Simplify Your Interview Prep

Plus a sample outreach message, networking and interview questions you can ask.

Author

Hannah Morgan
February 16, 2025

Welcome to Career Essentials, where I share actionable insights and curated articles that will help accelerate your career and supercharge your job search.

“How do you prepare for a job interview?” is a question I often ask job seekers. I frequently get the sense that they are not doing enough to really succeed during the conversation/interview. 

So allow me to lay out the basics PLUS the things I think will make you more confident (and successful).

First, the basics. 

  1. Research the company and the interviewer

  2. Create a STAR story for each of the job requirements

  3. Nail down your answer to tell me about yourself and why you left your last job

  4. Practice answering questions OUT LOUD

You can download the Interview Checklist here

Now, let’s take your preparation a step further. Try answering these questions and see if you feel more confident!

🔹 What are the 3-5 most important skills needed for this position and how will I include them in my answer to "tell me about myself?"
🔹 What STAR stories am I going to tell them to demonstrate these skills?
🔹 What 5-7 questions do I plan to ask during the interview?
🔹 What do I want the interviewer to remember about me?

AI TIP: You can use ChatGPT to provide you with some of these answers. Here are some sample prompts:

  1. Acting as a [recruiter, hiring manager] in the [industry] industry, what are the 5 most important qualifications for the role listed below and what 5 skills are most important [paste job posting here]? 

  1. Act as an experienced career coach and identify from my attached resume the bullets that most closely align with the requirements in the job posting pasted below. [paste resume and job posting].

  1. You are an experienced job seeker looking for [job title interviewing for] what are 10 questions should I ask the [recruiter, hiring manager] based on this job posting [paste job posting] to better understand the role and company culture? 

Plus have you done your research?

🔸 What are their main products/services?
🔸 How is the company performing financially?
🔸 What major news has been published about the company?
🔸 Where did your interviewers work before this company? What organizations do they support or belong to? Where did they go to school?

AI TIP: You can use Perplexity or Claude to answer these questions. Here is a sample prompt:

Acting as an experienced industry analyst for the rest of this conversation. 

What can you tell me about [COMPANY]? Where is it located? What's the company's Glassdoor rating? How many people work there? What's the company culture like? Are people happy working there? [Plus any other questions you want to know]

Summarize and cite the latest news about them. Is the news positive or negative?

What about the company's financial health? What are the challenges and opportunities for the company? Who are the top 10 competitors in their market?

Provide the company's mission statement and its default website link.

The most important thing to remember is the job interview is just a conversation. 
You are there to learn about them and they want to learn about you.

CURATED COLLECTION

Discover how taking these three data-backed steps can help you gain a competitive edge in today’s challenging job market. It’s tough out there but these strategies will help you stand out and achieve your career goals: 

  1. Get in early

  2. Get referred

  3. Get control

If you’ve ever struggled to come up with wording when reaching out to a hiring manager or someone at a company you are targeting without a posted job, this is a message to adapt and try. 

PS: This is great for managers or hiring managers, I am not confident that an internal recruiter would be interested. Plus, I don’t recommend attaching your resume. Maybe a link to your LinkedIn profile. You want the recipient to talk to you and a resume isn’t necessary based on the content of your message. 

This is what I loved about Broda’s post. He writes: “Some of my clients pair this message template with customized presentation decks, or intro videos.

It’s hard for people seeking talent to ignore such an ‘impact-centered’ message.”

If you didn’t catch it live or don’t have time to watch the replay, it’s worth reviewing this summary of the key points. Focus on what you want to do next, overcome ageism, embrace AI, find mentors, and more!

🤝 NETWORKING

When you first meet someone, ask some of these questions to quickly learn more about them. When you have the answers to any of these questions, it helps you understand who they are and what’s important to them which makes it easier to form a connection with them and stay in touch.

💻 LINKEDIN

Bookmark this but I hope you’ll never need it! LinkedIn has been known to restrict/lock out users and when this happens you lose access to your account. Here are proactive steps you should take and what to do if/when this happens to you.  

🗨 INTERVIEWING

Ask better questions, get better information! Move beyond boring/predictable questions YOU can ask to get greater insights into the role, your boss and the employer. Here’s one I hope everyone asks: 

“How do you measure success within this team, and can you give an example of someone who exceeded those expectations?”

⚙ AI

A new trend is happening: AI-powered career coaches. Multiverse, a training platform that introduced an AI guide, saw a “300% growth in daily active users of its AI coach in the past six months, with particularly strong engagement among millennials seeking to overcome career plateaus.” These AI mentor tools are being rolled out to all levels and cover everything from HR payroll help to leadership development.

🔮 WORKFORCE

LinkedIn data shows that 42% of workers are considering changing industries. INDUSTRIES. If you are burned out or your industry no longer offers the opportunities you are looking for, it may be time to explore something else. More LinkedIn data around the changing nature of work shows:

  • more than 20% of professionals hired in the U.S. these days have job titles that didn't even exist in 2000. 

  • professionals entering the workforce now are expected to hold twice as many jobs as 15 years ago

So even if you aren’t thinking about a change now, odds are you will be soon. What can you do? Update your skills and strategically network.

💰 CAREER

A layoff could happen at any time. What would you do if you lost your income? This 2021 article covers the advantages of multiple income streams call Career Portfolio. Just as you diversify your financial investments, you can and probably should diversify your career investments beyond a single source/employer. 

📶 RECRUITER PERSPECTIVE

There’s a lot to go through in this LinkedIn report, however data on skills based hiring for quality hires stood out. “93% of TA pros believe accurately assessing a candidate’s skills is crucial for improving quality of hire.” 

EVENTS

Wednesday, February 26, 2025
12pm-1pm ET
No-cost

March 25-April 22, 2025
Get weekly job search goals/actions for 5 weeks plus instructions
Plus weekly check-in calls
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JOB SEARCH VISUAL

There is no "easy button" or shortcuts in job search. 

It takes:

💡 Knowing what you want to do
🔎 Researching salaries
🎯 Targeting employers you want to work for
✏ Customizing your resume to align with jobs
🗨 Practicing interviewing skills
💪🏻 Knowing how and when to negotiate

DID YOU MISS THESE

WEBSITE OF THE WEEK

LinkedIn’s Career Explorer

With Career Explorer you can uncover potential career paths and see how your skills match to real job titles. This powerful database uses LinkedIn data to show how you align with careers you may be interested in. 

 Enter your current or desired role to see the transitions you could make. You’ll see the skills you already have in common with those jobs and the skills you may need to build, along with open jobs that are available in your region and an easy way to connect with LinkedIn members who might be able to help you in your journey.

Why use this database? 

  1. Career changers can see how well they fit careers they are interested in

  2. Job seekers can see a list of skills to add to their profile

  3. Easily find job postings and connections in the career options you select

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