I’m still in my early stages of interview prep and if someone were to ask me a question right now, even though I have a slight idea of what to say, I would ramble, sound very incoherent, and hesitate. Hesitating, as we know, is a primary cause of stuttering. Therefore I have to get to the point where I am confident with my answers. I only interviewed when I felt comfortable with answering the most common interview questions. This means writing my ideas in bullet points, then practicing over and over and over again out loud. This is similar to what you are suggesting Leah, except, that I will need to practice by changing up the words every time.

In my last two jobs I’ve had, I actually told the interviewers I had a stutter (this was part of another speech program I was in). By doing so, I felt less pressure. However, these were interviews I spent countless hours preparing and I got the jobs. These were earlier roles that didn’t require a lot of presentations. The case might be different now since I’m applying to more leadership positions that require a lot of communication with execs and managing a team. My point is I think people can be understanding but I agree that they’d much prefer we not have a stutter. And why continue to do so, if we have the 3 legged stool to defeat it!

I think to summarize, the main steps for interview success will be to 1) Write ideas in bullet points (bare minimum words) to common question and 2) Practice out loud using the crutches, and each time using different words/phrases. Practice aloud your ideas until you do not have any hesitation and have confidence in your answers

Javier, thanks for your book suggestions. I have read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People. 🙂 I will need to check out Frank Bettger’s book.