Bad at Interviewing

[IncantoCharms]

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So I am a talkative person, and my friends comment that I express myself and my views very well. However, I don't agree with this. I've had a few interviews so far and I notice I keep saying filler words and um a lot. No matter how much I practice before hand, when people are staring at me during and interview I start sounding like a valley girl. Also I have a tendency to ramble and many times I start thinking "wtf am I trying to say right now?" in the middle of my answers. I think having some points of discussion have helped me stay on track and be concise. If you feel you are particularly good at interviewing, want to share some tips? I'm not socially inept or anything, btw 😛

 

[FIREitUP]

You wouldn't believe how many interviews I had last cycle that ended up in disappointment because of the same issue you are having here. I did a mock interview with someone this year and she told me this: "You have a good personality; let it shine through in your interviews." At an interview this year one interviewer told me that "You are very comfortable in your skin", and the other one told me that "You are very confident".

You have a self-proclaimed good personality; I'll take your word for it--so why not let it shine? Your issue seems that you are not comfortable, hence the gratuitous usage of "um" and rambling. My suggestion is you treat it as a conversation where you are trying to show them not only your personality, but also your credentials. You can change your interviewing ability if you truly want to and are cognizant of your deficiencies, as you seem to be. Good luck.

 

[heyyouyouyou]

its fine to be nervous or talk a lot, but DO NOT interrupt the interviewer. Its very frustrating to be interrupted, especially when you are older and have less time.

 

[Garb]

its fine to be nervous or talk a lot, but DO NOT interrupt the interviewer. Its very frustrating to be interrupted, especially when you are older and have less time.

Haha, like, less time to live? lulz

 

[girlofgrace7]

Try mock interviewing or videotaping yourself. I didn't do this but a lot of people I know did and swore it helped them.

The main problem people have when interviewing is thinking that they have to answer the question the second it is out of the interviewers mouth. Take a breath to clear your head a bit, and focus on calmly and slowly answering. It's not a race to get as much information out as quickly as possible.

It really helped me to jot down some points to common interview questions (weaknesses, strengths, why I want to be a doctor, why XYZ school, etc.) in advance. Be careful not to make your answer sound memorized though.

It also really helped me to let myself freak out about an hour before the interview so I had time to recollect my thoughts and calm down. I found that, if I tried to hold in my nerves completely, I would get jittery right before the interview. I felt bad at my interviews for a few of the other interviewees who were fine until 2 minutes before they had to go to interview. That is not the time to let yourself get worked up.

As someone said above, try to just be yourself. My best interviews were ones where I actually just let the conversation flow and actually got choked up talking about events in my life (one interview discussion ended up leading to a talk about my mother and sister nearly dying) or things I'm really passionate about. Just be in the moment, and let the interviewer see who you really are rather than just a compilation of your stats and activities.