I have asked for and have been granted permission by SDMB administration to post job openings for positions at my company. This ad is listed in the Marketplace as well.
We are a growing start-up, nearing our 1-year anniversary, looking for professionals to grow with us.
Our medical education and communications company is seeking a part-time, freelance document specialist with advanced PowerPoint skills for work on pharmaceutical marketing and sales materials. Work activities include development and revision of clinical- and medical-focused documents in PowerPoint. Candidates must have some experience with Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, experience and familiarity with medical terminology and AMA style, able to work under tight timelines, turn around projects quickly, and the ability to communicate easily via phone and email. Agency or pharmaceutical experience preferred.
At least one telephone interview will be required of all candidates. Candidates who advance to consideration will be asked to complete a test.
To forward a link to your CV, please send me a PM.
Not really interested in the job, good luck to Onaomatopoeia in filling it.
Anyway, I have to ask - PowerPoint Specialist? This is really a job title? Are there Excel Specialists? I use PowerPoint almost every day and have given presentations to over 300 people, am I a PowerPoint Specialist without knowing it? What does a PowerPoint Specialist make? How do you establish your bona fides as a PowerPoint Specialist?
This was my initial reaction too, but if you think about it, most of the global hatred for Powerpoint is in fact hatred for badly-designed, or badly-delivered Powerpoint content - so actually, I guess it’s entirely possible that a company with important presentations to make would want someone who can do it properly.
Presentation design is absolutely a profession. It’s part of what I do (my job does include some other related things), and there are other people at my company who do it full time, especially for our presentations to the public.
Mangetout is correct-- making slides isn’t hard. Making good ones is. Information and graphic design, conveying an effective message, building a narrative, etc. Coaching your speaker so they tell the story well, instead of reading off the slide. Keeping audience interest, creating the right tone, maintaining engagement. It’s a little like being a director, stage manager, and set designer (and maybe even playwright), on a small scale.
This is well respected firm that specializes in presentations. The owner has a book called Slideology that’s a great primer on making good presentations.
I have a full time gig, as I said, but out of professional curiosity. . .Onomatopoeia, what will you be doing for testing? (Feel free to PM me if you’d rather)
Is this an hourly job or would the specialist be paid by the presentation or a set salary? (E.g. is there any incentive to get the presentation done sooner so you can get your full check and end for the day?)
Especially in PeePee, absolutely the worst desktop tool ever foisted on a large user base. Unlike Word and Excel, which are largely crippled and loathed because of their lousy initial setup, Powerpoint CANNOT be beaten into submission at any level. It’s crap from the first line of code to the last.
Ono, you might be able to earn brownie points and promotion by suggesting your company move its presentation needs to better tools and retrain/rehire your staff of creators. A 50% efficiency increase and improved esthetics are just the beginning of benefits.
Also my first reaction. I think Onomatopoeia should advertise for a Marketing Specialist who is an expert with PowerPoint and is familiar with AMA style.
The downside is that ongoing support of a different solution is not so mainstream - PP may be evil, but it’s ubiquitous, which means hiring someone for a different product may be more expensive - and when they move on, continuity of support for existing content may be harder to attain.
Microsoft issues specialist certificates of various levels for all (or most) of their programs. My company got a bunch of vouchers for the tests so I went ahead and snagged Word and Powerpoint.
No number of certificates will tell you whether a person knows how to make clean informative slides, though.
The means by which a laptop becomes the keynote speaker in any forum.
Software that allows you to turn the bleeding obvious into dot points. *
*However it should be noted that a quick Google search will show you over 2,000,000 items about improving your dot points.
First, I am a principal in my company, so no promotion for me.
Second, PowerPoint is required by our clients who we submit PPT slides to with marginal sources for medical/legal and FDA review. Whether we love or hate PowerPoint is not at issue. PowerPoint is the environment; No alternative platforms are allowed.
We are not looking for a marketing expert. We are looking for someone with experience laying out approved material and corresponding data, emphasis on data, some of it very deep, marketed to physicians, with complex charts, quickly and accurately. Working knowledge of medical terminology, AMA style, and the ability to appropriately cite sources is a must for the position. Any marketing work will have already been completed by the time the PPT person receives the data, corresponding elements, and instructions.