Why Presentation Skills Can Make the Difference on Your Resume

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Giving a speech in front of people isn’t always everyone’s favorite task. However, having solid professional presentation skills in the workplace can serve you well in many different ways.

Of course, one of the most important reasons being an accomplished presenter can place you in good stead is that it looks great on your resume. Working information about your ability to give electrifying speeches into your resume always gives a positive impression.

We’re going to briefly look over some of the most important reasons to hone your public speaking skills. As you’ll see these can be easily worked into your resume using a number of different methods.

How Do Presentation Skills Give You An Advantage in The Workplace?

There are lots of good reasons why companies want and need good presenters. These essential team members can help to create a positive reaction and communicate the values of the business effectively.

According to a 2022 Job Outlook survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), communication skills ranked as the second most crucial attribute for career readiness.

So, strong oral communication and presentation skills are not just practical for your employer but offer many advantages for you as a candidate, too. Generally speaking, learning how to be an accomplished presenter will help you in the following ways:

• You’ll find it easier to perform in interviews
• You’ll come across well when meeting clients
• You can communicate better with fellow employees
• You’ll be able to teach other staff on how to give presentations
• You can represent the company at conferences and events
• You’ll find it easier to respond to emergencies

Which Presentation Skills Have the Biggest Impact?

A seasoned presenter can add several abilities to a resume’s skills section. These will be gained from not only performing the task itself but also the work involved in preparing it.

By knowing everything that goes into the strong delivery of a presentation, you can then use examples to show you’ve got the abilities a hiring manager is looking for. These might include:

• Confidence: displaying confidence during a presentation, standing tall, making eye contact, and speaking in a loud and clear voice.
• Persuasiveness: if you’re making a presentation designed to persuade an audience, make sure you start with a strong hook, clearly establishing your argument and underscoring your expertise by presenting your credentials and using reliable sources.
• Organization: ensuring that your presentation flows in a logical manner; for instance, starting with an opening argument or hook, building on that statement, and ending with a conclusion that reinforces your main points.
• Good people skills: demonstrating strong interpersonal or people skills. Being enthusiastic, using body language, reacting to the audience, making eye contact, and using storytelling techniques are all key to this.
• Timekeeping: making sure you’re not going off on tangents or rushing through your speech.
• Flexibility and adaptability: making necessary adjustments in a presentation is important. Preparing for questions, reacting to audience engagement, and rearranging visuals or content depending on audience feedback. Expect the unexpected if your tech lets you down!
• Research: underscoring your research skills in a presentation by citing reliable sources, using strong visuals, and even briefly discussing your research methods used to prepare your presentation.
• Visual data: using relevant visual aids, such as charts and graphs, that support your speech is a key element of a strong presentation.
• Creating visuals and slides: incorporating relevant visuals and slides that support but do not take over your speech. Make sure visuals and slides are drawn from reliable sources.
• Preparing accompanying literature: putting together well-prepared brochures, handouts, or other literature to accompany your speech further demonstrates your written communication and research skills.
• Working with an audience: using eye contact and body language to gauge an audience’s reaction to your presentation. Working with the audience by focusing on aspects of your presentation where the audience seems most engaged and showing strong listening skills by encouraging and answering questions.
• Ability to think quickly: sometimes a question or unexpected audience reaction can momentarily derail you during your presentation; show you have the ability to think quickly by maintaining your composure, telling a brief story to get back on track if needed, and addressing any questions in a way that returns the focus to your original intent.

How Can Presentation Skills Be Shown on My Resume?

A resume is a bit like a presentation itself, albeit expressed via the written word rather than the spoken form. It must be structured effectively, be clear in its communication, and focused on its goals of getting you hired.

There a few different sections found on a resume that can allow you to show off your presentation ability.

Of course, your career history should be one of them. In the work experience segment of the resume, you can highlight information such as:

• The size of audiences
• How many speeches you gave a year
• What level of technical knowledge you had to demonstrate
• How you made your talk effective

In addition to this and dropping in a few public speaking strengths in your skills section, consider adding another heading to add any conferences or seminars where you have given keynote addresses. This will help the recruiter gauge your level of expertise in presentations much more effectively.

Finally, if you’ve done any training that has helped make you an expert speaker, this should also find its way into your education section.

Example resume with presentation skills

Let’s look at some examples of resume sections that demonstrate presentation skills. You can use these as inspiration for your own or use our AI resume builder’s suggestions.

Resume Example

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Skills

Presentation Skills: Increased client satisfaction by 25% through the development and delivery of client presentations highlighting product benefits

Public Speaking Skills: Delivered project updates and maintained team engagement and collaboration by leading weekly meetings

Achievements

• Signed a major client for The Big Company by delivering a detailed, persuasive presentation highlighting product benefits and company values
• Implemented a new sales presentation for Expert Solutions that led to a 20% increase in closing deals

Work Experience

Senior Project Manager, Major Corporation

January 2022 – Present

• Communicated product value through client presentations, leading to 28% increase in new customers
• Utilized presentations to discuss project updates with team members and shareholders, resulting in a 15% improvement in project efficiency 

Education

• Led a seminar on the relationship between household economic status and student classroom performance to a large audience of peers and instructors, building on public speaking skills
• Served on the school’s Debate Team 2020-2023, allowing for the development and improvement of public speaking and presentation skills to various audiences

Other Ways to Demonstrate Your Presentation Skills

To provide potential employers with examples of your strongest presentation skills, you might prepare a portfolio that displays key elements from past presentations.

You might, for example, show employers how you incorporated strong visual aids that supported but did not overwhelm your speech. Or, you might showcase a presentation that fell within preset time limits to underscore your timekeeping skills.

A portfolio can also show employers that you are able to organize content, thoroughly research a topic, and be persuasive to connect with an audience.

You could also offer to give a live demonstration of a short presentation during an interview. In this way, you can highlight your ability to deliver a speech with confidence, present visuals, work with an audience, and improvise if needed.

How Can You Improve Your Presentation Skills?

If you want to start honing your presentation skills, a good place to start is with a training course. This will be able to take you through all the key organizational and speaking considerations you’ll need when giving a speech.

Public speaking courses can be done at local education centers or online quite easily, allowing you to learn the ropes of this highly useful discipline.

However, if you don’t have the time or money to do a full coaching program, don’t worry. You can instead opt for a hands-on approach by volunteering for speaking opportunities in your current position or by getting some practice with interviews for new jobs. Like many abilities, public speaking gets easier the more you do it.

Top tips for presenting effectively

There are so many ingredients that go into a great presentation. Naturally, not every speech is the same, but many of the same elements will come up. The main tips you should keep in mind before giving a speech are as follows:

• Keep your calm
• Be prepared
• Dress smart
• Measure the pace of your speech
• Show you care about the subject
• Engage with the whole audience
• Look and listen out for feedback
• Ask questions
• Stay flexible

Final Thoughts

Communication is always a highly prized skill in the workplace, and being an effective public speaker is a great way to demonstrate that. By making sure the details of your ability to give a mean presentation are present on your resume and that you’ve taken the time to improve those skills, you’ll be able to put your ability to the test in your new, better job.

Designing a resume with our builder can take some of the time and effort out of creating a document that will showcase your public speaking skills.

Our step-by-step resume-building tools and easy-to-tweak resume templates are fully optimized so your professional profile can be submitted easily electronically and impress with their visuals.

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