How to ace the mid-term review during your internship

Most of the corporate internships have a mid-term review where you, the intern, are expected to make a presentation to senior management (people above your manager/mentor’s level) on your internship. This is also an opportunity for you to impress them (i.e. senior management) with your work which hopefully would translate into the much desired PPO.

For many students this may be their first ever presentation inside a corporate environment and it is natural to feel a little nervous; however these 10 tips should calm your nerves and help you sail through this important milestone of your internship smoothly.

1. Understand the objective of mid term review: – Objective of a mid-term review is to update the senior management (with whom you otherwise do not get to interact on a day to day basis) on following – problem statement (what business/engineering problem you are trying to solve for the company), work done so far, and next steps & expected outcome. Please ensure that your presentation covers all 3 aspects.

 

1. Understand your audience: – Find out who all are going to be present during the review and who is going to be primary focus of your attention. For example, if the company CEO and your co-interns both are going to be in the review; you obviously should design your presentation keeping the CEO in mind. Understand how much knowledge your primary audience already have about your internship project (most likely none) and accordingly decide on level of detail you want to keep in your slides.

 

1. How much time do you have: – This is again important so that you can decide on number of slides, pace of presentation etc.  Last thing you want is that you are still in middle of explaining an excel sheet while you are signaled ‘time up’. A general thumb rule is to give 2/3 time to the presentation and 1/3 to Q&A.

 

1. Make yourself familiar with surroundings and IT infrastructure available: – Number of presentations go kaput because presenter’s laptop does not connect with the projector in the board room, the video/audio player is not available, the conferencing system does not work, software version mismatch etc. If possible, do a recce of the presentation room in advance. See if you should carry print outs of your slides with you in case you think the screen would be too far off for someone to read.

 

1. KISS: – Keep it Simple, Silly. Avoid filling your slides with too many numbers, calculations, charts, raw data, verbose text etc. Your main presentation (5-7 slides) should flow like a story (i.e. if you read just the headlines of the slide, does it read like a complete story) told in plain English. Details (raw data, detailed calculation, customer verbatim, literature review etc.) can be part of Appendix which you can refer to if asked.

 

1. One slide, one message: – Think hard on what is the one key message you want a particular slide to convey to your audience and make that your slide headline. Rest of the slide area may contain evidence to support the headline. For example; an example headline could be “74% of our target users prefer regular soap over liquid soap“, and rest of the slide may contain a chart showing results of a customer survey and may be a 2 line commentary calling out any caveats to the claim  or inferences.

 

1. Rehearse your delivery: – Practice until you perfect it. Be it in front of a mirror, or your co-interns, or even your manager; make sure you go over your presentation as many times as you can. Read this excellent article on how to overcome fear of public speaking

 

1. Pause, take a stock:  – After each slide, pause a little and ask audience if they have any questions – this is a great way to ensure they are following what you are saying and not getting lost.

 

1. Prepare for questions: – They are inevitable, so you may as well be ready for them upfront. Think of what all questions someone who is listening to your presentation for first time may have, and have answers ready for those. Two great tricks on answering questions – 1) Listen to an entire question before answering it. 2) Feel no shame in saiyng “I don’t know” when you do not know answer to a question but add, “I will find out and update you over email or in next presentation”

 

1. Follow up email: – After the presentation is over, send an email to the audience thanking them for their time, with answers to any unanswered questions during the presentation and also with a soft copy of your presentation (check with your manager on prevalent practice in the organization though). I personally find it very professional habit that you would do well to inculcate from early on in your career.

Hope this helps, wish you all the best for your mid-term reviews! Any questions, comments or any specific piece of advice you are looking for, please feel free to leave a comment!

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