✦Job search · 10 recordsInterview preparation

Most interview preparation is reading about the company and hoping. This builds the three things that actually get tested — a set of worked examples from your own history, a real understanding of what the business does, and questions worth asking — and rehearses them out loud.

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Goal

Walk in prepared rather than hopeful Week 3

Stories ready, business understood, answers said out loud at least once.

My own material Week 2

The examples that get asked for, in every interview, in slightly different words.

  • Write six worked examples from the last three yearsDo firstDay 4
  • Cut each one to two minutes spokenDay 7
  • Say all six out loud to somebody or a recordingDay 12

Their side Week 3

What the business actually does, and what I want to ask about it.

  • Work out how this company actually makes moneyDay 9
  • Write down five questions I genuinely want answeredWeek 2

Routines

  • Rehearse one answer out louddaily
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Six stories, not twenty

Interviewers ask about conflict, failure, influence and ownership in slightly different words every time. A small set of well-told examples covers far more ground than a long list of thin ones.\n\nTwo minutes spoken is the target length. Almost every answer that reads well silently runs three or four minutes out loud, and that is only discoverable by saying it.

✦ Questions

Interview preparation, answered.

Six or seven, each usable for several questions. Interviewers ask about conflict, failure, influence and ownership in slightly different words, and a small set of well-told stories covers far more ground than a long list of thin ones.
Yes, and it is the step people skip. An answer that reads well silently often runs three minutes when spoken, and the only reliable way to find that out is to say it to a person, a recording, or an empty room.
Ones you actually want answered, about how the team works and what the first six months look like. Prepared-sounding questions designed to impress tend to land worse than a genuine question about something you noticed while researching.
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