Do Your Research
2. Dress to Impress
3. Think Surgical Strike
4. Make an Impression
5. Follow Up

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This cast describes Career Tools' general recommendations for being effective at a Career Fair.

Careers fairs are common for new graduates and MBA students. They can be an essential step to getting an offer from certain companies. However, there are a lot of candidates at such fairs, and with the economic downturn, many companies are either not attending or are being more targeted with their attendance, reducing the numbers of fairs they attend or even attending with no jobs to offer.

In the economic downturn of the 90's, many companies cut back their graduate intake to very low numbers – some to zero – but found that five years later when the economy recovered they had a gap in their employee profile that would have been filled by the graduates of the early 90's. Having learned that lesson, companies have not pared back so far this time, so there is still opportunity at job fairs. So, how should we maximize our opportunity?

1. Do Your Research
2. Dress to Impress
3. Think Surgical Strike
4. Make an Impression
5. Follow Up

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This cast concludes our conversation on when it's okay to disagree with your boss, and how to do it.

And we cover the answers to the following scenarios ...

a) Your boss has just come from a meeting and wants to discuss ways to implement his boss's decision.  HIS boss thinks it should be done "x" way, HE wants to do it "Y".  You think X is better.  Would you tell him?  Or agree with him?  Or be politically correct and offer no opinion?

b) Your boss wants you to change a process.  You think it's fine as is.  Would you make your case?  Isn't it just easier to agree?  Or would you agree and then act slowly?

c) Your boss is on a committee who is implementing a process change, and they have reworked it start to finish. Now you have to change what your team does, and it's going to be hard work, some of which you don't agree with.  What do you tell your team?

Most newer professionals would probably answer the same to each of these scenarios, based on their own personalities and temperaments.  But there are general guidelines we need to know if we're going to be effective and avoid looking either naïve or unprofessional.

1. Never Disagree With Your Boss In Public
2. Never Say, "I disagree." There Are Better Ways
3. Brainstorming and Having Different Ideas Are Not Disagreeing
4. Disagree Early and Not Late
5. Disagree When Planning, but NOT When Acting
6. It is Unprofessional To Disagree With Your Boss While In Private With Others

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This cast describes when it's okay to disagree with your boss, and how to do it.

It really is OKAY to disagree with your boss.  Until, of course, it's NOT okay.  Clear enough, right?  Okay, here's a quiz.

a) Your boss has just come from a meeting and wants to discuss ways to implement his boss's decision.  HIS boss thinks it should be done "x" way, HE wants to do it "Y".  You think X is better.  Would you tell him?  Or agree with him?  Or be politically correct and offer no opinion?

b) Your boss wants you to change a process.  You think it's fine as is.  Would you make your case?  Isn't it just easier to agree?  Or would you agree and then act slowly?

c) Your boss is on a committee who is implementing a process change, and they have reworked it start to finish. Now you have to change what your team does, and it's going to be hard work, some of which you don't agree with.  What do you tell your team?

Most newer professionals would probably answer the same to each of these scenarios, based on their own personalities and temperaments.  But there are general guidelines we need to know if we're going to be effective and avoid looking either naïve or unprofessional.

1. Never Disagree With Your Boss In Public
2. Never Say, "I disagree." There Are Better Ways
3. Brainstorming and Having Different Ideas Are Not Disagreeing
4. Disagree Early and Not Late
5. Disagree When Planning, but NOT When Acting
6. It is Unprofessional To Disagree With Your Boss While In Private With Others

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This cast describes what to expect of our bosses when it comes to confidentiality of our communications with them.

What kind of confidentiality can you expect from your boss? What can we share, how will it be handled? Can I trust my boss? These are questions we get a lot as we train managers and executives.

They're especially likely to come from newer managers. They haven't yet learned some of the underpinnings of professional management. We're thrilled to answer directly. We worry that they will apply the wrong principle – "my boss says I can trust him" – and end up in an awkward - or worse, professionally damaging - position.

The answer is probably not what most of us would like to hear. But those of us who are older and bloodied by organizational and professional life would much rather others learn from our experience than learn the hard way.

1. There is NEVER Confidentiality With ANY Manager
2. Do Not Ask For It Nor Expect It
3. Do Not Assume It Can Be Invoked
4. Lack of It is NOT An Indication of a Lack of a Trusting Professional Relationship

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This cast concludes our conversation on how to dress when giving presentations.

The outline of this show and last is pretty simple:

1. WHY Presentations Matter
2. Dress Up
3. Keep it Simple
4. Get a Haircut/Get Styled
5. Empty Your Pockets
6. Minimize Jewelry
7. Highlight Your Arms

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This cast recommends how to dress when giving presentations.

We've said it before: effective presentations are an opportunity to enhance one's career. We've seen friends of ours careers go up and down based on how one or a series of talks or speeches or just staff meeting slide decks go.

Since they seem to be an unheralded part of career success, Career Tools will return to this topic many times. And, those of you in small companies, or entrepreneurs, or public sector workers, or not for profits: all of this still applies. If you're having to make a client pitch, or asking for funds, or even just briefing your 2 person staff, doing well in presentations impresses others, and impressions make a difference in one's career.

The Career Tools Rule of Presentations is simple: Presentations are the internal career equivalent of INTERVIEWS. They're THAT important. Those of us who spend time developing our skills for them will out perform those that don't.

1. WHY Presentations Matter
2. Dress Up
3. Keep it Simple
4. Get a Haircut/Get Styled
5. Empty Your Pockets
6. Minimize Jewelry
7. Highlight Your Arms

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This cast is another in the series of how to answer the big 4 questions that recruiters ask.

This is the question people hate to answer. You can hear it in their voice. Junior candidates looking for their first or second role squirm with embarrassment at naming what they imagine is a horribly high number. Middle managers name a number and immediately caveat it, afraid to miss out on an opportunity – and so do candidates out of work, who have got to the stage of being about to miss mortgage payments. The most senior candidates are the most likely to get it right, naming a number confidently, but caveating without sounding desperate. So, this cast is to help you move to the same position of those senior candidates without waiting for the years of experience to accrue.

1. Don't Play Games
2. Know The Appropriate Range
3. State It
4. Still Use The Caveat

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