Interviewers need to assess your character and personality during the interview. One of the core attributes they pay attention to is the way you speak, as well as what you say. The content of your answers is, of course, critical to your success or failure when interviewing for a new job. However, you should not overlook the importance of how you communicate those answers, in addition to the content of the answers themselves.

Your tone of voice and speech patterns all affect how you're perceived by an interviewer. Whether you're aware of it or not, you also judge others by how they speak. Fortunately, it's relatively simple to teach oneself to speak more clearly and with confidence. In this guide are actionable steps to help you retrain yourself to be a more effective speaker and to give a stronger verbal presentation while interviewing.

  The Importance of Controlled Breathing

Interviewing is a stressful business. Many people develop unnatural breathing, because they become nervous. This can lead to gasping for breath, trailing off at the end of sentences, or becoming shaky or unhinged. All of these results can be negatively interpreted by the interviewer.

The interviewer may think:

• You lack confidence.
• You doubt your own knowledge on a particular subject.
• You're being dishonest.

Conscious, deep breathing is vital in maintaining clear and impressive speech. Here are a few hints for improving your breathing and thereby improving your speech.

• Calm Your Nerves
  
  If you allow your nerves to get the best of you, then your speech will suffer. Preparation is the best way to deal with interview stress and breathing problems. Researching the company you are interviewing with and the position requirements, as well as understanding the interview process and practicing interview techniques, will help you to relieve the stress. Arrive at the interview with a positive attitude. Smile, and try to direct your energy towards excitement about the opportunity that lies before you. Have a conversation with your interviewer instead of simply answering the questions. If you focus on the conversation instead of continuously analyzing your answers, the interviewer will become a partner in dialog, and you will be more comfortable during the interview. You should keep things in perspective, realizing that this is only one job interview, and is certainly not your last opportunity.
• Practice Breathing Correctly While Speaking
  
  Practicing your breathing patterns while speaking helps you master your voice and maintain your composure.
  • Sit Appropriately. Your posture has an impact on your breathing. Sitting up straight, with your head, neck and shoulders properly aligned, keeps your airway clear and helps to control your breath.
  • Consciously relax the muscles in your body, as tight muscles lead to restricted breathing.
  • Take deeper breaths between sentences or ideas. Not only will you sound more confident and composed, but breathing slowly will also allow the interviewer time to take notes and consider your response.
  • Practice long and controlled exhaling. A measured exhale prevents you from sounding nervous, and will aid in proper pronunciation and inflection.
  • Learn to speak from your diaphragm. Allow your breathing to "push" the words out, projecting confidence.

  Appropriate Volume and Pleasant Pitch

How loud you speak says a lot about your character and personality. The pitch of your voice (the relative highness or lowness of a tone as perceived by the ear) provides the interviewer with insight into your character as well.

• Most interviews are held in a relatively small room, behind closed doors. Adjust your volume appropriately.
• Speaking too loudly makes you appear aggressive and domineering, and is certainly seen as unprofessional.
• Speaking too softly may be interpreted as meekness, ineptitude, and/or disinterest.
• A strong voice, with a clear, resonating tone indicates a confident and balanced personality. (Resonance is the reflection of your voice within your chest, or against the walls of the room.)

  Effective Use of Inflection

Inflection is change in pitch or loudness of the voice. Many job seekers make the mistake of eliminating natural inflection from their tone of voice in an effort to sound professional and knowledgeable when interviewing. Unfortunately, this only makes you sound boring and mechanical. It can also make you appear disinterested, not very excited about the job opportunity, or generally lacking in enthusiasm about work.

• Allow your natural excitement to shine through in your voice. The interviewer will recognize this as enthusiasm for the job.
• Employ normal inflection and everyday speech patterns, including the highs and lows in your voice that you naturally use for emphasis. You will sound genuine and engaged when relating stories and you will keep the interest of the interviewer.

