How to Expertly Prepare to Impress During Your Next Interview
There’s no way to predict and prepare for every and any possible interview question. Rather, you should prepare your work anecdotes to be flexible and modular for any situation.
PRE-WORK
🔍 Researching for your interview
A great candidate comes prepared to an interview having done some research. This could be in preparation for the role itself or to be more informed about the company.
Look into the company’s product, culture, people, etc. What might you improve? What about the culture and workflow? Who works there and how do they support DE&I? Did they lay off recently? What’s the future outlook of things? You can think of a lot of great follow up questions based on this research.
Check out the news around the company. Did they host an event recently? Did they close another round of funding? (Crunchbase is a good resource for that) Perhaps they launched a new product. Demonstrating that you’re interested and up to date on their company activities shows proactive engagement.
See if there are any example interview questions posted on Glassdoor! If not, see if you can find a list of interview questions for your role. I have a guide on answering common Qs, but not technical or role-specific ones.
CRAFTING STORY BEATS
📚 Get familiar with your anecdotes
I always recommend my clients to take a moment to (re)familiarize themselves with their professional anecdotes. Take a moment to think through:
The context of a project
What your role was
What happened and who you might have worked with
What were the results
Feel free to write down bullet points or paragraphs or just keep them in your head — whatever works for you.
👉 I created a Notion resource to help keep track of everything. Check it out here! 🌱
🤔 If you’re struggling to come up with an anecdote
Start with the job description and look at the responsibilities/tasks mentioned. What have you done that most closely matches that? Now think about the context and other details.
These anecdotes can be used to cover a variety of questions. Often times a project that you’re really proud of could have also been a very challenging one. A moment of failure or a lesson learned can be used to highlight a professional weakness or even a strength. It’s totally okay to double dip with your anecdotes because there are different perspective or flavors to them that you can showcase.
An anecdote is made up of details that I call, story beats. They’re not epic tales carved into stone that can only be told one way. They’re modular and can be used in a flexible manner!
🎸 Story beat remix
This exercise in reviewing your anecdotes and creating story beats can also help generate wordtracks or reveal successful metrics that you can incorporate into other answers. For instance, an impressive metric can be added to strengthen your “Tell me about yourself” response or remixed and reused as a proof point to support your “greatest strength.”
Don’t be afraid to double dip your anecdotes into different interview question responses!
🌉 GREAT interviewees build bridges
Really great interviewees build bridges; they tie their responses back to the interview, the role, the industry, the company. In doing so, they create relevancy. (Insert angelic choir singing).
Enter: the conclusion statement.
To nicely package your interview response with a big bow, end with something like:
“I’m looking to do more of (tasks/responsibility that was mentioned on their job description), so I’m really excited to be chatting with you about this role.”
“I’m looking to exercise this skill more, and this opening seemed to really align with my background.”
CREATING RELEVANCY
🔬 Analyzing the job description
If written well, a job description reveals key tasks and responsibilities, desired skills, level of responsibility, and nuances to the role. Review the job description and consider the following:
🏃 Action verbs — Make note of what they want the person they’re hiring to do in the role and use their words
🔁 Reoccurring key words (skills, technologies) — If it’s mentioned repeatedly, it might be highly important
🥚 Requirements — What are they looking for that you have?
✨ Qualifiers — Characteristics of the work (fast-paced, global team, etc.)
👉 and other details like key tasks, collaborators, and values/ethos
Creating relevancy is about understanding what the hiring manager is looking for in their ideal candidate. Distilling and discerning those details will help inform you on how to best position your experience.
An interview is a conversational opportunity for you to highlight the skills, experiences, and professional anecdotes that demonstrate you’re qualified for their specific opening.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
🎶 Harmonious interviewing
Ideally, you’ll have crafted story beats influenced by the job description, incorporating key words from the job description, that touches upon responsibilities and actions they’re looking for. You’re spelling it out (without literally spelling it out) that you’re a great fit for the role!
While the most diligent prep and best efforts don’t always guarantee you’ll secure the job (there are too many factors at play), you will at least have been a pleasant and memorable interview for the interviewer, and that is a job well done in my book.
I’ve created a worksheet in Notion precisely to help you jot down your story beats as you prep for your next interview. It includes guidelines and example responses to the most common interview questions.
Happy Interviewing!
Interview Practice is my most highly requested service. I offer sessions with tailored interview questions for the role(s) you’re vying for to help you prep and package well-thought story beats and build your interviewing confidence.