The Summer Internship season is in its final leg and it is important that you have all the tools and hacks to ace your Summer Internships. In the third part of our “Ace Your Summer Internship” series with Hari Subramanian (Former Senior HR Business Partner At Amazon India, XLRI Co' 2011, Author of “Hilarious MBA Memoirs), we look at how to prepare for final presentations and strengthen your chances of getting a PPO.
1) Set a sharp project context: Ensure you define your project objectives clearly and set a sharp context. Focus on the challenges/opportunities being addressed and the expected outcomes of your project.For example, how your proposed recommendations will play a critical role in improving market share/brand engagement by XX% etc.
2) Define your presentation path: After defining your project context, have a slide that talks about your presentation path/flow highlighting the major sections – primary research methodology summary, research findings and insights, analysis/trade-offs, recommendations, and way forward.
3) Summarize your research methodology: In 1 or 2 slides, make a crisp summary of your research methodology, stakeholder locations/business units, number of customers/stakeholders interviewed, and any other key data point. Do not spend too much time on this. You only need to give an overview.
4) Capture attention with a story/anecdote from your research: Stories/anecdotes are a great way of capturing the attention of your audience so try to begin with a sharp anecdote/story which you encountered during your message and bring out the key message. You could start with something like this “I wanted to share a very interesting anecdote when I visited the village XYZ as part of my market research. Here, I was speaking to a 45-year-old farmer and I was intrigued by his purchase behavior….”
5) Summarize your key insights: Using the anecdote as a hook, provide a crisp summary of the key insights which you have generated. It is important to focus on the big insights and devote appropriate time to them rather than spending equal time on each and every insight.
6) The Big Idea: If your recommendation has a unique suggestion/big idea, call this out clearly and also explain why the idea is big.
7) Have Recommendations/Action plans with budgets, timelines and measurement metrics: Ensure that your recommendations/action plans have clearly executable timelines and measurement metrics. Having recommendations without an execution timeline or a measurement metric will ensure you have thought through your plan completely. If your recommendations have a budget requirement, mention the same. Keep your assumptions ready.
8) Capture your learnings: Have a slide at the end of your presentation where you capture your internship learnings. Cover multiple areas like culture, leadership, project related, mentoring etc.
9) Try to not have more than 20 slides: Crisp communication is a key differentiator. Ensure that your main presentation does not have more than 20 slides. Keep all the other slides as a backup after the thank you slides. A lot of times, the panel gets put off by the huge number of slides they have to go through. If your organization allows, have a backup folder that has additional slides/data points/etc.
10) Allocate 5 minutes for feedback/Q&A: If your total time is 20 minutes, ensure you plan 5 minutes for feedback/Q&A. At least 10% of your allotted time should be used for feedback/inputs/Q&A. Have a filler slide titled “feedback/inputs” and note down all the inputs received.
11) Time your presentation with a dry run: Prioritizing only the key messages and rehearsing with a timer will ensure that you manage time.
12) Anticipate potential questions and keep your answers ready: Show your presentation to someone outside your panel and see what questions they ask. Make a list of all potential questions and keep your answers ready.
13) Address anxiety: Having anxiety before a final presentation is normal. The best way to address this is to prepare well, visualize a smooth presentation, avoid obsessing over the outcome, and practice calming techniques like deep breathing, and meditation. Music and painting are great ways to relax.
Working on the above points will ensure you are ready for your final presentation. Remember to focus only on the things which you can control – which is preparing. The outcome is not in your control and it is best to avoid obsessing over it All the best for your summer internships.
About The Author
Hari Subramanian is an XLRI 2011 alumnus, with 10+ years of experience in business and HR roles, in diverse organizations like Mahindra & Amazon. He is currently based out of the U.K and the author of “Hilarious MBA Memoirs”.
The book "Hilarious MBA Memoirs" is a funny, self-deprecating, autobiographical satire on the life of an XLRI MBA grad through childhood, college, and corporate days. The book chronicles funny incidents throughout the protagonist's life right from the rote learning methodology in childhood, to the struggle in his MBA days (making a CV, fish-market group discussions, case study contests fumbled, social media related anecdotes, summer internship fiasco, date nights gone wrong, etc).