Virtual Presentations That Work

It is well known that the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the trend to working remotely. Most HR experts expect the accelerated trend to continue even after the pandemic has diminished in intensity. This increase in remote work will significantly increase the  importance of building and maintaining audience interest in virtual presentations.

Increasing Audience Interest

Building and maintaining audience interest is important to all presentations. However, it is even more important for virtual presentations because virtual audiences have more distractions than in-person audiences. The following are some hints on how to increase interest in virtual presentations:

• Studies have demonstrated that virtual audiences have reduced attention spans compared to in-person audiences. Accordingly, virtual presentations should be limited to 30 minutes.
• Prepare presentation slides that maximize the advantages of online presentations and minimize the disadvantages:
  • Use animation, limited amounts of text per slide, large fonts, significant white space and multiple colors because they increase interest.
  • Avoid using light colors and color variations because they wash out online.
  • Since some of the audience may use devices with small screens, don’t place content too close to the slide margins in order to ensure that all content can be read.
• Presenters should:
  • Face the webcam, which should be at eye level.
  • Position themselves away from windows to avoid shadows.
  • Use a computer in addition to the presentation computer to view the presentation from the audience’s perspective.
  • Modify the presentation in real time as required.
• If there is a technical problem during a presentation, determine whether it is a system or individual issue. If it is an individual issue that can’t be solved in a few seconds move on and address it after the presentation.

Presentation Applications

Presentation applications like Zoom will increase audience interest by allowing interactions between the presenter and the audience and among the members of the audience. Some presentation applications have attention indicators that detect active applications on audience screens. This can signal the presenter the need to use attention-getting techniques or to move to another component of the presentation.

CNI Recruiting and Best Recruiting

CNI Recruiting recruits Sales, Operations and IT candidates at all company levels. We have an outstanding track record of referring highly qualified candidates who are a fit for our clients’ requirements. We are so successful at referring the right candidates that we offer a market leading, nine month, no-quibble guarantee in the event of candidate resignation or termination for any reason. Our subsidiary company Best Recruiting offers the same guarantee.

We leverage a recruiting database of over 120,000 individuals that allows us to quickly refer candidates who meet your requirements. We are located in New Jersey and we recruit top talent throughout the U.S. Our referral fee is 20% of candidate first year base salary including Executive Searches and there are no other charges.

If you would like assistance achieving your recruiting objectives please call us at (908) 874-6148, or email us at [email protected] today. You will be very pleased that you did.

Fred Neufeld
President
Best Recruiting

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