Business Career Center.com

When putting together a PowerPoint presentation, be sure to follow these three tips to better reach your audience.

1. Make your slides easy to follow. Be sure the title is at the top and that statements and lists read left to right, top to bottom. Getting too creative with a slide is not a good idea, because each one is only meant to be glanced at briefly as a visual aide to learning the spoken information. Don’t confuse the reader.
2. Many people don’t know that the typical rules of grammar don’t apply to PowerPoint. You should limit or eliminate punctuation and avoid all capital letters. These things needlessly clutter up the slide, distract from the message, and draw too much attention to themselves. Capital letters, to an audience, feel like shouting.
3. Keep it simple. That means no fancy fonts. It is always tempting to get creative when the program offers you so many options, but don’t go there. Arial, Times New Roman, and Verdana are the easiest fonts to read, so stick to them. The object of the game is to relay simple bits of information quickly and effectively, not to create a mood or dazzle people with your creativity. Do that within your business work. The presentation is just there to present.

If you are a freelancer—whether it be a writer, graphic designer, musician, or other professional—you should know about the freelancers union. Offering health insurance, job postings, networking events and more, this union could be an excellent connection for you in your effort to stay independent yet successful.

The Freelancer’s Union offers a yellow pages and a section for “gigs,” each of which enable job seekers and hiring managers to locate one another. The union also is able to obtain numerous discounts for its members on everything from corporate bookstores to hotels. The excellent group insurance benefits available through the union alone are an excellent reason to become a member, so look into it today.

If you want to make a good showing in your firm, the most important thing is to understand the principles of teamwork. Not all projects require teams, of course, but every project you do will involve others—whether before you or after you. Take these three tips to improve your teamwork skills:

• Keep up communication about the status of the project
• Update others on Expected Completion Dates
• Be honest about any problems or delays that pop up
• Give realistic deadlines

Many workers feel overwhelmed by their projects, and for good reason. Many supervisors overload their employees. But bosses don’t know what is going on unless you tell them. If you are handed a new piece of work when you are already underwater with the ones you have, simply accept it but give your boss a realistic Expected Completion Date. If he balks, you will have to let him know what else is on your plate.

The most important thing, in teamwork, is to be honest about your expectations of others and of what you are able to achieve. It is more productive to admit your shortcomings than to pretend to be superman and fall down on the job.

Truly, the best way to make connections, when you are starting your business career, is by doing an internship. But its important to know which companies offer the best opportunities for interns. You don’t want to get stuck doing menial labor when you set out to show them your best work. BusinessWeek recently ranked US companies for the undergraduate internships they offer, so let’s take a look at the top three companies to select, if you seek such work.

• Price Waterhouse Coopers
• Ernst & Young
• Deloitte & Touche

These companies understand that a solid internship experience serves as a recruiting tool for today’s top graduates. In short, they need you as much as you need them. The internship give them an extended period in which to evaluate you; likewise you, them. If the pairing is a good one, your position in the company could be guaranteed before you graduate. Wouldn’t that be a relief in today’s economy? So don’t neglect internship opportunities as great ways to jump start a successful business career by making important connections.