Interview speaking pace: how fast should you talk

Is there an ideal speaking pace for an interview?

No study checked for this page sets an ideal pace for job interviews. What research does offer is a picture of normal conversation, and that picture varies widely between people and situations. Use the numbers below to check whether you are far outside the usual range, then judge the rest by how easily a listener can follow you.

The largest figures come from a 2006 University of Pennsylvania analysis by Jiahong Yuan, Mark Liberman and Christopher Cieri. Across 2,438 recorded English phone conversations, the overall average was 196 words per minute. Individual conversations ranged from 111 to 291 words per minute.

The number depends on how you count. Leaving out silences and noise raised the average to 236 words per minute, and adding up each speaker's own turns gave 164. A single "ideal" figure hides all of that, which is why this page gives you a way to measure yourself instead.

Older studies show a similar spread. Herbert Clark and Jean Fox Tree's 2002 paper in Cognition summarises one study where speakers ranged from about 120 to 180 words per minute. They add that "some people speak over 50% faster than others."

What makes some people sound fast or slow?

Mostly pauses. Clark and Fox Tree report that in earlier work by the psychologist Goldman-Eisler, speech rate tracked the total time spent pausing far more closely than how fast people pronounced each word. In their words, "Slow speakers are slow because they introduce delays." You change your pace mainly by changing your pauses.

The correlations in that summary make the point. Speech rate correlated 0.94 with total pause time, in the negative direction, and only 0.17 with articulation rate. Two people can say each word at the same speed and still differ a lot in words per minute.

Context matters too. Yuan and colleagues found that people used longer turns and spoke more slowly with strangers than with friends or family, though the difference was only about 10%. They also found older speakers were slower and men spoke slightly faster than women. An interview is a conversation with a stranger, so a slightly slower pace than your everyday one is normal.

Does speaking pace change how interviewers see you?

It can change how listeners judge you, though the clearest evidence is old and comes from lab studies of recorded voices. In 1973, Brigham Young University researchers sped up and slowed down recordings. Slowed voices were rated less "competent" and sped-up voices were rated less "benevolent," which suggests both extremes carry a cost.

The study is Bruce Brown, William Strong and Alvin Rencher's work on perceptions of personality from speech, published by the Acoustical Society of America. Judges rated the voices with adjectives. The researchers note that results were more consistent across speakers for rate changes than for changes in intonation.

Those judges heard short recordings, not a full interview with a person in front of them. For real interviews, the stronger evidence is about silence before you answer. A 2016 study of 62 recorded job interviews by Julie Brosy, Adrian Bangerter and Eric Mayor found that longer delays before answering predicted lower hireability ratings.

How do you measure your own speaking pace?

Record one practice answer, count the words in a transcript, and divide by the minutes it took. A phone voice memo and an automatic transcript are enough. Then compare your number with the conversational figures above and, more usefully, listen for the places where you sped up, stalled or ran out of breath.

1. Pick a story you will tell in the interview, such as a project you led.
2. Record yourself telling it once, without stopping to fix anything.
3. Count the words and divide by the time in minutes.
4. Mark the moments where you rushed, usually the result and any numbers.
5. Record it again with a pause before the result, and compare.

Do the same with a casual recording, such as telling a friend about your weekend. If your interview rate is far faster than your relaxed rate, nerves are probably pushing you. If it is far slower, look for long silences while you search for words.

How do you slow down without sounding robotic?

Add pauses at the joints of your answer instead of stretching every word. Pause after the question before you begin, between the situation and your actions, and right before the result. Because pace depends mostly on pauses, a few deliberate breaks slow you down more naturally than trying to say each word slowly.

Slow down on the parts that carry the most information: numbers, names and the result. Those are the words an interviewer may write down. A sentence like "Returns fell from 9% to 4% in one quarter" lands better with a short pause before the numbers.

Length matters as much as speed. Amazon's interview guide tells candidates to practise STAR answers "typically lasting 2-3 minutes each." If your stories run longer at a comfortable pace, cut content, as the guide to how long interview answers should be explains.

What if you naturally talk fast or speak English as a second language?

Keep your natural rate and add clarity markers. Say numbers and names a little slower, signpost each part of the answer, and check in after a long answer. The Penn paper notes earlier findings that non-native speakers talk more slowly than native speakers, and that the effect depends on the first language, so a slower second-language pace is normal.

Signposts help a listener keep up with a fast speaker. Here are some examples to copy:

"There were two parts to this. The first was the budget." "The result was a 30% drop in tickets. Should I go into how we measured it?"

If you are a fast talker on a video or phone call, give the line a moment to clear. The guides to phone interview questions and one-way video interviews cover those formats.

How does pace connect to the rest of your delivery?

Pace, filler words and silence are linked. Clark and Fox Tree found that speakers who paused more also used more fillers, so slowing down with silent pauses can reduce "um"s at the same time. Long searches before an answer, on the other hand, can cost you, as the interview study above found.

The page on filler words in interviews covers counting and cutting fillers. To compare one practice round with the next, use the method in how to review a recorded mock interview. If an interviewer seemed to lose interest partway through, the page on what it means when an interviewer went quiet can help you read it.

For likely questions to practise with, the free interview questions tool takes a pasted job and the round you picked, and lists what the interviewer listens for. The Mock room has you answer out loud on a clock, with each answer scored out of 10 and checked against your resume. It doesn't measure pace, so time and count your words from the recording.