Interview
We ask about you.
Interview is 30% of your National Outstanding Miss™ competition score.
But Interview isn’t a test of how well you can perform an interview.
It’s our opportunity to get to know the woman who walked into the room.
If you become a National Outstanding Miss titleholder, we’ll spend a year serving together, traveling together, attending events together, and representing this organization together.
So yes, your accomplishments matter.
But more importantly: We want to know you.
You Are the Main Event
A well-known pageant coach once said that Interview is the time to toot your own horn and “sell” yourself—even if your nature is to be understated.
There’s something to that.
Interview is one of the few times when the conversation really is supposed to be about you.
And guess what?
You’re the subject matter expert.
Our judges—and we—want to get to know YOU, the person. Not just your accomplishments. Not a perfectly polished pageant version of you. You.
At National Outstanding Miss™, you don’t fill out a Delegate Bio sheet listing your hobbies, fun facts, favorite foods, career goals, greatest accomplishment, or twenty other facts for the judges to study before you walk into the room.
Your application asks what causes you’re passionate about.
And our judging panel will ask you about that.
Here’s the thing: you should be able to talk easily about what you’re passionate about and what makes you tick.
From there, the conversation can go almost anywhere.
Maybe something you say leads to a question about your career. Your family. A hobby. Something you’ve accomplished. Something you’re still working toward. Maybe a judge hears something interesting in one of your answers and simply wants to know more.
That’s Interview.
You don’t have to memorize a list of facts about yourself.
You already know them.
Come prepared to talk about the one subject nobody in that room knows better than you do: YOU.
This Is a Conversation
Interview isn’t a series of questions that exist independently of your answers.
It’s a conversation.
That means your answer might inspire the next question. Something you mention in passing may catch a judge’s attention. The conversation might head somewhere you never anticipated when you walked through the door.
That’s okay.
In fact, that’s the point.
We aren’t trying to find out whether you correctly predicted the questions.
We’re trying to find out what it’s like to talk to you.
Listen to the question. Answer it. Listen to the person asking the next one.
Let the conversation happen.
We Aren’t Looking for the “Right” Answer
There isn’t a perfect answer hidden inside every Interview question.
Our judges aren’t waiting for you to say a particular phrase, take a particular position, or somehow turn every question into a statement about your platform.
They want to hear what you think.
It’s okay to take a moment before you answer.
It’s okay to say you don’t know something.
It’s okay to have an opinion.
It’s okay to change your mind as you learn and grow.
And it’s absolutely okay to simply answer the question that was asked.
Thoughtful and genuine tells us far more than perfectly rehearsed.
Prepared Doesn’t Have to Mean Scripted
You should prepare for Interview.
Think about your experiences, your goals, your interests, your service, the causes you’re passionate about, and the things that matter to you.
Practice talking about yourself—especially if talking about yourself doesn’t come naturally.
But preparation and memorization aren’t the same thing.
You don’t need a collection of thirty-second speeches with seamless transitions and perfectly placed buzzwords.
You don’t need to figure out how to steer every question toward the answer you practiced.
And you definitely don’t need to memorize a personality.
Prepare your thoughts. Then trust yourself to have the conversation.
Quiet Doesn’t Mean Unconfident
Not everyone walks into a room and immediately fills it.
That’s okay.
Quiet does not mean unconfident.
Thoughtful does not mean unprepared.
Understated does not mean uninteresting.
If your natural personality is more reserved, Interview isn’t an invitation to manufacture a louder version of yourself.
But it is an invitation to let us know you.
There is a difference between being authentic and making the judges work to pull every answer out of you.
This is your opportunity to talk about yourself. Take it.
You don’t need a pageant personality. You need to let us see yours.
What Are the Judges Looking For?
Interview isn’t a trivia contest, a political debate, or a competition to see who can deliver the most polished pageant answer.
Our judges are getting to know you while considering how you communicate and connect.
They’re looking at things like:
None of those require you to be the loudest woman in the room.
They do require you to participate in the conversation.
We Want to Know Who We’re Traveling and Serving With
National Outstanding Miss isn’t selecting a titleholder for one crowning moment.
We’re selecting women who will represent NOM for an entire year.
We’ll serve together. Travel together. Attend events together. Meet people together. There will be scheduled appearances and probably moments when absolutely nothing goes according to schedule.
Interview gives us an opportunity to learn something a résumé or score sheet can’t tell us:
What would it be like to work with you?
Can you connect with people?
Can you listen as well as speak?
Can you adapt when a conversation takes an unexpected turn?
Can you represent yourself and NOM confidently while still being unmistakably yourself?
The title may be awarded onstage.
The relationship lasts much longer than that.
What Do I Wear?
NOM provides an official Interview T-shirt for Delegates to wear during Interview and the National Event service project.
Yes. A T-shirt.
We aren’t interested in judging who has the trendiest or most expensive Interview outfit.
We’d rather remove that variable and put the attention where it belongs:
On you.
Your choice of bottoms is flexible. Choose something that looks polished, feels comfortable, and works well with the official shirt.
You aren’t expected to look identical.
You’re expected to look like you came ready for Interview.
Planning for Interview: You’ll receive your official NOM Interview T-shirt at Check-In and have an opportunity to change into it before proceeding directly to Interview. Please arrive at NOM Check-In otherwise Interview-ready, including your chosen bottoms and planned hair and makeup.
What About Hair and Makeup?
A pageant director once asked contestants to come to Interview with natural hair and makeup because she wanted to “know who she was traveling with.”
When we heard that, we loved it.
Because National Outstanding Miss titleholders won’t only represent NOM when they’re dressed for a stage or waiting for a photo opportunity.
They’ll serve.
And sometimes service happens outside in the Florida heat. Sometimes it happens in places where elaborate hair and makeup aren’t practical. Sometimes the most appropriate thing you can do is pull your hair back, put on your NOM shirt, and get to work.
That’s the woman we want to meet in Interview.
You can use professional hair and makeup services for Interview if you choose. They’re completely optional.
But we prefer a natural appearance—something closer to how you might look when you’re out serving your community rather than preparing for a photo shoot.
We aren’t scoring who hired a makeup artist.
We aren’t comparing eyelashes.
And we’re definitely not asking you to prove how glamorous you can be.
There will be plenty of opportunities during Nationals to bring the glam.
For Interview, come looking like you.
Then sit down and let us get to know the woman we’ll actually be traveling and serving with.
When You Walk Into the Room
You don’t need to perform.
And you won’t be required to give a memorized personal introduction before your Interview begins.
There is no mandatory opening speech. No thirty- or sixty-second introduction you need to write, memorize, rehearse, and deliver on cue.
The Interview begins with the questions.
You don’t need to become a spokesperson the second the door closes behind you.
You don’t need to squeeze your entire life story into a few minutes.
And you don’t need to know exactly where the conversation is going.
Walk in.
Listen to the question.
Think when you need to think.
Answer it.
Let them get to know you.
Because underneath the competition score, the judges’ notes, and all the preparation that happens before Nationals, Interview comes down to something remarkably simple:
YOU are the main event.
And you’re already the subject matter expert.
We ask about you.
Come prepared to answer.
We don’t stand still. We stand out.™