Finding your voice

Vicki Salemi has written this very good piece in US News & World Reports' On Careers blog called: "5 Speech Tips to 'Find your Voice' for the Big Interview". In this piece advice from noted career expert Caroline Dowd-Higgins discussed several key tips for when speaking in a job interview:

• Use ample volume, don't speak too quickly, and think before you speak.
• Watch for nervous ticks ('um', 'ah', 'like', 'you-know') that manifest as filler words.
• Allow the words to "land and be heard without the filler."

The article then outlines the following five tips to let your voice shine:

1. Eliminate the filler words.
2. Practice with technology.
3. Listen to your interviewer.
4. Carry authority.
5. Remember to breathe.

Now I can only hope that most of these are things that we have all heard before, but I think that this nice reminder can help any of us who are still looking. As the interviewee it may feel like the pauses are long and unbearable... but if we had someone time them for us in practice, then it will turn out that these pauses (when practiced) are very short and help the interview. Couple that with tip three 'listening to your interviewer' can allow you to truly hear the questions and answer what they are asking of you. This, combined with the research you have done on the company/position will make you standout from the crowd of applicants.

I would love to hear about examples of using the pause to effect.