--- title: "How to Stop Saying 'Um' in a Video Interview (And Actually Sound Confident)" description: "Here's why you say 'um', what it costs you, and exactly how to train yourself out of saying 'um' before your next HireVue." author: "Stephen Jesudunsin" date: "2026-05-18" canonical: "https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/how-to-stop-saying-um-in-a-video-interview" --- # How to Stop Saying 'Um' in a Video Interview (And Actually Sound Confident) > Here's why you say 'um', what it costs you, and exactly how to train yourself out of saying 'um' before your next HireVue. Published 2026-05-18 by Stephen Jesudunsin on [the Voomer® blog](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog). ## Why "Um" Feels Impossible to Stop You don't notice you're doing it. That's the problem. "Um" is a verbal placeholder. It fills the uncomfortable silence when your thoughts move faster than your mouth. It's also a stress response: under pressure, you reach for sound instead of silence, and every "um" makes the next one easier. [Video interviews](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/video-interview) make it harder. There's no interviewer on the other end giving you social feedback, no nodding, no [eye contact](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/eye-contact), no reassurance. Just a camera, a timer, and a question. Across 150,000+ practice sessions on [Voomer®](https://app.tryvoomer.com), "um" is the single most common filler word candidates produce on camera. This guide explains how to train yourself out of it before your next [HireVue](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/hirevue). ## What Filler Words Actually Cost You Filler words cost you something real. Used repeatedly, they make you sound unprepared and anxious. That's the last thing you want on camera, where the AI is scoring your delivery alongside your content. Interviewers evaluate speaking cadence, clarity, and confidence as part of your overall assessment. Filler words drag on all three. For any role that requires sound communication, repeated "ums" read as a red flag. You sound less concise, less structured, and less in command of your answer. ## How to Stop Saying "Um" in Five Steps Cutting filler words takes deliberate practice. These five steps work if you record yourself, review the feedback, and put in the reps. ### Step 1: Learn to Hear Yourself First You can't correct what you can't catch. Record an answer to a practice question, cold, with [Voomer®](https://app.tryvoomer.com). The "[Tell me about yourself](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/tell-me-about-yourself)" prompt is a good start. Answer naturally, the way you would in a normal conversation. Don't re-record, don't judge, don't try to overimpress. The goal is to get a baseline. It feels uncomfortable. That's the point. Voomer® flags every "um" automatically and shows you exactly where in your answer it shows up. The places you fill the most are usually the places where your structure breaks down. ### Step 2: Make Silence Your Default, Not "Um" This one takes intentionality. People say "um" because silence feels uncomfortable. When you run out of words or you're gathering your thoughts, "um" is the easiest way out. But silence doesn't have to be uncomfortable. A one or two second pause to pick your words carefully reads as intentional. You come across as someone who thinks before they speak. Whenever you feel yourself losing the train of thought, stop, breathe, and continue. Practice this in real conversations as well as recorded sessions. The goal is for the pause to feel natural before you ever sit down for the real thing. Pauses feel longer to you than they sound to the listener. A two second silence on tape lands as a half second beat on the viewer's side. Trust the gap. ### Step 3: The Glass of Water Trick This sounds too simple to work. It works. Keep a glass of water next to you during practice. Every time you say "um," take a sip. The sip forces a break. The break breaks the pattern. After three sessions in a row, your brain starts self-correcting before the "um" comes out. It's a quick payoff for almost no effort. ### Step 4: Structure Your Answers Before You Open Your Mouth Filler words cluster in the first few seconds of an answer, because your brain is still figuring out what to say. The fix is to build the structure first, then speak. The [STAR framework](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/star-method) (Situation, Task, Action, Result) is the standard. Before you record, take a few seconds to map the beginning, middle, and end of your answer. You don't need a full script. A skeleton is enough to keep you from drifting under pressure. Voomer® has 500+ company-specific question banks with real [HireVue](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/hirevue) prompts. Go through them, structure your thoughts the way you'd say them out loud, then record. That's how you build the muscle memory that holds up in the real interview. ### Step 5: Practice on Camera, Not in Your Head This is the step most candidates skip. It's the only one that actually transfers. Mental rehearsal feels productive. So does practicing in front of a mirror. Neither prepares you for a camera, a timer, and a one-shot recording. The only thing that does is recording yourself answering real questions and watching the playback. Start with ten minutes a day. One question per session. Follow steps one through four, record, review, repeat. Voomer® gives you confidence scoring and pacing analysis across every session so you can see the arc bend instead of guessing. ## How Long Does It Actually Take? You probably want a number. Here's the honest one: it depends, but it's faster than you think. Most candidates see a meaningful drop in filler rate within five to seven deliberate practice sessions. The arc looks roughly like this: - **Session 1.