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What is today's blog about?
Today, we will focus on our top 5 tips to perfect your case study presentation visual aid.
This is because how to get your visual aid right is a very common question we are asked by RICS APC candidates leading up to their final assessment interview.
This is particularly important given that all UK RICS APC final assessment interviews will be online until 31 July 2020.
You can also listen to our CPD podcast on Anchor for more free AssocRICS and RICS APC training and support.
If you don't have time to read the blog today, make sure you bookmark it for later and just watch our 1 minute summary video on YouTube.
Why is this relevant?
A key component of your RICS APC is the final assessment interview.
The interview lasts 1 hour and is structured as follows:
10 minutes - your case study presentation.
10 minutes - presentation questioning.
30 minutes - assessors’ questioning.
10 minutes - chairperson’s questioning, with a focus on mandatory competencies, ethics and Rules of Conduct.
The senior professional interview structure is slightly different:
5 minutes - opening and introductions by the chairperson
10 minutes - your presentation and personal introduction on your background and career path
40 minutes - questioning from the assessment panel on your case studies, CPD ethics, professional issues and wider experience
5 minutes - concluding comments, including your opportunity to have the last word or clarify any previous responses
What are the RICS visual aid requirements different for online interviews?
During your final assessment interview held on Microsoft Teams, you will either be able to screen share or present your visual aid on camera. There is no longer the option to email your visual aid to RICS beforehand.
We would not recommend attempting to present a physical flip chart or similar on camera, as it is likely to detract from your presentation, e.g. the assessors may not be able to see you and the visual aid sufficiently or it may be difficult to focus on the camera and flip over the pages.
Screen sharing a simple visual aid is likely to be the best tactic. This will allow you to use a simple PDF, for example, to support your presentation. For the primary part of your presentation, you would remain fully on camera, with the visual aid referred to only at key points during your presentation. You can read more about how to share your screen during your assessment here.
This may be more effective than using a long, complex presentation shared on screen for the entire duration of your presentation. This reduces the size of the screen where the assessors can see you on camera and may well detract from your overall communication and presentation style.
The presentation is about introducing you and your experience to the assessment panel, together with demonstrating your competence in having strong communication and presentation skills. The assessors are likely to be thinking about how you come across to clients in the real world, for example.
What are our top 5 tips for a fantastic case study presentation visual aid?
1. Make it useful, simple and clear, i.e. large, professional diagrams or figures and avoid using extensive, small text. This could include a location map, photograph and key project milestones or a comparable matrix (e.g. for a valuation).
2. Make it visually interesting – use colour and bold/italics to highlight key text or images. If you use lines on a map or diagram to label specific features, ensure that these are straight and don’t cross over. When preparing your visual aid, think about making it neat, professional looking and ‘client report’ ready.
3. Use your visual aid to enhance your presentation, rather than detract from it - ideally use a single page format split into thirds or quarters. We would advise against using slides or a flipchart format, which are likely to be harder for remote assessors to follow and may become confusing.
4. Make sure you actually refer to your visual aid during your 10 minute case study presentation - if you don't, there's not much point in using it.
5. Convert your visual aid to PDF format beforehand – if you are not sure how to do this, drop us a message using the chat box below and we can help. Then make sure you check that your visual aid opens on your screen and you test out the screen sharing function on Teams beforehand.
Your presentation visual aid is a great opportunity to show that you can communicate effectively in written and graphic/image format, so ensure that you make the most of it.
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Stay tuned for our next blog post to help build a better you
N.b. Nothing in this article constitutes legal, professional or financial advice.