5 Ways Good Public Speaking Skills help a Job Interview

A job interview is a particular style of public speaking. As with any other speaking situation, you must train and rehearse as much as possible. Try to anticipate the questions and prepare the stories you want to share.

Practicing your answers to commonly asked questions is a huge step towards success. Yet, knowing the right answer is not enough. Here we present five points in which a good public speaker has leverage during a job interview.

1. Feel comfortable telling your story

Storytelling is a powerful weapon in any kind of public speaking. Stories establish emotional connections, and those are the most powerful connections. For a successful interview, you need to develop a relationship with your interviewers.

To not be caught off guard, prepare a few stories you are willing to share to help you in the interview. Stories about your successes, or how you overcome some significant difficulty. Perhaps you can share how you turned a negative situation into something positive

2. Look more organized and clear

You must be able to structure and organize your answers. This is a very important conversation. You need to transmit a clear and compelling message.

While sharing your messages, don’t forget to clearly articulate your words. Build proper sentences – grammatically correct. A poor speech always gives the wrong impression to your interviewer.

Having some public speaking training helps you to organize your thoughts into a better speech quickly. This is especially important when you face an unexpected question. Practicing impromptu speeches can is a good way to hone these skills.

3. Appear interesting

Communication is more than talking, so don’t focus only on your words. Your body is a communication tool as well. Remind yourself to keep eye contact, smile, and assume a confident posture.

Looking confident and assertive is a significant step to make your message more compelling. This is vital to engage your audience. Your interviewers need to feel interested in what you’re saying.

Besides that, don’t jump into an answer immediately after any question. Pause and think carefully about what was asked and what you want to answer. Avoid talking nonstop and keep your interviewers interested.

While training, pay careful attention to your pauses and silence. For initial training, experiment with adding a pause of 15-20 seconds between each sentence. Then, slowly adapt the length of each pause to your needs. Train your pauses until you’re comfortable with them.

4. Don’t feel intimidated

One of the main rules of good public speaking is to show confidence. The same is valid for a job interview. You need to feel in control of yourself and the circumstances.

Such as in a presentation, self-confidence is something that your audience is looking for. The interviewer needs to feel that you’re confident of what you’re saying. Proper training is the best path for feeling genuinely confident.

The methods you use to calm nerves before public speaking can be applied also to interviews, such as breathing exercises or light physical exercise.

5. Leave a good impression

When you’re preparing a presentation, you learn how important it is to know your audience and adapt your communication style to them. This will allow you to pass your message more clearly. That is vital in job interviews as well.

You need to impress the person in front of you, and good communication is the key to achieve that.

When preparing your interview make to research the company. Use your network to ask someone that works there about it. Try to find out about the company’s culture; what do they find more important in a candidate? what is not tolerated? is there a dress code? etc.

Explore their website and study all information you get to prepare a message that fits to that company.

An extra point beyond your resume

The ability to speak, expose your ideas, and show more about yourself is vital in an interview. It gives your interviewer a good impression and conveys the ideas and messages you want to share.

The job interview is more than just your resume. They already know what you know; they want to know who you are, and your speaking skills are key to conveying that.