How to stop saying "um" in interviews (without sounding robotic)

Interviewers rarely write "said um a lot" on a scorecard. What they write is "seemed unsure," "rambled," or "hard to follow." Filler words are how those impressions form in a spoken interview, and they get worse under pressure, which is exactly when a panel is listening hardest.

A few fillers are normal

Nobody speaks without fillers, and trying for zero makes you sound scripted. A study in Advances in Physiology Education on scientific talks describes fillers as a symptom of speakers filling pauses while they plan the next thought, and recommends making those pauses silent rather than eliminating them. One filler every minute or so is unremarkable. One every few seconds is what people notice.

Why they spike in interviews

Fillers show up when you start talking before you know where the sentence is going. In interviews that happens at three predictable moments:

1. The first sentence of an answer, because you start speaking before you've picked the story.
2. Transitions, between the situation and what you did.
3. Follow-ups, when a second interviewer asks something you didn't expect.

Techniques that work

Replace the filler with a pause. Silence feels long to you and normal to the listener. Harvard Business Review's advice is to treat the pause as a tool: it reads as thoughtfulness.

Open with a framing sentence. "There's a good example from my time at Ally" buys you three seconds to organize the rest without a single um.

Prepare your transitions, not just your stories. Most rambling happens between parts of an answer. Have stock bridges ready: "What I did first was...", "The result was...", "Looking back, I'd change..."

Slow down. A conversational pace is roughly 140 to 170 words per minute. Nervous speakers drift well above that, and fillers come with speed.

Record yourself. Self-review of recordings is one of the most effective feedback methods the research mentions. Toastmasters has used the same idea for decades with its "ah-counter" role.

Practice answers out loud, under mild pressure

Thinking through an answer in your head doesn't train any of this. You need to say it, at speed, with someone who might interrupt. In PanelPrep you answer every question out loud; the transcript shows exactly what you said, and you can retake any answer and compare. Try it free, and pair it with the STAR vs CAR guide so you have a structure to pause into.