What Career Centres Should Look For in Speaking Practice

Class presentations, thesis defenses, group pitches, and final-year interviews are where a student's speaking is actually assessed. They are also the moments a career centre or faculty rarely has the appointments to coach one student at a time.

Left alone, learners rehearse in a mirror, ask a roommate to watch once, or walk in cold. None of those give specific, repeatable feedback on pace, filler words, eye contact, or structure. If the whole cohort needs that feedback, the centre has to provision the practice. It cannot depend on whichever students will buy an app.

Consumer speaking apps will keep showing up in student chats. They are built for one person who pays a monthly fee. A career centre, education provider, or L&D team hiring graduates needs a different arrangement: practice the institution turns on, aimed at the presentations and orals already in the calendar.

Where Speaking Practice Belongs in the Program

Speaking is not only a communications elective. These are the moments a careers or academic-skills team should be able to assign practice against:

• Class presentations — the ten-minute talk that carries a large share of the grade, often with no coached rehearsal before the room.
• Thesis and dissertation defenses — months of research that have to be explained clearly, then defended under questions.
• Group projects — someone has to present. Leaving that to the most confident student trains the wrong people.
• Graduate interviews — the step from student to hire is a spoken performance. See why interview prep has to be spoken aloud.
• Career fairs and employer events — a short introduction that has to be specific.
• Graduate-school interviews — research interests and goals, said out loud to a panel.

The learners who improve are the ones who practice on purpose, including the ones who were not already comfortable speaking. A program can make that practice available to the cohort, rather than hoping confidence arrives before assessment week.

What to Require Before You Provision a Platform

A career centre is choosing infrastructure for a program. These are the requirements that matter.

1. The institution provisions access

If each learner has to buy a personal subscription, uptake collapses outside the students who were already motivated. Look for a platform the faculty, career centre, or early-career program can turn on for a cohort. Elqo is that kind of platform: the institution provisions it, and the student is the learner. Pricing is a custom quote based on seat cap and monthly active users. There is no public per-seat rate.

2. Feedback that names the behavior

A single score does not change a presentation. Require a breakdown the learner can act on: filler words, pace, eye contact, tone, and whether the talk had a shape. Specific notes are what let advisors stop repeating the same comment in every appointment.

3. Visual feedback, not audio alone

Markers, examiners, and interviewers watch posture, hands, and eye contact. A tool that only scores the soundtrack coaches half the performance. Presentations and orals are seen.

4. A curriculum staff can assign

An empty "record anything" box helps a confident student. A cohort needs a sequence: short reps, then a full run-through, then the oral or the interview. Speaking skills have an order, the same way a unit outline does.

5. It runs on the devices students already have

Learners will show up with a laptop, a Chromebook, a tablet, or a phone. The practice has to run in a browser, without an app-store install or a single operating system.

Consumer Apps Students Will Mention

Students will ask about apps advertised to individuals. Those products exist, and several charge the learner directly. They are a weak fit for a career centre that needs the same presentations and orals practiced across a cohort.

Orai

Orai offers a limited free version of its speech analytics. It is mobile-only and scores basics such as energy, pace, and conciseness. The free version is restricted, and learners hit an upgrade prompt quickly. It can be a stopgap for a student who only has a phone and wants a quick audio check. A faculty cannot assign it as the program, and it does not coach body language.

Yoodli

Yoodli has a free plan that caps AI roleplay at five uses in total. Learners can still upload a speech for verbal analytics, but the interactive practice that matters for interviews and presentations runs out. Paid plans start at roughly $20 a month and focus on meeting integrations for working professionals. That buyer is different from a career centre running class presentations and orals.

Elqo, provisioned by the institution

Elqo is not a consumer speaking app, and it does not belong on a student price comparison. The career centre, faculty, or L&D team provisions it. Learners get verbal feedback (pace, tone, filler words) and visual feedback (eye contact, facial expression, body language) on the same session. It runs in the browser on a laptop, Chromebook, tablet, or phone. The curriculum is structured, so a workshop can assign the next rep instead of waiting for whoever feels like recording.

Commercial terms are a custom quote on seat cap and monthly active users. The career centre holds the agreement. Students are not sent out to buy their own login.

What that gives a program:

• Access decided by the institution, for the learners in the cohort
• Verbal and visual feedback on the same session
• Browser access on the devices students already use
• A curriculum that can sit beside presentations, vivas, and interview workshops
• A quote on seat cap and monthly active users

How to Build the Reps Into the Calendar

Advisors can hand learners a method for rehearsing between appointments. The detail is in how to practice presentations alone. The program version is a short sequence staff can require.

Class presentations

1. Ask for an outline, not a script — the goal is a spoken version, not a read-aloud essay.
2. Set a baseline recording before any coaching note, so the learner and the advisor can see the starting point.
3. Work the two weakest metrics — often pace and eye contact — rather than the note "be more confident."
4. Require three to five short reps, each aimed at one change.
5. Finish with a full-length dress rehearsal and look at the trend across attempts.

Thesis and oral examinations

Defenses are long and high-pressure. Have learners practice the opening three to five minutes, which is where nerves scramble the structure, then practice answers to likely committee questions. Coach a pause instead of an "um." A pause sounds like thinking. A filler word sounds like uncertainty.

Interview workshops

Final-year interviews are often the first time a student has to sound like a colleague. Behavioral prompts ("Tell me about a time when...") need a story and a delivery. Staff set the prompts. The platform takes the repetitions a single advisor cannot sit through for every student. For the skills to train, see the interview skills that decide who gets hired.

How a Career Centre Should Judge the Category

Judge the options by whether the program can run them, not by which app a student can afford this month.

• Who holds the agreement. The institution provisions Elqo. Orai and Yoodli are sold to individuals. Yoodli's free plan runs out after five roleplays, and paid plans are priced for working professionals at roughly $20 a month. Orai's free version is narrow and mobile-only.
• What gets coached. Elqo scores verbal delivery and visual delivery in the same session. Presentations and orals are watched as well as heard.
• Where it runs. A browser session fits the mixed devices on a campus.
• Whether practice is assigned. A curriculum gives the workshop a sequence, and visible progress gives learners a reason to come back between appointments.

Treat Elqo as the platform the career centre turns on so every learner can practice the presentation, the oral, and the interview before the room is real.