How To Use PowerPoint to Get A Job

/in , /by

The job search is never easy, especially in this economy. While our country is steadily improving in terms of new jobs increasing and unemployment decreasing, if you’re actually one of the people out there trying to find a job, it can be frustrating for you. An increase in the number of new jobs doesn’t mean that there’s actually more jobs in a given field, and if that applies to you, it can seem like your job hunt is going nowhere. Here are some ways that PowerPoint can help you land a job.Powerpoint-job

First, try putting a form of your resume together as a PowerPoint presentation. While that piece of paper is what’s going to get you in the front door, having a PowerPoint presentation is going to set you apart from the crowd. You can include photos of your prior job experience and accomplishments. This is a great bonus if you work in a field where there is visual proof of your completed projects.

However, if you’re working in an environment where success is measured on paper instead of with visual proof, then here is where you have to get a little creative. Photos of you leading meetings, or working with a team, show different job skills that will make you a great candidate. If you’ve earned material bonuses from a prior job, such as a watch or a plaque, photos of those will show that your prior employers believed that you have value.

You can present a PowerPoint slide showing different facets of prior responsibilities. A two column slide showing your responsibilities when you began with an employer, versus your responsibilities when you left, can give a very clear demonstration of how you received promotions and increases in job duties.

You could use a slide to create a timeline of events, such as the time you spent in school, with summer internships, or a project that you planned and implemented, from start to finish. A timeline is a great way to show potential employers that you’re focused, and understand the need for finishing items on a deadline.

Putting parts of your resume into a PowerPoint presentation serves another purpose: it shows a potential employer that you’re proficient in PowerPoint! It also shows creativity, and an ability to think outside the box. In today’s competitive job market, this is a pretty important distinction for you to make, and it could set you apart from other candidates. If you’re delivering your resume via email or CD, it’s simple to attach the PowerPoint presentation.

Additionally, if you are job hunting, having a good knowledge of PowerPoint could help you score a temporary job to help you pay the bills while you’re looking. There are several listings on freelance sites such as oDesk, looking for people who are proficient in PowerPoint. While these are mostly for one time projects that won’t lead to a permanent position, they are definitely jobs that you can add to your resume, and a little bit of extra money coming in while you’re looking for something permanent is always a good thing!

All in all, showing your proficiency in a multitude of skills is always going to improve your chances for landing the perfect job, and PowerPoint is no exception.

Using PowerPoint for Content Marketing

/0 Comments/in /by

The saying “Content is King” is one of the most hotly contested topics in the online marketing world. Marketers will say that marketing is king. SEO gurus will tell you that traffic is king. The thing is, when someone is talking about the process of converting visitors to your site into buyers, none of those statements are wrong, or completely right.

Running an online business is rather more like playing a game of chess than it is about one thing being the driving force. Just as you use lower pieces to strengthen the king’s position, and the Queen to be the force that overpowers your opponent, online business requires many factors to work together in an overall business strategy. Content is but one of those, although it is a rather important one.

You can place advertising, have social media accounts, and drop your link everywhere you can think of all day long as part of your marketing strategy. You can tweak your site daily to get your search engine optimization just right. However, none of that will matter if your content is weak. Sure, you may be bringing visitors to the site, but if they don’t like what they see, they won’t stick around. If they aren’t sticking around, they surely aren’t converting.

The thing is, in this market, coming up with unique content is hard. Unless you’re writing about thermodynamics or String Theory, the chances that any single piece of content that you come up with is 100% unique is pretty impossible. While you may think your idea is unique, chances are that someone had that same unique idea last year, or last month, or last week. It doesn’t mean you’re a bad content creator, or not good at innovation. It means that there are a lot of talented people out there putting a lot of quality content online.

One way to add some uniqueness to your online content is to look at adding content in a different format. For awhile now, marketers have been using infographics to transmit content. These pictures, saved as .jpg files, are generally compilations of statistics that are useful for their given niche. They allow marketers to transmit their information via Twitter or Facebook, and they are great teasers.

However, some kinds of information can’t be transmitted in a single picture. Sometimes, you need to pair written content with images for maximum exposure. When this is the case, using power point to create your content is a great alternative.

PowerPoint is generally used in meeting situations. It’s a great way to put together content that you need to share with a group, and it can be a time and paper saver for the person in charge of the meeting. Some people may not be fans of PowerPoint, but generally, people who don’t like PowerPoint fall into two categories: Those who don’t know how to use PowerPoint, and those who have had to sit through presentations put together by those who don’t know how to use PowerPoint.

However, when you’re using PowerPoint for content marketing, you’re generally trying to put together small snippets of dynamic content, with a specific purpose in mind: educating your visitor on a VERY IMPORTANT FACT. You’re not using PowerPoint to tell the story of when you took your kids fishing at Aunt Mabel’s pond. You’re using PowerPoint to educate the reader as to why they should pay Aunt Mabel ten dollars to go fish at her pond. See the difference?

The point here is, every marketer has a story about going fishing at Aunt Mabel’s pond. There’s only so many ways that, that story can be told. If you search on Google for “I took my kids fishing” you get back 99 million returns. It’s pretty hard to stand out in that kind of competition. Finding your site with those results is kind of like searching for a needle in a needle stack in a needle factory.

While the fishing example is pretty generalized, you can see from the example that even with amazing content creation, using that content to rank high on Google can be difficult. And while using a PowerPoint presentation on your site isn’t going to do much to boost your SEO, it’s going to do wonders for your WOM. That’s “Word Of Mouth,” if you didn’t know, and it’s pretty important, too.

Having a PowerPoint presentation on your site is a unique way to show your content, and the marketing opportunities are amazing. People love visual presentations. That’s why sites like Upworthy, which includes video in almost every post, are so successful. However, most marketers don’t have the budget to create video for every post. PowerPoint is a great way to add to the visual contents of your post, keeping your readers interest for longer and making them more interested in the written content that you also use.

The other reason that Upworthy is so popular is because their videos cause people to pay attention. When they see something that catches their eye, they are more likely to share it. So while some people may not find much interest in what you write, if you include visuals that are eye-catching, they’re going to stay with it longer, and they are much more likely to share it.

And that is where PowerPoint for content marketing is a gold mine. You know that social media posts with pictures result in more visitors to your site. You know that content with pictures result in more visitors and a longer bounce time. Using PowerPoint for content marketing allows you to integrate even more content, that you put together in a linear fashion, so that you can share even more information with your videos. Plus, you can use a specific deck off of your PowerPoint presentation as the picture to go with your social media posts about the article that you’ve put together! It’s a win-win situation all the way around!

Of course, using PowerPoint for content marketing takes some time. Most people can’t put together a presentation in just a few short minutes. However, the time that you invest in putting together your presentation will bring you a higher ROI than simply including a single photo, or even a set of photos. You’ll retain more readers than if you put in a full scale slide show that causes full pages to reload-no one has time for that! Finally, you’ll be able to present more information in a format that your readers