How to prepare for an interview: the full method, from D-7 to the day

· 9 min read

Most candidates prepare the night before, rereading the job ad and looking up sample questions. That is better than nothing, and far below what is at stake. Effective preparation fits into a few hours — provided they are spread out, and part of them is spent speaking rather than reading.

D-7 — Understand the company, do not memorise it

Thirty minutes is enough, if you look for the right things: what they sell and to whom, how they make money, who their two main competitors are, and what changed in the last twelve months. A funding round, a new market, an acquisition, new leadership.

That last point pays the most: it gives you a question nobody else will ask, and it shows your interest is real.

D-6 — Decode the job ad line by line

A job ad is not a description, it is a list of problems to solve. Go through it line by line and, against each requirement, write the evidence you bring: a project, a number, an achievement.

The lines left blank are your weak points. You will be asked about them. Prepare an honest answer for each: what you have that is close, how you plan to close the gap, and how long it will take.

D-5 — Build your stock of stories

Behavioural questions — "tell me about a time when…" — often make up half the interview. They cannot be improvised. Prepare five lived situations covering: an achievement you are proud of, a failure, a conflict, a deadline, a hard decision.

Each is told as context, action, result. The result must be quantified: "the turnaround went from three weeks to five days" is worth twenty times "it went well".

D-4 — Your two-minute opening

"Tell me about yourself" opens almost every interview and colours everything that follows. Write it, time it, cut it. Two to three minutes, no more. It should end on the reason you are here, today, at this company.

D-3 — Salary and your questions

Two subjects people postpone and that always arrive. For salary: research the ranges paid for this role, at this company size, in this region. Arrive with a range, a floor you will not go below, and the reason justifying the top of it.

For your questions: three is enough. On the priorities of the first six months, on how the team is made up, on how success will be measured. These are the questions of a future colleague, not a candidate.

D-2 — Rehearse out loud

This is the step almost nobody takes, and the only one that truly separates candidates. Knowing what to answer and being able to say it are two different skills; the second is only acquired by speaking.

Rehearse with someone, or failing that, record yourself. You will discover what rereading cannot show: the hesitations, the sentences with no end, the four-minute answers that should last one, and the moments where you do not believe your own words.

Nobody succeeds in an interview having only read their answers. You succeed having already said them, at least once, to someone who was listening. — JobView

D-1 — Logistics, so you can stop thinking about them

On the day, stop revising. Rereading notes thirty minutes before raises doubt, not confidence. Arrive early, breathe, and remember that you have already said all of this out loud.