  Comfortable Cadence and Consistent Pace

Speaking with a natural rhythm and consistent pace is crucial to successful interviewing. Cadence is a rhythmic sequence or flow of sounds in language. Smooth cadence and a steady pace indicate:

• You're comfortable and confident in your own skin.
• You trust your knowledge and skills to serve you well on the job.
• You're being honest in your responses.
• You can be expected to communicate well with your co-workers, customers or clients.

You will improve your cadence and pace using the following techniques:

• Practice inserting natural pauses in your speech. Intentionally pause where commas fall in sentences, between sentences, and when transitioning to an independent topic or new idea.
• Don't allow yourself to speak too quickly if something rattles your nerves. Speaking too fast results in muffled and jumbled speech with improper pronunciation, leaving your interviewer with a poor impression of your interpersonal communication skills. Speaking quickly gives insufficient time to consider your responses, and will lead to less effective word choice and poor overall communication.
• It's natural to speed up when talking about something that you find exciting, intriguing or impressive, but don't speak so quickly that you are hard to understand.
• Overly slow or deliberate speech makes your answers appear uncertain. Even if you have doubts about your response, speak confidently. When you do so, the interviewer will often follow your lead and believe what you are saying.

  Clear Enunciation

Articulate yourself well through clear enunciation. Enunciation refers to pronouncing sounds correctly. Mumbling is the opposite of enunciation. The interviewer may interpret weak enunciation as lazy speech, a lack of intelligence or a sign of poor interpersonal communication.

• Enunciate the end of each word, especially hard consonant sounds. Don't allow your volume to drop off at the end of the word, or trail off at the end of a sentence.
• Fully use the muscles of the tongue, lips and mouth when speaking, by making concerted efforts to pronounce words clearly.

  Perfecting Speech Through Practice

Perhaps you're nervous over the idea of drawing attention to yourself. Maybe you feel awkward and uncomfortably exposed by the concept of interviewing. Or maybe you've just fallen into less than perfect speech habits. Regardless of your particular circumstances, you will become a clear and impressive speaker with just a bit of practice. Below are several practice techniques that you can use to improve your speech.

• Read Aloud Read aloud to yourself, and pay attention to all the characteristics of your speech. Maintain an appropriate volume and pleasant pitch. Practice your breathing, inflection and pauses. Listen to your cadence and be mindful of the pace at which you read. Emphasize enunciation, fully pronouncing all letters and syllables in every word.
• Speak in Front of the Mirror Practice your enunciation by speaking in front of a mirror and watching the way you move your mouth when talking. Exaggerated movements can help you master proper enunciation, but you will eventually need to incorporate a natural and relaxed appearance while talking. Develop a natural style of speech by phasing out forced movement of your lips and mouth.
• Sit for Mock Interviews A mock interview is one of the very best speech improvement techniques. A mock interview is a practice run in which a volunteer plays the role of interviewer. The interviewer provides the opportunity to go through the full interview process, and to gain experience formulating answers, honing your speech, and exhibiting the right posture, body language and facial expressions. See the ZoomInterviews' Guide to "How to be An Effective Mock Interviewer" for more information.
• Recording Yourself Speaking Whether you practice by reading aloud to yourself, or by sitting for a mock interview, you'll find that recording your voice easily identifies speech problems. Review the audio or video recording to identify shortcomings in your speech patterns, pitch, tone, enunciation and inflection.
  
  If you find problems in a certain area, you know what to practice. While it may be discouraging to uncover issues in your speech, knowing where your faults lie allows you to formulate a plan to improve.

  Wrapping it up

Right or wrong, fair or not, people listen to your voice and arrive at conclusions about your personality and character. From your voice, an interviewer can determine if you're excited or disinterested, as well as hear if you're nervous, fearful, or angry, through your tone, pitch, cadence and inflection.

You don't have to leave strong interview performance to chance. You have the ability to improve your speech and perform well in any interview. Controlling your breath, using appropriate volume and pleasant pitch, effectively using inflection and speaking with comfortable cadence and consistent pace will make your speech clear and easy to understand.