I have an interview coming up for a district level administrator position (Special Education Director) with a school district, and I was told to prepare a five minute presentation to deliver at the beginning of the interview. I was told it can be on any topic of my choosing, which is why I'm asking for input.

Things I considered:
1. Review school data and talk about ways to improve outcomes (think test scores, attendance, disciplinary action)

2. Talk about an initiative I've lead in my current position, the results, and how it could work for them.

3. Since it's a district level position, I thought about presenting on leadership development and it's effect on the culture and climate of an entire organization.

4. Explain/show how its important for educators to take an active role with legislation since it effects everything from the student curriculum to teacher retirement.

Five minutes makes it hard to cover anything in depth. Please share your ideas or opinions. TIA

Ask someone who has interviewed before for that position for advice. Pick a topic that describes an outcome you positively achieved, I think your second option.

5 minutes works fine. 2-3 slides and practice the hell out of your script. You can't waste any words.

This is just sales guy advice, but the key to presenting is to say as few words as possible while saying as much as possible content wise. Speak to your impact!

Tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, tell them again, tell them what you told them. The keys to a successful presentation.

I second 30k millionaire, especially the part about getting in touch with someone who knows the interviewers and role as well as really nailing down what you're going to talk about.

When speaking, remember that you're an expert, so speak calmly and smoothly. Don't try to pack in more than you can cover in an easy conversational tone.

Gut feeling (from someone who has no experience in education) is 1, 2, or a combination of the two. I personally would tend to dismiss 3 as fluff because it could be regurgitated from a pop management book while 4 might be too abstract/long term to lead with. They may not want an administrator who is thinking about lobbying when he could be working to solve more immediate problems with more obvious local payoff.

Neither of those comments means that you shouldn't talk about the subjects. I don't know your industry and could be way off base, but it may be worth including a rebuttal to those concerns if you do decide to go that direction.

Frankly, this exercise is straight out of Presentation Skills training. My company is big on sending us to a two day course where we have to present on Day 1, get video recorded, played back, critiqued, critique ourselves and then on Day 2, present the same presentation after fixing all the things we were doing wrong on Day 1.

I've incorporated part of this into the new hire training class I run for Sales Engineers. I give them the task of creating a 3 slide presentation on any topic of their choosing and they present, get critiqued, fix it and then re-present the same presentation after fixing it. I give them 8 minutes for 3 slides which is really too much time but that's when I give them the hard stop.

What I'm looking for when we do this is:

• Do they have any passion in their soul about any topic at all and could I channel that passion into what we do for work?
• Do they have any ability to stand up in front of the room and present convincingly?
• How do they react to questions, critique, and even audience members who are uninterested?

I've been doing this for about 2 years now and I've found that I've also had to put a few constraints on the presentations.
Has to be safe for work - one guy wanted to do a presentation on marijuana (really)
Can't be too "heavy" - I had one Jewish guy who knew I was from Saudi Arabia do a presentation on how great Israel is and how terrible Saudi Arabia is. And I had one guy give a presentation on a topic he was utterly passionate about which was adopting abused kids. His stories were heart-wrenching. The stories overshadowed the presentation and left everybody feeling terrible.

Along the lines of what you're being asked to do, a few years back, I had to interview new candidates for my team and I interviewed this German guy. He was insulted when I asked him basic technical questions and his answers to most of my questions left me feeling that the guy could do the job but, I wasn't enthused about him joining my team. Then, after 55 minutes on the phone, I asked him one final question - what do you like to do outside of work? This was the answer that won me over. After 55 minutes of boring interview, he unleashed his passion for Formula 1. This guy talked about the technology of the cars, the racetracks, the drivers, the teams, the manufacturers, etc. He went on for about 15-20 minutes but, it was the passion that he showed for Formula 1 that won me over. It's been 6 years now and he is without a doubt one of the best hires I ever made.

So, in summary, you've got about 3-5 slides to show them that you know something about something. Don't clutter your slides with too much text or two many graphics. Use words and images that will support what you're saying.

In my training class, I encourage people to give some background on slide one, talk about current issues on slide 2 and talk about future issues on slide 3.

Some great topics I've seen presented by my students:

• How to harvest your own tomatoes and create your own pasta sauce from scratch
• Riding some motorcycle trail in North Carolina called the Devil's Tail or something like that
• A presentation on a Swedish run/swim endurance race called Otillo
• A presentation on the sport of Fencing
• The NBA Draft - I didn't care about the topic but, the way the guy presented it, made me interested

In summary, it is not so much the topic but the presentation delivery, the subject matter expertise displayed and the confidence and enthusiasm.

When I have students who try to talk about some industry topic like "Cloud", they always come up short. It's the people who really give a damn about their passion who do really well and make me want to work with them and hear more about what they have to say.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the advice guys. I was more concerned about the content, but I think you guys are onto something about the presentation being more about my passion for a topic, and being able so speak convincingly.