Loud & clear

In many companies, public speaking is not just a ‘nice to have’ skill, it’s a fundamental job requirement – and engineering is no exception. Whether it involves giving a status report to a team of colleagues, making a sales pitch to customers or presenting a new product to the press, many engineers will at some point in their career be required to stand up in front of an audience and make a presentation. What has become apparent is that companies no longer rely on just the slick marketeer to deliver the message – far better that it comes from the most credible source – the chip designer, the applications engineer or the project manager. However, being asked to deliver a presentation can strike fear into the most confident of people. In fact, surveys repeatedly find that, for many people, fear of public speaking ranks above death! But what are the positives sides of public speaking? The visibility that it affords can propel your career forward in a way that thousands of hours of desk work can’t, provided you manage not to mess it up.