That silver-tongued devil…: making presentations matter

The sophistication of present IT and communications systems means that huge amounts of information can be offered up effortlessly and virtually instantaneously on a global scale. Despite the many different options that modern technology affords, the oral presentation with its roots in antiquity (see Chapter 1) has an enduring quality and appeal as a means of delivering ideas directly and with impact. Survey evidence attests to the growing recognition of the importance of graduates entering the job market with skills of this type. When 1500 corporate recruiters representing companies across the USA were sampled, over 50 per cent of those responding placed good oral and written communication top of their list of skills required of today’s business applicants.1 A further study2 involved 500 managers in retail, wholesale, manufacturing, service industries, public administration, transport, and insurance and finance. Again, oral communication emerged as the type of competency felt to have the greatest currency for graduates entering the workforce. Furthermore, when the actual skills that constitute this competency were distilled down, those to do with making presentations ranked highly in both importance and frequency of use.