Tessa Davis explains why you should time your practice answers but not bring a stopwatch to the actual interview. Timing during rehearsal trains you to feel what one minute or six minutes sounds like, so you'll naturally know when to stop without counting.
I commonly get asked, should I time myself and my questions during my interview? Can I bring a stopwatch in? Now, the reality is that when you practice enough, you get a feel for what is a reasonable length answer. And you don't need to guess because you'll just know because you'll have done it so many times. You'll know the structure of your answers. You'll know how to develop your points and you'll know when to bring it to a close. If you're at the beginning when you're practicing, definitely I'd use a stopwatch because you won't have a clue at the beginning what's 1 minute, what's 6 minutes. So you need to get a feel for what feels right for you, and then work out whether you need to go longer or you need to go shorter. So when you're practicing, definitely practice with a stopwatch. Probably you're not going to take a stopwatch into an interview with you. There's no need to do that, and you will have practiced enough to be able to know and feel what an answer of the right length is.
