Level up your public speaking skills to level up your career

Whether you hope to become a professional speaker or if you have no intention of ever standing onstage — every professional career can benefit from the skills developed through public speaking practice. Here are some tips I’ve shared with thousands of software engineers I’ve worked with as a recruiter, career coach and program manager.

The problem

Everyone who struggles with speaking in public (even those who do it frequently and eloquently) does so differently. Fear or anxiety are common roots, but they may manifest uniquely in you.

Improving your public speaking skills is not about overcoming those anxieties.

The exercise I describe below is about understanding how your anxieties both manifest in you and appear to others — and developing strategies to work with them.

The content & delivery method

What to practice with?

If you have a specific event to prepare for (interview, speaking engagement, presentation, etc), save yourself some time and combine your practice content with what you’re preparing to deliver. For example, with jobseeking: write out your answers to common interview questions.

Whether you prefer fully fleshed-out paragraphs or an outline, do spend time thoughtfully crafting your words: it won’t matter how well you practice your delivery if the content isn’t there.

If you’re just working on general upskilling: use your life as a subject, or other stories/topics on which you can casually opine to family or friends at length. The content won’t matter here and you will still get value out of the exercise.

Regardless of what content you use, some find it less nerve-wracking to improvise their speaking with an outline, while some find it easier to have every word memorized (personally, I use a combination of outlined improvisation with a few memorized key points). If you aren’t sure which might work best for you, play around with both and see how it goes.

How to practice

Record yourself

If you get temporary amnesia while giving a presentation (like I often do), you can’t learn much from the experience except a fear of the unknown.

Recording yourself practicing helps that unknown — what happens when you give a speech — become known.

Record yourself delivering a variety of text for about 3–5 minutes. Video is ideal, but audio-only works if that feels easier or if any technological or vision impediments make watching yourself inaccessible.

At first, make sure some of the text is memorized, and some outlined-only (or make two recordings). Avoid reading text verbatim — that exercises a different muscle group. While recording, take a couple of moments throughout to note which feels the most comfortable/natural for you. If you have a fitness tracker with a heart rate monitor, you might check what your body’s telling you, too. Over time, you might prefer memorized or improvised and focus accordingly.

A logistical side note: I’ve used Quicktime on a Mac and Loom — the latter is digital, but makes it easy to share if you wanted feedback from others. A smartphone would work, too, but try not to hold it while recording as it can distract from the task at hand.

Study the recording

For me this is the hardest part, but your mileage may vary. Awareness is often the first step. Sometimes a trusted friend or partner can be the better eye for the details that will help you progress the fastest. If/when you’re feeling brave, someone you know less well can make helpful observations a friend might not see because they’re used to talking to you.

Most speakers have subconscious habits or quirks — gesticulating, pacing, blinking, etc. These aren’t necessarily bad. So while it’s common, don’t think of studying these recordings like grading or judging yourself — this is a fact-finding mission.

Ultimately, audiences only care that you do not distract them from understanding what you have to say. Be constructive and kind, not critical:

• Despite what you may have felt, what looks the best to you or a friend — improvised or memorized? Allow assumptions to be challenged here; maybe you thought it would be too hard to improvise or feel too forced to memorize. Sometimes the one you didn’t expect looks more natural to the audience — maybe memorizing gives you comfort to relax and focus on how you’re speaking; maybe improvising lets you step away from focusing so hard on the words and relax into engaging with your audience.
• Note where you pause, look away from the camera, use “ums” or “ahs,” etc. and where a phrasing or tone of voice seems different than you remember it sounding while you said it.
• Are you speaking too quickly? Mumbling? Too quiet? Uptalking? Is there a pattern to any of these behaviors — i.e. rushing or mumbling at the end of sentences or thoughts, or uptalking only with certain words or phrases?

It’s worth noting, you’re not aiming for some single pinnacle of “all speakers do/don’t do this” — over time you’ll be developing a speaking style unique to you. You may share traits with others, but the way you speak ideally lets your content sail right over your nerves.

Once you’ve written down your observations, reflect on what, if anything, you would like to do differently next time.

• For example, I learned that when I deliver memorized text, to me it feels and appears rushed, my gaze draws up more often and I pause longer between thoughts to remember what’s next. I tend to get distracted or lose my place more often as well, so I began (more successfully) improvising on an outline, memorizing only specific points I want to be sure to get right. To account for what happens when I memorize, I deliberately practice speaking more slowly and consciously fixing my gaze at camera-level.

Rinse and repeat this exercise regularly (until you get comfy with your voice and stop learning from it; maybe start with once a week if you don’t have something specific in mind, or every day if you have a presentation coming up), with new text each or every other time.

Final thoughts

Bonus: save your recordings. It can be hard to see progress incrementally, so revisit old videos periodically to see how far you’ve come.

The goal of this exercise is practice, sure, but at first it is focused on separating the anxiety and fear often experienced while speaking from the act of speaking itself.

Eventually, through this practice you can also develop a deeper awareness and control of your vocal and physical speaking patterns to strategically deliver optimal and customized audience impact — for example, you might use different speech patterns to present to a small executive or investment team who doesn’t know you compared to a large group of peers.

Ideally these tips help you to get used to yourself, find your voice, and find a constructive and analytical way to build confidence in yourself sourced solely from you (and practice partners, if you so choose) — not your audience.

Good luck!

I’d be remiss not to include a shameless self-plug: If you think your colleagues or friends could benefit from some extra speaking practice, too, I’d be happy to discuss building a customized group training practice at your company, book club, etc.

About me: I used to be a technical recruiter and intern program manager at Yelp. Then I was a career coach, then a talent manager at Triplebyte helping software engineers get jobs.

Over my 8+ years in the tech industry, I’ve noticed a sizable gap between how tech companies describe and execute candidate/employee experiences, from hiring processes through their last day. This gap means candidates and employees often struggle for reasons unrelated to their job skills. It also means companies struggle and often falsely blame “the pipeline” for their problems.

Candidates or employees that succeed do so despite (not because of) the employer’s efforts — and this is a big problem if we hope to make real change toward equal opportunity hiring, inclusive work environments, or even a modicum of efficiency in recruiting and retention.

Today, I consult with companies to bridge or narrow those gaps by strategically optimizing their internal processes (hiring, onboarding, offboarding, etc) and building or improving performance management and other employee engagement programs.

I’m based in San Francisco, slowly improving my home office, and a sucker for public transit, tasty cheese, fun facts and cat pictures. I’m on Twitter @keeterooni and LinkedIn.