It can be very powerful to share stories or examples of past projects in your project interview Q & A.  Two questions that often come up are: “Tell us about a challenge you faced on a previous project and how you solved it.” “Identify...

Yes and no.  While earning my Master’s Degree in Speech Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, I learned some theories related to persuasion: The Primacy Effect suggests that the information we hear first is more likely to have sticking power. Alternately, the...

A friend of mine recently sent me a video featuring Simon Sinek.  According to Wikipedia, Simon is a marketing consultant known for developing “The Golden Circle,” a model based on human decision-making that guides organizations on how to inspire people to buy or support...

“Presentations are a tool for high-stakes internal and external communications. Presentations all too often reflect the agenda of the presenter rather than build a connection with the audience.  This is unfortunate because presentations could be considered the last branding frontier, in terms of both...

Speaker transitions can be made more smooth and effective by: 1. Having the current speaker, we’ll call her Jane, introduce the upcoming speaker: “I’d now like to have Bob Jenson, your Project Superintendent come up and discuss our phasing plan.” 2. As the speakers...

You show the client how well you will listen to them on the project by how well you listen in the project interview. Do you attentively listen to the other members of your team when they are presenting? Do you talk over people? Did...

The key here is the word appears.  It may not be you or your presentation.  It be a momentary lapse in concentration as a result of sitting for a long period of time and getting a lot of information.  So it might not serve...

“You must be the kind of person who can get things done. But to get things done, you must love the doing, not the secondary consequences” -Ayn Rand There are a number of folks who don’t like presenting.  Nor do they like having to...

Take your individual team member introductions from boring and blah to powerful and memorable. How?  Here are a few ideas: If your principal or project manager is introducing his or her team, have them say something unique about each person.  For example: “Joe Marks...

Interviewing is, as you know, one of the ways Architecture/Engineering/Construction firms get business. As a result, presenting has become a necessary evil. It is a well known fact that people fear public speaking worse than death. Yet you are more likely to split you’re...