Job talk slides: structure, length and the questions after
A job talk is judged on three things at once: whether the work is good, whether you can teach, and whether the department wants you around for twenty years. The structure that serves all three is one coherent story — a problem, your contribution, where it goes next — at a pace a colleague from another subfield can follow, with specialist detail in backup slides.
This guide covers the structure, the timing, the parts that are really about teaching, and the questions.
What the room is listening for
The committee usually contains two or three people in your area and a dozen who are not. The specialists check whether the work is solid. Everyone else checks whether you can explain why it matters — and that is the judgement that decides most searches, because it is also what a lecture, a grant panel and a colleague across the corridor need from you.
So: no more than a third of the talk at specialist depth, and the first ten minutes intelligible to any member of the department.
A structure for 45 minutes
- The problem (5 min). Why anyone outside your subfield should care. One slide with a concrete instance beats three slides of context.
- The question and the approach (5 min). What you asked and how you attacked it, in the shape of a research programme rather than a paper.
- Result one, in depth (12 min). Your strongest piece of work, with the method the specialists want to see.
- Results two and three, briskly (10 min). Enough to show a programme, not a list of papers.
- What it adds up to (5 min). The through-line. Say it explicitly; the committee is writing this sentence down.
- Next five years (5 min). Two concrete projects, what they need, and what a first grant looks like. This is where the "fit" conversation begins.
- Teaching and people (3 min). Courses you could teach, students you would supervise — brief, but do not skip it.
That leaves time for questions; a 45-minute slot with 15 minutes of questions is the common shape, and running over eats the part where you look collegial. The timing guide has the pacing numbers.
Slides
- Around 30–40 slides for 45 minutes, most of them light. Fewer, denser slides read as a seminar; too many reads as rushed.
- A running map. A small progress indicator, or a section slide each time you move. The audience will drift; give them a way back in.
- One idea per slide, and say it in the slide's title as a sentence. See too much text on slides.
- Figures you can explain in one breath. Redraw the paper's figure for the room, as in charts in lecture slides.
- Backup slides after the conclusion — derivations, the ablation, the dataset details, the objection you know is coming. Pulling one up on demand is the single most convincing thing that happens in a job talk.
Rehearse it for the wrong audience
Practise in front of people outside your area, and ask them where they lost the thread. The specialists will find the technical gaps anyway; the general audience is the one you cannot simulate in your head. Then rehearse the first two minutes and the last two until they are automatic — those are the parts nerves take.
Check the practical things in advance: whether the room has a clicker, whether the projector is 16:9 or 4:3, and whether you can present from your own laptop. Carry a PDF on a USB stick. See slide size and aspect ratio if the deck may land on someone else's machine, and the one-screen presenter view guide for the notes.
The questions
Answer the question that was asked, briefly, then stop. A short answer with an offer to go deeper reads as confidence; a five-minute answer reads as evasion. When you do not know, say so and say what you would do to find out — it is a more useful signal than an invented answer, and everyone in the room can tell the difference.
In Lecture Studio
Lecture Studio writes decks and notes from sources on a Mac, which is more useful for the teaching demonstration that often accompanies the job talk than for the research talk itself. It is free during the beta and needs an Oberik project key.
FAQ
How long should a job talk be?
Usually 45 minutes of talk with 15 minutes of questions; confirm the format with the host, and plan to finish two minutes early.
How many slides for a job talk?
Roughly 30–40 for 45 minutes, plus backup slides after the conclusion that you only show if asked.
How technical should a job talk be?
The first ten minutes should be followable by the whole department; about a third of the talk can be at specialist depth.
What goes at the end of a job talk?
The through-line of the work, then two concrete projects for the next few years — that is the part the committee discusses afterwards.