** The baseline. You record, you count, you cringe a little. That's normal. You now have a number to beat. - **Sessions 2 and 3.** You start catching yourself mid-answer. The pause becomes a tool instead of a gap you're scrambling to fill. - **Sessions 4 and 5.** Your filler rate drops visibly. Answers feel structured. Silence stops feeling like failure. - **Sessions 6 and 7.** You're no longer thinking about "um." You're thinking about your answer. That's the sign it's working. Voomer® tracks your filler rate across every session, so you're not guessing whether you're improving. The platform average sits at 3.4%, roughly one filler every 30 words. Most candidates who practice consistently get below it inside two weeks. The candidates who don't improve are usually the ones practicing passively: reading tips, watching YouTube, running answers in their head. None of it transfers to camera. The only thing that does is recording, reviewing, and going again. Ten minutes a day is enough. Most candidates go from first session to interview-ready in a couple of weeks. ## Quick Reference: The "Um" Reduction Checklist Run through this before and after every practice session. - Record a 60-second answer to a practice question cold. No prep, no retakes - Count every filler word in the recording and write the number down - Set your target: below Voomer®'s platform average of 3.4% - Practice pausing instead of filling space - Keep a glass of water next to you and sip every time you catch yourself saying "um" - Structure every answer with [STAR](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/star-method) before you open your mouth - Do not start talking until you know your first sentence - Review your playback after every session. Don't skip this step - Track your filler rate across sessions until you're consistently below the 3.4% platform average - Repeat until the pause feels natural and the "um" stops coming ## How Voomer® Helps You Kill Filler Words Faster Most candidates practice for [video interviews](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/video-interview) by talking to themselves in a mirror or running answers in their head. Neither tells you anything useful about how you actually come across on camera. Here's what you get on every recorded answer: - **[Eye contact](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/eye-contact) coaching.** We score you on whether you're looking at the lens or the screen. Small difference, but a big read on camera - **Filler word tracking.** Our platform flags every "um" automatically, with the spot in your answer where it showed up - **Speaking pace analysis.** We measure your WPM against the 110 WPM platform benchmark so you know if you're rushing or dragging - **Confidence scoring.** How you come across overall, tracked across sessions - **Progress tracking.** Every session logged so you can see your filler rate dropping over time instead of hoping it is - **500+ company question banks.** [HireVue](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/hirevue) question banks for JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Deloitte, BCG, and more The first "um" you catch yourself not saying is the rep that proves it's working. Most candidates feel it land somewhere between session three and session five. ## Walk Into Your Next Interview Ready Saying "um" in a [video interview](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/video-interview) is not a personality trait. It's a habit, and habits respond to practice. The steps in this guide work, but only if you record yourself, review the feedback, and put in the reps. The candidates who perform well in [HireVue](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/define/hirevue) interviews are not the most naturally confident people in the room. They're the ones who trained until walking in ready felt normal. Eliminating every "um" is not the goal. Natural speech has a few. The goal is to drop from "distracting" to "invisible." Below the 3.4% platform average, you're ahead of most of the field. Start by recording yourself answering a practice question and counting your filler words. Once you can hear the habit, replace fillers with deliberate pauses. Structure your answers with STAR before you speak, and practice on camera consistently until the habit drops. One-way interviews evaluate delivery alongside content. Excessive filler words hurt your clarity and pacing, which can feed into your overall assessment. Most candidates see a meaningful reduction inside five to seven deliberate practice sessions on camera. Passive prep, like reading tips or mental rehearsal, does not produce the same result. Filler words are a stress response. Your brain uses them to fill silence while it catches up with your thoughts. The fix is training yourself to pause cleanly instead of filling the gap. ## Machine-readable surfaces - [Site guide for AI agents](https://www.tryvoomer.com/llms.txt) · [full reference](https://www.tryvoomer.com/llms-full.txt) · [blog guide listing](https://www.tryvoomer.com/blog/llms.txt) - [Semantic guide search API](https://api.tryvoomer.com/blog/search?q={query}) (JSON) - [Agent Skills index](https://www.tryvoomer.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) - [Sitemap](https://www.tryvoomer.com/sitemap.xml) - Any content page serves markdown via `Accept: text/markdown`, a `.md` suffix, or `?mode=agent`