How I helped my client with her filler word problem

One of my clients was working on her interview answers with me and she had a serious filler word problem. What do I mean?

Interviewer: “Where do you see yourself in five years?”

Interviewee: “Well, um, I feel like, um, that I will be, um…”

That’s the filler words problem in a nutshell.

I can help with that, the same way any English teacher or interview coach can, by counting the fillers.

So I counted and she was shocked: “I said ‘um’ 37 times in 4 minutes? No way.”

And then during the next answer she said “you know” 37 times.

She wasn’t stupid. It’s just that using filler words in your speech is a problem that takes repeated monitoring and feedback. You need feedback about your fillers over many hours and many days before you’ll stop saying them.

No one has ever stopped saying fillers the first time they tried.

Use AI feedback plus a coach

She’d always been nervous in job interviews, despite all her qualifications, and struggled with presenting herself effectively. So since she was interviewing for her dream job, she was open to doing anything she could to improve.

Instead of scheduling her for more sessions where we just worked on the filler issue, I suggested she try using Google’s Interview Warmup between our sessions. It’s an AI-powered tool to help people prepare for interviews.

Using the AI:

• Is less embarrassing than making mistakes in front of a human – software won’t judge you

• Is free for unlimited usage – you can work on your fillers for thousands of hours and pay nothing

• Lets you supercharge your practice – if you’re short on time, you can spend your nights and weekends practicing

Communication issues AI-powered interview prep tools help with

If you use one of the AI tools, you can get feedback on several communication areas:

• The type and number of filler words you use

• How fast you talk

• How much eye contact you make

• Your vocabulary - Does it match job description?

• Your vocabulary - How many times do you use words? Are you overusing or underusing words?

• The length of your answers

These are all areas it might be useful to get feedback on before interviews.

Did she improve?

Using Google Warmup, she practiced questions until she felt comfortable with her responses. The tool gave her instant feedback, which gave her the motivation to improve. Practicing alone can be hard to sustain.

In our sessions I gave her feedback on the content of her answers, and we worked on that instead of spending time on the details like word choice, fillers, and answer length.

On the day of the interview, she felt prepared and was able to answer the questions.   

You can improve too

If you’d like help using AI to prepare, book an interview coaching session with me.