Interviewing is a completely different skill than doing the actual job.

It doesn’t matter how good you are. When it comes to interviews, failing to prepare is preparing to fail.

Especially in today’s market, where employers have more options today than they’ve had in the past decade, preparing for interviews is crucial part of landing your next gig.

So how do we prepare for interviews exactly?

Let’s dive in 👇:

1: Define the mode of interview

Ask your recruiter what type of interview it is. Most recruiters should be able to tell you if it’s a behavioral round, verbal technical, coding round, or panel round.

Each type has it’s own way to prepare so knowing this information is a crucial first step to making sure you’re well equipped to ace it.

If for whatever reason your recruiter doesn’t know, look up the interviewers on LinkedIn (more on this below).

2: Know your audience

The higher level they are, chances are it’s a behavioral/scenario based/resume deep dive. The lower level they are, chances are it’s going to be more technical in nature.

Further, you’ll want to dig through their LinkedIns to see if there is any point of commonality between you.

Same school? Same interests? Previous companies? Previous Industries? Common connections? Have they posted anything that you’re interested in?

These are all things that can help you create a warmer introduction to start things off the right foot.

Further, you can see what their background is in. The exact path (in terms of title/skills/companies) it took for them to get to this point where they’re in charge of interviewing candidates like you.

Finally, for more technical interviews, you can check for hints on what questions/topics they may focus on. Sure, you have the JD, but if the person’s likedin is highlighting certain skills within their experience, chances are you’ll want to focus on studying those skills a little more.

3: Ask your recruiter for help

Contrary to popular belief, we are on your team!

We want you to get the job so we can close this out and move onto the next role.

But you have to take the initiative. Remember, right now recruiters are absolutely overwhelmed. So you have to take it upon yourself, be proactive, and ask them for help.

• Do they have any insight to the mode of interview?

• What are the interviewers like?

• Any feedback from previous candidates?

• Any questions/topics should you focus on during your preparation?

• Have they hired recently? What stood out from that candidate compared to everyone else?

These are just a few questions you can as the recruiter to help put your best foot forward.

4: Use ChatGPT

You can use ChatGPT to help you prep on the behavioral, scenario, verbal technical, and panel based rounds.

Upload the job description to ChatGPT. Then you can use some prompts like:

• What are 10 behavioral/technical questions a hiring manager from X Company would ask me based off of this JD

• Can you give me 10 more questions based off of X topic?

• Can you give me 10 scenario based questions based off this JD?

Further, you can then upload your resume and ask it to do the same thing:

• What are 10 questions a hiring manager would ask me based off my resume?

• What about 10 more questions they would ask me based off my resume as it relates to the JD?

• What are 10 scenario questions they would ask?

• What are 10 behavioral/technical questions?

You get the point. I wrote an article previously in more detail on this that you can check out below

5: Coding Rounds

As annoying as it is, live/paired coding sessions are very much apart of today’s interview process these days.

You can sharpen up your skills on leetcode, hacker rank, glider, etc to prepare for this.

But again you’ll want to have the recruiter define what exactly the coding round will be like.

There are some coding rounds where it’s all based off of the tech stack - those are obviously less annoying.

But, there are coding rounds where it’s all logic based, and have nothing to do with the tech stack or job at hand. In these rounds, they just want to see how you think, define, and solve a particular problem.

6: Mirror/Recordings

Piggy backing off of my 4th point above, when you are practicing those Q&As, you should do it in front of a mirror/with a friend as well as record yourself.

Doing it in front of a mirror mimics the face-to-face eye contact that you’ll have to confront when you start the interview process. This is important, especially for introverts to do. It’s much easier to prepare for interviews when you’re staring at a blank laptop screen with a script vs. looking someone dead in the eye, regardless if it’s via zoom or in person.

Recording yourself is also a great idea. You may think you’re answering these questions as smooth as James Bond. But when you look back at the tape, you have the tone and body posture of Steve Urkle. So record yourself during these sessions, look back at the tape, and make improvements as well.

Putting it all together

Preparing for interviews is a crucial step to landing your next gig, especially in this market where you’re simply going up against more & better competition than previous years.

1. Define the mode of interview

2. Know your audience

3. Ask your recruiter for help

4. Use ChatGPT to prepare

5. Practice your coding

6. Use a mirror/friend & record yourself

If you have any questions on preparation, or general job search questions, feel free to book a call here.