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What you need to know about job talk (MIT OCW)?

I recently watched "How To Speak by Patrick Winston" from MIT OCW.  Thanks to Patrick Wilson who summarized everything you need to know when you are giving a talk which otherwise would take a complete course or at least 10 hours of lectures.

This 60 minutes talk provide you

  1. Rules of Engagement @03:17
  2. How to Start @04:20
  3. Four Sample Heuristics @05:44
  4. The Tools: Time and Place @10:23
  5. The Tools: Boards, Props, and Slides @13:30
  6. Informing: Promise, Inspiration, How to Think @36:35
  7. Persuading: Oral Exams, Job Talks, Getting Famous @41:45
  8. How to Stop: Final Slide, Final Words @53:15
  9. Final Words: Joke, Thank You, Examples @56:40

In a job talk, Patrick Winston says (based on discussion with his colleagues) , the candidate should show

1. vision
2. done something
..
...
......
Conclusions by enumerating what you have done.


How to show that you have a vision?
You have to define the big problem and your approach to solve that big problem. He uses his field of interest "AI" to show the vision. How to understand human intelligence? What are the differences between Chimpanzee, Neanderthals  and Humans? Well. Human has the ability to grasp symbols and tell story based on a number of symbols by connecting them. How can I do to machines so that I could achieve the intelligence that human have in machines? That is an example for vision.

How to show that you have done something important?
List the number of steps you need to solve in order to solve the big problem (which you defined in your vision).
You can say "Here is what needs to be done". Specify some behavior, etc.

How to conclude your job talk?
You highlight what you have done so far and emphasize on where you are in achieving the big goal which you defined in your vision.

The transcript of the full talk (a 22 page pdf document) and the video can be accessed here.

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