Prepare for an Interview Without Sounding Prepared

Two tabs are open, with your CV in one and their website in the other. You've read the About page twice and you know what the company does. But you don't know what you'll say tomorrow when they ask about a time you failed.

The shortcut is to have AI write your answers, and I'd leave that shortcut alone.

Interviewers can hear a scripted answer from across the room, and the interview exists to find out how you think when the script runs out.

So turn the shortcut round, and let AI ask the questions without ever writing an answer for you.

AI can tell you what's coming, and it can say plainly when you've waffled. But every sentence you say in that room should leave your mouth first tonight, in your own words.

Under pressure, that practice is what makes you sound like yourself. If you catch yourself typing "what should I say to that?", delete it and type "ask me that again" instead.

Half an hour, the night before, is enough.

First, the advert

Job adverts are written in a kind of code. "Comfortable with ambiguity" means something went wrong last year, and "Strong stakeholder management" means someone there is difficult.

AI reads that code well, so paste in the full advert, the text and not the link, along with your CV.

Here's a job advert and my CV. Read the advert the way the person who wrote it would. Tell me what problem they are really hiring to solve. Tell me what they are worried about. Then give me the ten questions I'm most likely to be asked, in the order they'd probably come. For each question, add one line on why they're asking. Then tell me the three questions where my CV gives them the least to go on. Don't write any answers.

Read the ten questions. The two or three that make your stomach drop are tonight's work.

The ten are good guesses from the advert, but the panel may ask none of them. AI can't know the panel, or what happened at the company last month, and a conversation with someone who works there beats all of this. The stories you find next will still be useful.

Then, your stories

Most "tell me about a time" questions draw on the same five or six real stories, and you have them.

What you've never done is say them out loud, in a shape that lands. Here AI asks the follow-up questions a good friend would.

Interview me to find my best stories for these questions. One question at a time. For each story, ask me follow-ups until you've got the specifics. That means what exactly I did, what changed, and any numbers. Don't write the story for me. When we've got five or six, list each one in three lines using only words I actually used. Tell me which of the ten questions each one can answer.

Answer out loud if you can, and speak or type your answers in. Alone, you'd say "I improved the process."

Then AI asks you "by how much?" and "what did you personally do?" You arrive at "got the turnaround from five days to two by changing who signed off", which is the version anyone remembers.

Once AI writes the three-line version, check the words are yours. If AI has smoothed you into someone else, tell it to use what you said.

Then, out loud

People skip this step because it feels silly. Saying an answer for the first time in the interview is why people ramble. Saying it four times the night before is why other people sound calm.

Switch on voice mode, so you talk to AI and it talks back. Claude and ChatGPT both have one. Ask AI to play the interviewer you're slightly afraid of.

You're interviewing me for this role. Ask the ten questions one at a time and wait for my full answer. Don't help and don't encourage. If I'm vague, push with "what specifically did you do?" After each answer, give me one line of honest feedback. Say too long, too vague, no result, or good. At the end, tell me the two answers that need another go and ask them again.

Go again on the two weak answers until the feedback says good, and then stop, because if you practise too much you'll sound like a recording.

If you don't have voice mode, use text, but say each answer aloud before you type it.

Notice how you felt while practising for this job. AI can't tell you whether you want the job, and that feeling is evidence too.

Before bed, the number and your question

Nobody practises either of these, but both matter.

Don't ask AI what you're worth, because AI will guess. Look up the pay range yourself, on the job boards and with people you know in the field, and pick your figure.

Then, three times over, have AI ask you "what are your salary expectations?" Keep going until you can say the number without flinching or adding "but I'm flexible". Your line is simply "I'm looking for around forty-two."

Full stop.

The part they remember is "Have you got any questions for us?"

From the advert and what we've worked out about why they're hiring, suggest five questions I could ask them that show I've understood the real problem. Then tell me which one you'd ask and why.

Pick one you actually want answered. Questions that work are about the job, so a question like "what would make the first six months a success for you?" will beat anything about holiday allowance.

In the morning

Leave everything closed when you wake up. You've said each story more times than you'll need, and one more read on the bus only puts the script back in your head.

Walk in with your stories and your number, and let the rest be a conversation.

Both tabs, closed.