It is common knowledge that presentation skills are vital if you want to succeed in any career path. When people think of presentation skills, they tend to think of public speaking. Presentation skills is even defined as the ‘art of getting the attention of the audience and enthralling them with ideas or performance’ However, any employer will tell you that presentation skills are not just limited to giving presentations in public. Presentation includes how an employee looks at work, if the content of their work is laid out formally and how they present important business documents such as portfolios or new business ideas. If an employee really wanted to prove they have excellent presentation skills, there a number of things they could do to improve how a document looks.
One of the most simple methods is by laminating important documents that will be used again and again, for example, a flow chart of the structure of the business or important health and safety instructions such as fire escape routes. These documents will rarely need to be changed but will be looked at by many people each day. Laminating the document will make sure it lasts longer and doesn’t get damaged easily.
On a longer document, it is important that the sections within the document stay in the right order and are easy to look through. This may be especially important for financial documents showing potential forecasts or for a document outlining a new business idea. Instead of stapling the different sections together and keeping them in a folder, an employee could use wire binding to keep the document together. Wire binding is sturdy and will ensure that all of the sheets of paper remain in the right order. A huge benefit of wire binding is that the papers are still easy to flick through so people can find the section they need easily, especially if there is a detailed contents page at the start of the document.
If an employee has produced a long, wire bound document, they should also think about putting a professional looking cover on the document to make sure it grabs the attention of anyone who sees it. They could use embossed text on the cover to give it a 3D effect and give it a nicer feel. They may also consider putting a UV varnish on the first page so it withstands spills and wear and tear. This varnish will also make the document look more formal and make people want to pay attention to it as has a more authoritative look.