How to give your interview skills an edge

Do you struggle with interview skills? I know many of my clients have a tough time when they approach the interview. Like many other career professionals, I provide interview coaching as part of my packages.

Signs that you need to work on your interview skills

Insert extra words (um, er…, ah… you know, like) to fill the spaces because you didn’t plan ahead. Personal story: my mom once counted 51 ums in a radio interview I gave. Embarrassing!
Speak in too long of paragraphs without giving the other person a chance to inject. Personal story: When I did a fair amount of television interviews, I finally thought “sound bite” to make sure I didn’t run on. It is just as bad to run on in a job interview. Clear and concise works!
Ramble without coming to the point. The interviewer is clearly becoming impatient as you seem to have no clear answer for anything.
Waffle on the answer. You can’t make up your mind so you keep going back and forth with different answers sounding less and less confident with every word.

While speaking skills are critical in phone interviews, the same tips will help you during in-person interviews. The difference is that when you have in-person interviews, you have more visual effects working for you. You can make eye contact (and should make eye contact), you can use visual aids, and you can build more acceptance in an in-person interview.