How to sit a promotion panel
This post covers the second half of the promotion process — preparing for, then going though the interiew panel, and assumes the reader has prepared the way by following this guide to writing the promotion case.
Preparing the presentation
Promoton panels are not the time to freestyle. Practice the pitch many, many times, until you can deliver it naturally, from memory — you need to be in an auto pilot mode, so you don’t have to worry about remembering your words, and can instead focus on “the form” of your presentation: pace, tone and volume of voice, gesturing and pausing for emphasis, eye contact, and generally “owning the room”.
Practice delivering the pitch. Practice answering questions on it with your collegues, reviewers and friends/family. Get them to ask difficult question so you’ll be ready no matter what the panel asks.
Practice how you answer questions. Don’t just respond with the first thing you think of. Take a breath (that’s breathe in, then out, not an exasperated sigh), and collect your thoughts. If you need to, buy thinking time by rephrasing the question. The emergency answer is “I don’t know, but here is how I would find out….” then talk about googling, proofs of concept, using your network
Use as few visual aids as possible: no PowerPoints, no bulleted lists under any circumstances. You want the audience looking at and listening to your message, not reading a slide, not wondering how you did the flashy animation, not watching you panic as PowerPoint messes up your 62 phase animation.
As with the promotion case: less is more. Land 3 messages and finish with a 3..7 word slogan summarising your entire case (see: the Kipper). You want to make it very easy for the panel to remember and connect with your 3 main points. Now is not the time to try to land 172 points!
Like in a job interview, you may be asked questions about your case, market/industry conditions/challenges/opportunities and our clients. Prepare answers to all obvious questions, and practice fine tuning them to the person who asked (if the finance person asks a question, give a financy answer; if the technical person asks a question, give a techncial answer)
At least one week before the panel, go spend at least half an hour with each member of your panel. Walk them through your case, deal with any concerns they have, seek thier wisdom on how to improve the case/presentation, then implement as much of their advice as you can -> everyone loves seeing their advice materialise.
Dealing with stress
There is no avoiding things: promotion panels are stressful. But, there are things you can do to manage the stress.
First of all, remember: you’ve got this. If your case wasn’t good enough, it would have been weeded out before the panel.
Secondly: the panel absolutely wants you to succeed. They will be giving you best-man-at-a-wedding level positive vibes. All you have to do, is walk them through the case and answer a couple of questions.
The panel won’t be trying to trip you up, and this this wont be an inquisition. But you should expect one or two questions like “what will you differently” or “what big opportunities should we sieze”.
If something goes totally sideways, don’t panic, don’t dig deeper. Stop. Recognise you messed up. Take a moment to get a deep breath and calm down. Figure out where you were, then restart.
If you have prepared properly, eveything should go smoothly, and you should have canned answers you can adapt to most questions.
The final pitch / panel
Showtime! You get 15 minutes to walk the panel through your case and answer a couple of questions.
At this point, the content should be easy, it’s a whistlestop tour of your promotion case: “We need people who X, I have a great track record of doing X, which allowed me to achieve Y. Promoting me now means I will be able to do Z (which is good because….)” and you should have practiced so much, you’re on auto-pilot. Meaning your focus is on your presentation technique, not your content.
Think about your pacing: leave enough pauses, especially after your key points, for the panel to absorb your messages and take notes: do not rush, do not speak at 100mph, do not use jargon.
Stand up and wave your hands around for emphasis (watch how TV presenters’ gesture, walk around and “own the room”) — sitting down makes you small, and static; it constricts you ability to move; you will hunch over and look / sound uncomfortable.
If it’s over video conference, get a good microphone, speaker, webcam and lights. Look directly into the webcam (at your eye level) to give the “look in the eyes” effect. Do not have the webcam looking up your nose of over your head. Do not dial into your panel from Euston station at rush-hour: be somewhere quiet!
Do not read from a script, do not be holding notes in your hands — this will be very obvious to the panel and will suggest you haven’t bothered to prepare properly. This should be about you showing off, and reciting the pitch from memory is part of the showing off.
You are likely being scored on both content (how good is what you are saying) and form (how good you are at saying it), so remember this is a performance, so sell every sentence. If you claim “I am really passionate about X” you must look and sound like it, and be able to quote evidence of being so.
If you say you are really passionate about X, but don’t say how, you should expect a follow up question along the lines “tell me about when you did X”, or “tell me about how you will use X after your promotion’— if you cant answer those questions immediately with a 3 point plan, you will not look credible (work though these scenarios in your preparation).
After the panel
You are likely to feel quite drained after the panel, as so much of your emotional energy will have been invested over the preceding weeks in getting it right — plan to spend half an hour just chilling out.
A few weeks later, you should get the phone call & find out if you were successful.
Whether or not you were successful, now is a great time to ask question: what did you do well, what could you have improved on?
Summary
Nobody likes these sessions. They are stressful experiences.
Remember, if you didn't deserve to be there, you wouldn't be standing there — the screening process guarantees that: so you’ve got this!
If you prepare properly, you can auto-pilot your way through the pitch, answer a couple of questions, and be out the room in 15 minutes tracking down a cool drink.
