Ridiculously boring but important MS PowerPoint question!

So I've got a job interview next Wednesday in which they insist on me making a presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint 2010. Only problem is I only own a Mac. One of my friends has thankfully let me use a spare laptop, but it only has PowerPoint 2007. Is this old version of PowerPoint compatible with the 2010 one? I've tried googling this but haven't found any concrete answers. Any help would be great because this is such a frustrating matter!

I would look up what the file extension is for when you save the presentation. If it uses the same one as 2010 you should but fine, but keep in mind that some of the layout options might get a little wonky looking when moving a file from program to program. Good luck with the interview!

I'm reasonably certain PowerPoint 2010 can run presentations from earlier versions.

The file extension is .pptx

.pptx is the new extension so you'll be fine.

Use a lot of "star wipes" for transitions, and make sure you have a image of a rampant Bald Eagle with teh US national anthem play at the end.

It should work. Although if you're using lot of fancy transitions and stuff those might not work. Would they allow you to get there a bit early to set up and see if everything works correctly? That way you might be able to make a few last minute tweaks of some of the formatting gets messed up.

In any event, good luck! Although now I'm curious as to what kind of company/position would make an interviewee create a PowerPoint presentation? It just seems sort of silly to have as part of an interview. If presenting skills are so important, why limit people to using PowerPoint? If the PowerPoint skills are important, shouldn't you be willing to train an otherwise excellent candidate if they don't know how to use the program? Personally, I'd be much more concerned as an HR person about whether the interviewee was a total jerk or not.

If things start to go south, you can always go off on how PowerPoint is mostly a crutch that makes you a much weaker presenter. I happen to feel very strongly that this is true by the way. Most people who make PowerPoints have a tendency just read off the slide, which as a listener is both boring and kind of insulting.

@lawgamer: Sounds like you've been unlucky man. PowerPoint presentations can add a lot to your speech. The main problem is that as you grow up through school and your undergraduate courses you never really know enough about the thing you're talking about which is why you often see presentations fail because you're primarily seeing people use the slides to remind them of what they should be saying instead of the other way around where the slides are meant to reinforce what they're saying. Using slides this way you can insert jokes, pictures, article snippets etc. which can alter the mood of the presentation or provide extra information. It really depends on your audience though. For instance if I wouldn't expect a bunch of undergrads to be able to handle me talking as well as extra reading on the slide, but I would expect that from members of a faculty.

Also PowerPoint presentations are essential for anything related to science. It's always easier to understand and explain an experiment and its results using diagrams and graphs.

PS To the OP you can save your presentation as a PowerPoint Show (.ppsx) as well as a PowerPoint 97-2003 Show (.pps). I'd recommend doing that when you finish making your slides and then taking both copies to whatever computer you end up using. If one doesn't work properly, then the other will.

PPS Remember, no one likes stupid transitions and unless you explicitly need to, make all text on each slide appear straight away! It's really annoying having to wait for someone to press spacebar every five seconds...

Yes, 2010 can read 2007. Vice versa that isn't necessarily the case, but you should be fine. To be safe, save an additional copy as a pdf, as that will always be readable in case there is an problem with the ppt file. Just be aware that you won't have any animations in there, if you plan to use those.

Another tip is to only use standard fonts such as Arial or Calibri, as they need to have the font on their computer in order to display it (although again no issue if you pdf it).

Be sure to use copious amounts of that typewriter thing where the text goes pew pew pew. That was a big hit when I was in primary school.

Just a couple tips: approx. 1 minute a slide, no more than a couple of lines of text on each slide (you want them to listen - not read) and put in a brief outline of the presentation at the beginning and a summary at the end.

Thanks for all the advice everyone! This has been great and very reassuring. Got an email back from the people doing my interview and they said that Powerpoint 2007 is okay, just stuff like animations, transitions, music and video might not work, but I wasn't going to bother with all that jazz anyway.

Any extra tips on presentations would be helpful. My only worry is remembering to click through the slides. Once I get on a role talking I tend to blank out stuff around me. Having to remember to click through the slides could break my flow also.