Why Less Is More: How Simpler Language Can Make You Sound More Articulate

Many of the professionals I work with come to interview coaching with the same objective: they want to use more advanced English.

They have collected corporate expressions such as leverage, synergy, value-add, strategic alignment and move the needle. They believe that using this kind of language will make them sound more sophisticated—and therefore more impressive to an interviewer.

I often encourage them to do the opposite.

In an interview, your objective isn't to impress someone with your vocabulary. It's to make your experience, judgement and achievements easy to understand.

Consider these two answers:

“I leveraged cross-functional synergies to drive stakeholder alignment and deliver a value-added solution.”

Compare that with:

“I brought the finance and operations teams together, agreed the priorities and delivered the project three weeks early.”

The first sounds corporate. The second tells me what actually happened.

And that's the point.

Advanced English doesn't have to mean complicated English. The strongest professional communicators tend to use language that is clear, precise and appropriate to the situation.

Of course, professional vocabulary matters. A project manager should be comfortable talking about stakeholders, dependencies, scope, constraints and risk. A finance professional will have their own specialist vocabulary. Using the terminology of your profession naturally demonstrates expertise.

The problem comes when we use jargon simply because we think it sounds impressive.

This can be particularly risky for non-native speakers. If an answer contains vocabulary that you wouldn't normally use in conversation, it can sound memorised or unnatural. And when the interviewer asks an unexpected follow-up question, maintaining that style becomes even harder.

My advice is simple: don't try to sound more sophisticated than you are. Try to communicate your expertise more clearly.

Use professional vocabulary where it adds meaning. Use strong verbs to describe what you actually did. Give specific examples. Quantify your results where possible. And choose words you can use naturally and confidently.

An interviewer isn't assessing the size of your vocabulary. They're trying to understand how you think, what you've achieved and the value you could bring to their organisation.

Make it easy for them