Recently started recording my responses to my story and the strengths question but sounded like I was way too rehearsed. I've been told to pretend like I'm talking to a friend but still am sounding a bit unnatural. any ideas on how to improve this?
Is the technical portion ok if it sounds a bit less conversational if the answers are correct?
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Mock interviews help. Once you get the actual pitch down, it is usually good talking to people. You also want to watch your speed and try to use hand motions as that does help it sound more natural. For technical questions, it helps to know what you're talking about as opposed to memorizing answers.
I actually found it helpful to write a script and learn that. Once I felt confident doing the script without messing it up, everything sounded more natural and I could play with how I answered the question.
I think a script is a terrible idea and is the reason why OP sounds so robotic.
The walk me through your resume is a way for you to tell your story. There are some basics you should be covering, but most of it is up to you to present.
Maybe a script is the wrong word. I like coming in to an interview with a road map on how I'm going to answer the most common questions. Those can be bullet points, single words, phrases, or whatever you think will help you stick to the gameplan.
Write down bullets of ideas, not paragraphs. You want to remember each bullet point by a key word or phrase rather than memorizing every word. Once you remember each key word then you can describe the rest of the experience in your own words and tone. Similar to a presentation, where rather having paragraph bullet points, each bullet point is a phrase and you add on to it
Practice so many times that you start to believe your own BS. Then it'll come across as authentic.
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