Interview preparation
How to prepare and practice for an interview
Read the posting, pick the stories you'll tell, and say your answers out loud instead of running them in your head. Start with the questions most interviews ask, practice with someone or something that follows up and tells you which answers were weak, then run it again.
Interview preparation checklist
Interview prep in three passes, from a week out to the day before. Most of the time goes to the middle one: saying your answers out loud.
- 1
A week or more out
Read the posting twice and mark the three things it asks for most. Pick a story for each, with a number and an ending. Write two or three questions to ask them.
- 2
Two or three days out
Say your answers out loud: “Tell me about yourself”, your stories and why you want this job. Run a full practice interview, find your weakest answer, and run it again.
- 3
The day before
Check the time, the place or the video link, and who you'll meet. Lay out what you'll wear and bring. Then stop preparing and rest.
How to research the company before an interview
An hour of research gives you the details for “Why do you want to work here?” and better questions at the end.
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The posting
What it repeats is what they care about. Use its words in your answers, and match each must-have to a story.
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The company's own site
What it sells, to whom, and what it announced lately. One fact you can name beats general praise.
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The people
If your invitation says who you'll meet, look up their role. A recruiter, the hiring manager and a future teammate each ask about different things.
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The pay
If the posting lists a pay range, note it. The salary question can come as early as the first call.
Why practice out loud
Alabama's career center draws a line between imagining how you'd respond and practicing out loud. CareerOneStop, the Labor Department's career site, says to practice your answers on paper and out loud.
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You hear what they'll hear
Rambling, filler words and a slow start only show up when you speak. In one study, recruiters rated candidates as more competent when they heard a pitch than when they read the same words.
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Saying it helps you remember it
In memory experiments, people remembered words they said aloud better than words they only read.
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Tips alone didn't help
In an MIT study, students who watched interview-tip videos didn't improve in blind ratings by career counselors, while students who practiced out loud with an automated coach and got feedback did. The difference showed up among the women; the men's ratings didn't differ by group.
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You find out how long you talk
A guide republished by Harvard's career office suggests saying your answer to “Tell me about yourself” out loud until the timing feels right.
Six ways to practice for an interview, compared
They differ in what they cost and in how much you find out about each answer.
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In your head
Quick and free, and fine for choosing which stories to tell. You never hear the answer, and nothing makes you finish it.
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In a mirror
Amazon's interview tips suggest practicing your stories in the mirror or with a partner. It costs nothing and you hear yourself, but nobody asks a follow-up.
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With a friend
Free, and a friend can ask follow-ups. Ask for blunt notes. In a 2022 set of experiments, people underestimated how much others wanted constructive feedback, friends included.
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Recording yourself
Free, and Amazon's interview guide suggests it. Playing it back catches your pace and filler words, but not whether the answer worked. In the MIT study, practice with video and no feedback helped less than practice with feedback.
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A coach or career counselor
Coaches in North America charged an average of $272 for a one-hour session in 2022, across all kinds of coaching. For a free one, CareerOneStop suggests asking an American Job Center for a mock interview, and a college career center may offer them too.
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An AI mock interview
Your first two scored mocks are free, then $29 a month (intro price through October 31; regular $49). An AI interviewer asks the kind of questions real hiring managers ask, out loud, follows up on thin answers and scores five skills. It's AI, so it can be wrong, and it won't know your field like someone who works in it.
Looking for Google's Interview Warmup? Its page now redirects to an article. What to use instead →
What to practice first
Start with what you can count on hearing, then build stories you can reuse.
- 1
“Tell me about yourself”
One of the most popular questions, Alabama's career center says. Keep it to about a minute: what you do now, one highlight, and why this job is next.
- 2
Three stories
A problem you solved, a disagreement you worked through and a result you're proud of, each with a number and an ending. Most “Tell me about a time” questions can use one of them.
- 3
Why this job, and your questions
Know why you want this job in a sentence, and have two or three questions ready. CareerOneStop notes that employers can read no questions as a lack of interest.
How to answer “Tell me about yourself” →
Behavioral interview questions, and how to answer them with a story →
How to answer “Why do you want to work here?” →
Questions to ask the interviewer →
If a recruiter calls first, expect questions about why you're looking, what you want to earn and when you could start.
Five interview skills to practice
Your practice scorecard grades these five skills for most jobs. Here is why interviewers listen for each one.
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Answer structure
Alabama's career center says that when interviewers ask about a past situation, they want the situation, your task, what you did and the result, and that the action and the result matter most.
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Judgment and problem-solving
Some questions give you a realistic problem from the job and ask what you'd do. OPM's interview guide calls these situational questions. Say what you'd check first and why.
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Specificity and evidence
“We want to know the numbers,” an Amazon leader says in the company's interview tips. Say what you did, and put a number on the result.
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Role relevance
Structured interviews draw their questions from the job's own duties, OPM's guide says. Tie each answer back to what the posting asks for.
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Communication and presence
CareerOneStop's advice for the interview itself is honest, direct answers, and asking for a question to be repeated if you didn't understand it.
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How the scorecard grades them
Each skill gets a score from 0 to 100 on a public rubric that stays the same every run, so a second try can be compared with the first.
If you feel bad at interviews
When interviews keep ending without an offer, finding out why is the hard part. LinkedIn's recruiting blog notes that some companies forbid recruiters and hiring managers from giving candidates specific feedback.
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Get feedback on every answer
In the MIT study, practice with feedback did better than practice alone. In another study, people who practiced with a simulated interviewer that gave live feedback on their nonverbal behavior got better mock interview ratings than a group given other training, and felt less anxious about interviewing.
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Ask for the hard notes
Ask whoever helps you to name your weakest answer and say why.
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Run it again
Change one thing and run the same interview again. A scorecard that grades the same five skills every time shows whether the second try was better.
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Look for the pattern
One weak answer can be a bad day. The same weak skill across three practice runs is the thing to work on.
Pace, filler words and length
These only show up when you practice out loud, and they're easier to fix once you can see them.
Your scorecard also has an unscored panel called “How you came across.” It shows how long each answer ran, your pace when you answered out loud, your filler words and hedges like “I guess,” each compared only with your own other answers.
Rambling, filler words and pace, and what to do about each →
Run a practice interview out loud
An AI interviewer asks the kind of questions real hiring managers ask, listens to your spoken answers and follows up on thin ones. Your scorecard grades five skills and shows how you came across, compared only with your own answers. Your first two scored mocks are free, with no card.
Your free mocks show the score. The Interview-Ready plan shows you how to raise it.
- As many scored mocks as you want, in every round
- Why you lost points on each skill
- Your weakest answers rewritten, with why the new version scores higher
$29 a month if you join by October 31, and you keep it while you stay (regular $49). 14-day refund from your account. See the plan
More in job search
- How to respond to an interview request Reply templates to accept, give times, reschedule or ask what to expect, then a countdown to the day.
- Thank-you email after an interview Five templates to copy, when to send, and how to follow up when nobody replies.
- Interview tomorrow? A plan for tonight when the interview is in the morning.
- Interview anxiety How to calm nerves before an interview, from the studies.