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alargefox:

Well that escalated quickly... Good work man but tone it down a notch.

Apologies.. I should have ignored him from the start.

MBA_Junkie:

Great story... SB'ed!

'have 2 questions for you:

1. You said that you worked on your voice + body language. How did you go about it? Did you try to speak/act like people with good "presence"?

2. Whenever I try to consciously work on my voice/body language, I find it hard to "perceive" myself whether the changes were positive or negative. How did you make sure you were going in the right direction?

I don't think you need to go overly extreme here. Just make sure you have the basics down.

I personally had difficulty with this since my nerves would get the best of me during interviews. Here are a few pointers to keep note of: • maintain eye contact - I used to stare away when thinking or answering questions. • avoid filler words such as "umm," "like," "hm," "you know," etc.) • speak loud and clear - I used to mumble when I wasn't confident in my answer. • be relaxed in your speech - I used to speak my sentences very quick like I was in a race or something. • avoid too much hand/arm motion while speaking - I realized I made a lot of motion while speaking making me look like a dancing monkey. • keep a confident tone of voice - I used to make my voice pitch higher and higher as I speak.

Again these are basics which would definitely all be positive changes. For me I just couldn't keep myself to follow these basic rules when it came down to the actual interview. As for my approach, I took note of how my prior interviews went, received advice from mocks (make sure you have someone who is brutally honest with you), and also gave myself honest criticism (ask yourself a bunch of interview questions and ANSWER THEM OUT LOUD saying them just as you would during the interview. If you tripped on any of your answers - such as using filler words, stuttering, weak tonality, etc. - then you aren't ready).

But I believe the key to solving this is confidence (at least it was for me). You already have much to worry about during the interview, and the last thing you want to think about is "what word should I use instead of that filler word?" Thus be well prepared for all the interview questions you may get asked so you aren't sweating your balls during the interview process: have an interesting/engaging story about yourself under 5 minutes, be ready to provide great/clear answers on EVERY single line item you wrote on your resume (if you wrote another language you better be prepared to speak it), know your technicals inside out (one interviewer made me write a DCF on paper and questioned every single component including how exactly would I calculate beta from the cost of equity formula), and show personality for your behaviorals (know why you want to work at XYZ company in ABC industry, what you like to do for fun, how you manage stress, prepare intelligent ending questions for them, etc.). I know it's a lot of material to cover... but keep at it and try not to take shortcuts. The key for me was knowing the concepts inside out and practicing my answers over and over which led me to finally gain the confidence I needed during my interviews. Then it became second nature to maintain my composure.