Why Presentation Skills Are Vital on Your Resume and How to Include Them

Read Time: 4 minutes

Whether you’ve just entered the workforce and are drafting your resume, or you’re changing careers and updating your resume accordingly, it’s important not to overlook certain skills that could make you stand out among the competition when applying for jobs. For example, many job seekers don’t realize how valuable presentation skills can be.

The following guide will help you better understand why cultivating presentation skills can make you more attractive to a potential employer. It also offers tips for how to highlight these skills in your resume naturally.

Why Presentation Skills Are Important on a Resume in 2023

There are many potential reasons why an employer might be happy to see that you have presentation and public speaking skills. The following are just a few noteworthy examples:

Remote Work May Require Strong Communication

Someone with presentation skills is like someone who’s a strong communicator in general. They may have the ability to explain complex topics or generate enthusiasm among their fellow team members through their words, voice, and overall energy when delivering a presentation.

This is particularly important now that remote work is becoming increasingly common. In an age when employees may not be sharing the same office, it’s helpful to have workers who can communicate effectively, even when doing so through video chat.

Presentation Skills Overlap with Research Skills

Highlighting strong presentation skills on your resume is a good idea, even if you’re not necessarily applying to the types of jobs that will require you to deliver presentations very often. Quite simply, when employers see that someone is able to deliver impressive presentations and speeches, they might assume they have other skills that relate to public speaking.

For instance, creating and delivering a quality presentation often requires conducting thorough research. Even if you have a strong stage presence, a business presentation won’t make the right impression on your audience if it doesn’t contain valuable and practical information. Thus, if a potential employer looking at your resume sees that you have presentation experience, they might conclude that you also can thrive in a research role.

Growth Potential

When you begin working for a company, you may not have any responsibilities that involve firing up a team or attempting to attract investors. However, if you continue to grow in your career, you may end up in a role that requires you to be charismatic in front of an audience.

This is yet another reason why including presentation skills on your resume may be a wise idea. Again, these skills might not have much practical value right now. But, if you continue to move up within a company, they may become increasingly applicable and relevant. An employer who sees that you have presentation skills may, therefore, think you’re the type of candidate who has the potential to become a manager or team leader someday.

Presentation Skills Overlap with Organization Skills

Again, if you include presentation skills on your resume, you may be subtly indicating to a potential employer that you also have strong research skills. In addition, people with reliable presentation skills tend to be quite organized.

Putting together an impressive presentation is, in fact, a remarkable feat of organization. No matter what topic you’re presenting, you need to condense your material into a format that ensures your audience absorbs and retains the information. This isn’t necessarily an easy task. If it’s a task that you completed successfully on multiple occasions in the past, an employer can safely assume that you’re a fairly organized person.

Organizational skills are actually one of the best presentation skills to have. When you place too much emphasis on getting comfortable with public speaking, you may forget to emphasize developing quality presentation content.

Good Presenters Are Good Marketers

Keeping someone’s attention on you during a presentation is also challenging for many. In our digital age, we are more distracted than ever, and research confirms this.

If you’re able to capture the attention of an audience and maintain it long enough for them to absorb valuable information from a presentation, you have a unique skill that’s growing increasingly valuable. This skill can translate to strong marketing abilities. An employee who knows how to grab an audience’s attention during a presentation might have ideas for getting the attention of customers. An employer would likely find this quality appealing.

How to Highlight Presentation Skills on Your Resume

Ways you might indicate to an employer that you possess strong presentation skills include the following:

Highlight it in Your Skills Section

This is an obvious choice, but it can be effective. In the section of your resume where you may list special skills, include presentation skills as one of them. If a potential employer is looking for someone with presentation skills, the fact that you included them on your resume may prompt an employer to ask more about this topic during your interview. This may give you a chance to expand on the subject.

Describe Your Experience

You may consider this option if you worry that simply listing public speaking as one of your special skills isn’t enough to clearly demonstrate to an employer that this genuinely is a valuable skill you may bring to the table. Under the resume section, where you might describe relevant experience, describe in clear terms how you have experience with public speaking and why you think that experience will help you succeed in the job you’re seeking.

Include a Portfolio

Do you think presentation skills will actually play a vital role in your work if you get a job to which you’re applying? If so, consider submitting a portfolio including presentation materials (such as slideshows and videos) that you’ve developed in past roles. These materials can show that presenting in front of others is a responsibility with which you’re very comfortable.

All that said, even if your presentation skills are currently lacking, you can still learn to develop them by studying creative presentation ideas and reading guides on how to improve presentation skills. If you make this a priority, you’ll equip yourself with a skill set that can help your resume make the right impression on employers.

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Hanna Abitbul

Hanna is Powtoon's Content Marketing Strategist. She joined Powtoon as a copywriter in 2019, after graduating from university with a specialized degree in marketing and business. She continues to inspire people to create incredible video content with blog posts, videos, guides, and more. Hanna's passions include reading, singing, and caring for animals (#proudvegan). Nothing makes her happier than waking up to her two black kitties who, contrary to popular belief, are good luck!