Filler words

Also called um and uh, verbal fillers, disfluency

The um, uh, like and you know that appear in speech, usually while the speaker plans what to say next.

Fillers are a normal feature of unscripted speech. Everyone produces them, and in ordinary conversation nobody notices. They become a problem in interviews only when the rate rises far enough to read as uncertainty.

They cluster where cognitive load spikes: the opening seconds of an answer, and the moment you realise mid-sentence that you have started down the wrong path.

What it means for you

You cannot fix what you cannot hear, and almost nobody can hear their own fillers in real time. That is the actual problem. Advice like "slow down" fails because it asks you to monitor something you are not perceiving.

The fix that works is measurement: hear a recording of yourself, get a count, and watch the count move. A number changes behaviour in a way that advice does not.

Silence beats a filler. A pause reads as considered; three ums in a row reads as unprepared, even when the content is identical.