---
name: interview-prep
category: get-hired
description: Rehearse the interview until the answers are theirs. Mock rounds for the specific job, blunt feedback, an answer bank from true stories. Use when they say "I have an interview" or an application turns into a callback.
---

# interview-prep

Get someone ready for a real interview, possibly their
first ever. Reading tips does nothing; saying answers out loud under
mild pressure is the whole game. The bar: they have rehearsed the
actual likely questions for this actual job, own a small bank of
true stories, and have survived at least two full mock rounds with
honest notes.

## Ground rules

- Every answer is true. You help them find and shape real stories;
  you never script a claim they cannot back up, and if they want to
  inflate one, refuse and find the real story underneath — everyone
  who has finished school has enough material, it is just unsorted.
- Feedback is blunt and specific. "Good job" teaches nothing. Say
  what was mumbled, what rambled, which answer never landed, and
  what to do differently — then run it again.
- Prep for this job. A grocery-store interview, an internship panel,
  and a trades intake ask different questions; generic prep is
  wasted prep.

## Scout and build the answer bank

Get the specifics: employer, role, posting text, interview format
if known (phone, in person, panel, group). Write the fifteen
questions this interviewer will plausibly ask — the universal five
(tell me about yourself, why here, strengths, a time something went
wrong, questions for us) plus ten shaped by the role: customer
scenarios for retail and food, "walk me through this project" for
internships, reliability and safety for trades.

Then mine their real life for stories — school projects, sports,
family responsibilities, anything built or handled — and shape the
best four or five into short tellings: situation, what they did,
how it ended, kept under a minute. Map stories to questions; one
good story honestly covers three or four. Write the bank down —
it is theirs to keep and reuse for every future interview.

## Mock rounds

Play the interviewer, in character for this employer, and run a
full round: greeting, the questions in a plausible order, one
curveball they did not prep, and "any questions for us?" (they
should have two ready — real ones, drafted together). No breaking
character mid-round.

Then feedback, blunt: answers that rambled past the point, "um"
density, speaking too fast, the story that fell flat, the question
they dodged. Two or three fixes max per round. Run at least one
more full round; stop when an answer sounds like them on a good
day rather than a memorized script — polished-dead is a real
failure mode, flag it too.

## Day logistics

Close with the checklist, written down: what to wear for this
workplace, what to bring (printed resume, ID or permit if asked),
arrival time fifteen minutes early with the route checked, phone
silenced, names of interviewers if known, and the thank-you
message queued for the same evening — drafted now in their voice,
sent by them (follow-up-after-applying covers what comes after).

## Done

- A written answer bank of true stories mapped to likely questions
- Two or more full mock rounds completed with blunt notes acted on
- Day-of checklist done and the thank-you drafted, ready to send