5 ways AI can transform our interview prep

Clever and unexpected ways AI lets us prepare smarter, and not harder, for our next big opportunity.

What am I going to be asked? What if I don’t click with the interviewer? What are they actually even looking for?

With unintuitive processes and overwhelming applicant numbers, navigating the search for a new job has hit new levels of unpredictability. Speaking strictly from experience, there’s more activity for less reward and greater uncertainty for less stable opportunities.

With opportunities seemingly coming around less than we’re used to, how do we prepare for interviews when they arrive? And what role can AI play in helping us?

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Key Takeaways

• Harnessing AI for interview prep means finding the right ways to build your confidence in two ways (research and role-playing)

• AI can be an impartial observer to help us identify patterns in our careers and construct a personal narrative that’s unique to us

• AI can not only help us research likely interview questions, but also coach us on how to answer them in ways that make us memorable

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It’s all in the name of confidence

The job interview is never the job. It’s the sprint to the marathon. And one that can be gamed (though whether it should be, I leave to you). That doesn’t mean there are perfect answers, but there is a north star.

And that star is confidence.

Interviewing is a mental and emotional game. The place where it’s easiest to lose that game is coming across unsure, unauthentic, and unconfident.

Confidence doesn’t come from having all the right answers. It comes from:

1. Feeling steady in your own narrative.

2. Stories that make sense because they meant something.

3. Getting back up when you stumble.

Any interview prep that doesn’t move the confidence needle isn’t worth doing.

That’s not to say that confidence is the goal of prep—that would be getting the job. But in the inevitable cases of ticky-tack rejection, unclear feedback, or outright ghosting, it can be the only measure we’re left with.

If you can impress yourself, you’ve got a lot better chance of impressing a hiring manager.

Where interview prep meets AI

Building confidence is one thing AI is geared to help us through—if we’re smart about it.

Let’s take a step back and talk about what we know about AI:

1. It can help us do research that accounts for our existing knowledge level

2. It is an apt sounding board for self-evaluation and self-reflection

3. It helps us to look at problems (or scenarios) from different angles

Those are three things that, lego’d together in different ways, can do a hell of a lot for anyone who wants to walk into an interview with their head held. And walk out the same way.

We’re going to look at five unique uses for AI in interview prep below, which fall into two categories:

• Research: Understanding job-specific questions, company details, and culture, and uncovering what makes us unique to begin with.

• Role-playing: Analyzing our responses, refining our delivery, and figuring out what did and didn’t go well.

Let’s move on to the five ways we can partner with AI to build ourselves into the best possible interviewee (and thus, best choice for the job).

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Angle 1: Assessing our personal brand

We all have blindspots when it comes to our own expertise. We diminish what we’ve accomplished and carry failures as our own personal tornadoes. AI, then, gives us a neutral lens, one free of our own imposter syndrome or overcorrection.

Our personal brand, itself much bigger than a single interview, can be instilled into job and career-specific narratives. These narratives are the biggest way to make us memorable to an interviewer. It shows our patterns, values, and strengths in a unique way. And knowing exactly who we are is the holy grail of confidence.

Inputs can include:

• LinkedIn bios or resume bullets

• Past case studies

• Our personal mission and core values

Prompt 1: "Create My Personal Brand Throughline"

Use this to uncover the hidden patterns in your career that reveal who you really are.

I want you to act as a personal brand analyst. 

I’ll paste in details about me and my career (e.g. my LinkedIn bio, resume bullets, case studies). From that, identify a ‘throughline’ that shows how my values, patterns, and strengths connect across my work. 

Then write a short personal narrative I could use in interviews that makes me stand out. 

Bonus: give me one metaphor, image or analogy that helps bring this story to life.

-- About Me START --
[Copy/paste Inputs, e.g.:
LinkedIn bio
Resume bullets
1–2 short career stories or achievements]
-- About Me END --

Prompt 2: "Brand Mirror vs. Brand Blindspot"

Separate what you think you’re known for from what your record actually says.

Act as a brand strategist. I’m going to tell you what I think I’m known for professionally. Then I’ll paste my resume and LinkedIn bio. Compare the two and answer the following: 

1. Where is there alignment between the two?
2. Where are there brand blindspots? 

Tell me what I should emphasize more in interviews to reflect my strongest traits. And what’s not working or is missing from my materials.

-- What I'm known for START --
[1-paragraph answer to: “What do you think you’re known for professionally?”]
-- What I'm known for END --

-- About Me START --
[Copy/paste Inputs, e.g.:
LinkedIn bio
Resume bullets
1–2 short career stories or achievements]
-- About Me END --

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Angle 2: Simulating success with interview question research

Understanding what an interviewer might ask isn’t about scripting ourselves. Rather, pre-empting their questions is a means of guarding against uncertainty (and uncertainty kills confidence). It can also be used to strategically:

• Helps us layer in our personal narrative in the most natural ways

• Contextualize what a great answer looks like compared to a bad (or simply good) one

Inputs:

• Job description

• Company blog posts

• Role-specific research

Prompt 1: “Design My Interview Question Map”

Use this to reverse-engineer the interviewer’s likely line of questioning.