How to prepare for a job interview

Step one: find out what you are preparing for

Preparation is cheap once you know the format, and wasted when you guess. Ask the recruiter or the person who invited you three questions: what the structure is, how long it will take, and who will be in the room.

MIT’s guide to interview timelines describes the usual shape. After an application, the employer reviews your materials and decides “whether or not you will be called for a first-round interview, or screening”, whose purpose is “to make sure you have the skills and experience necessary for the role”. From there “many candidates move onto a series of interviews that can include…behavioral, technical, and case questions”, and across those rounds you can expect to meet “the hiring manager, an HR specialist, prospective colleagues, and more”.

The same guide sets out what happens inside the hour: “Greetings, introductions, and small-talk”, then the interviewer “asks questions, and you will engage in mutual discussion”, then “Wrap-up and discuss next steps in the process”. Knowing that sequence tells you where your own questions go and how much time the middle really has.

It also tells you how to spend your prep. A screening call rewards a crisp account of your experience and your motivation; a later round rewards depth, worked examples and technical detail. MIT also notes how variable the waiting is: “Some candidates hear back within days…while others can take several weeks or months”, so prepare on the dates you have rather than on the dates you hope for.

A week out: build the grid

Open a document and put the job posting in it. MIT’s interview primer recommends keeping that text: “If you can, save the text from each job you apply to as it can effectively support your interview process”, which matters because adverts disappear once the role closes.

Turn the posting into a two column grid. On the left, one line for each requirement, written in the employer’s own words. On the right, the single example from your own work that proves it, with the result. Rows with nothing on the right are your prep list, and the fix is either a better example you had forgotten or an honest answer about how you would close the gap.

Then research the employer. The primer’s version is practical: “Review their website, see what they are recently in the news for, or talk with current/former employees.” Write down three or four specifics you could not have guessed, and note the question each one makes you want to ask.

Finish the week’s work by choosing stories. Six usually covers a whole interview: a result you are proud of, a conflict, a mistake, a deadline, a time you influenced someone, and a time you learned something fast. Sketch each in three lines using the STAR method, and keep them short enough to adapt rather than recite. The interview questions hub shows which families tend to come up in which roles.

Three days out: say the answers out loud

Written answers always sound finished. Spoken ones expose the gaps, which is why this block is the one people skip and the one that changes the result.

MIT’s primer describes the most useful version: “The most common is to participate in a mock interview where someone simulates an interview”, and if nobody is available, to record yourself and “try to listen to yourself with an outside perspective”. Twenty minutes of that beats two hours of rereading.

Run it as a drill. Pick eight questions, including the two you least want, set a timer for each answer, and do not stop to restart when a sentence goes wrong. Then listen back once at double attention and note three things only: where you ran long, where you lost the point, and where you said we instead of I.

Spread it out if you can. Harvard’s career services office recommends treating preparation as a habit rather than an event, advising candidates to spend time each week preparing for interviews until an offer arrives, and sums up the whole approach in two words: “Preparation is the key!”

This is also the moment to write the questions you will ask. Two or three that only apply to this employer, taken from the research you did, plus one about how the role is measured. The questions to ask the interviewer guide has a wider set sorted by who you are meeting.

The night before: logistics and one page of notes

The primer turns the evening into a checklist of blunt questions: “Do you need to travel? Do you need to change clothes or situate your video call backdrop?” Then two more: “Is your interview attire clean and ready?” and “Do you need to bring physical copies of your resume, portfolio, or other materials?”

Answer each one physically rather than mentally. Lay the outfit out, print what needs printing, charge what needs charging, and put the bag by the door. Check the route and the building entrance, not just the postcode, and for a video call open the software once to confirm it updates and your camera works. The companion pages cover the detail: what to wear to an interview and what to bring to an interview.

Then cut your notes. Everything you have built so far should collapse onto one page: your six story titles, the figures you might be asked about, your questions, and the two sentences you want to be sure you say. One page is usable under pressure; six pages are a comfort blanket you will never open.

Stop early. Rehearsing at midnight trades a small gain in content for a large loss in delivery, and tired candidates talk faster and listen less.

On the day: the last hour

Make the final hour boring. Eat something, read your one page twice, and resist adding new material. Nothing learned in the last sixty minutes survives the first question.

A warm up helps more than revision. Say one answer out loud in the car, on the walk or in the kitchen, so the first time you hear your own voice is not in the interview. MIT’s primer offers two small physical anchors for the room itself: “Keep a watch, clock, or other time keeping device in easy view”, and “remind yourself to breathe”, suggesting box breathing as a way to settle before you start.

Arrive with slack in the plan. The point of being early is not punctuality for its own sake, it is the fifteen minutes of ordinary calm that makes the first answer sound like you. For a video interview, be in the room with the software open well before the slot so a software update cannot become the story of the morning.

And carry one sentence with you. The primer’s version is a good one: “No one in the interview is more knowledgeable about you, than you.” Keep the tone simple from there: “stay calm, stay professional, and stay polite.”

If the interview is tomorrow: the 90 minute version

Short notice forces an order of operations, and this is it.

Spend the first fifteen minutes on logistics, because a missed address undoes everything else. Spend the next twenty on the job posting, writing one example against each requirement and ignoring the rest of the company’s website. Spend ten minutes finding three specifics about the employer and turning one into a question.

Then spend thirty minutes out loud. Record four answers: your two minute introduction, why this role, one example of a result you delivered, and the question you are dreading. Listen back to two of them.

Use the last fifteen minutes to write the one page, lay out your clothes and pack your bag. Then stop. A candidate who has done those five things is better prepared than most of the field, and far better prepared than the version of you who reads about the company until two in the morning.

Closing the loop so the next round is easier

Preparation does not end when the interview does. Ask about the process before you leave; MIT’s primer suggests the wording “What is your timeline for hiring this position and when might I hear about next steps?”, which tells you when a follow up is appropriate instead of leaving you guessing.

Then write everything down while it is fresh: the exact questions, the ones that caught you out, the names and roles of everyone you met, and anything they said about the team or the plan. That file is most of the preparation for the next round, and later rounds dig into exactly the areas a first round only touched. See second and final round interviews for what changes.

Send a short thank you within a day or two, referring to something specific from the conversation: thank you email after an interview has templates. And keep applying. The primer’s warning is worth repeating: “do not feel that you have something guaranteed until you have the official offer.”