How to Stop Saying 'Um' in a Video Interview (And Actually Sound Confident)

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 can keep up. It's also a stress response: under pressure, you fumble words, try to pace yourself, and make it worse.

Video interviews make it harder. There's no interviewer on the other end giving you social feedback, no nodding, no eye contact, no reassurance. Just a camera, a timer, and a question. Across 150,000+ practice sessions on Voomer®, "um" is the single most common word candidates produce on camera.

This guide explains how to train yourself out of it before your next 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®. The "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.

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.

If water alone isn't enough, raise the cost. Mix half a glass of Diet Coke with half a glass of water and sip on every filler. The taste is unpleasant on purpose. Your brain learns faster when the consequence is immediate.

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 (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 100+ company-specific question banks with real 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 twenty 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.

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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. Do this with no prep or no re-reads
• 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 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 count across sessions until you're consistently below two per answer
• 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 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.

How Voomer® helps you kill filler words faster:

• 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
• 100+ company question banks. HireVue question banks for JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Deloitte, BCG, and more

Walk Into Your Next Interview Ready

Saying "um" in a 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 interviews are not the most naturally confident people in the room. They're the ones who trained until walking in ready felt normal.