Stop Wasting Time: Smarter Interview Prep with AI

How to use job sites, avoid this scam targeting job seekers, LinkedIn stats, lessons from a year on LinkedIn, AI for job search, the new jobs report, and more!

Author

Hannah Morgan
September 07, 2025

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

Stop Wasting Time: Smarter Interview Prep with AI

Imagine going into your next interview with tailored questions, key skills, and your best stories already lined up.

How much time do you spend (waste) prepping for your job interviews?

I want to encourage you to spend more time actually practicing and less time doing administrative work and researching. AI makes this possible.

Now, I am sharing 4 AI prompts to help speed up your interview prep:

💡 Identifying the top qualifications & skills in the job posting
💡 Generating a list of questions you should prepare for
💡 Knowing which accomplishments align with the job
💡 Creating a list of questions you should ask

Prompt Writing 101

Before you begin writing your prompt, think about specifying these 4 things:

  1. Role: who is assigned the task

  2. Task: what you want it to do

  3. Requirements: what info to use

  4. Instructions: how to complete the task

Prompt 1: Identify Key Qualifications/Skills

Acting as a [recruiter/hiring manager] in the [industry] industry, identify the 5 most important qualifications for the role listed below and list the 5 most important skills [paste job posting here].

Prompt 2: Generate Questions

Acting as the [recruiter/hiring manager] create a list of questions you would ask a candidate to evaluate skills, fit, and experience for the following role [paste job posting].

Prompt 3: Alignment with Job

Acting as an experienced career coach, use the attached resume to identify how this candidate’s resume aligns and where it does not align with the requirements in the job posting pasted below. [paste resume and job posting].

Prompt 4:  Generate Your Questions

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

Test and revise these to suit your needs and let me know what happens!

Do you want more tips like these? My next Job Search Challenge starts Monday, September 8. Each week you’ll receive an email with 5 actions, instructions, and templates! Plus, there’s a weekly group check-in call to discuss wins and/or challenges! Join The Job Search Challenge!

Are Job Sites Still Worth Using? - The Job Hopper newsletter

AI is transforming the job search process. From AI generated job postings, to AI collected jobs, to AI mass sending and creataing job applications. This is one big mess. The ways job seekers can use job sites has to change as well. Check out these seven ways to use them! 

Scam Targeting Job Seekers - Ascend Talent Partners LLC

Thank you to Virginia Franco for sharing! This scam is particularly disturbing as it could happen to any of us! Links in emails or supposed Zoom invites can be trojan horses. Please read this and take the recommended steps to protect yourself! 

PS: Good recruiters will never refer you to a resume writer on Fiverr to have your resume redone. Virginia Franco explains how this played out when someone tried impersonating her. It’s been happening to many other resume writers too!

💻 LINKEDIN

Most of us are not as dedicated as Jan. But his lessons learned through a year of being active on LinkedIn are worth reading. 

This is a good summary of key stats to ponder and share. I’m calling out some of the points that I believe are most noteworthy: 

  • LinkedIn users only spend about 17 minutes on LinkedIn per month.

  • 40% of users access it on a daily basis

  • 39% of LinkedIn users pay for LinkedIn Premium

  • 97% of B2B marketers incorporate LinkedIn into their content marketing strategies, with LinkedIn accounting for 80% of their social media leads.

  • 35.5 million LinkedIn users have been hired by a person they connected with on the site.

  • 122 million people received an interview through LinkedIn

  • List at least five relevant skills under your current job. This increases the chance that your profile will be discovered and someone will message you by more than 31 times what you would get if you didn’t.

Go ahead and read the article for sources of this data. 

⚙ AI

You know when recruiters start sharing information about something, it’s worth paying attention to. 

OpenAI announced that they are “working to build out the OpenAI Jobs Platform.” They are also working on AI certifications. These initiatives are a collaborative effort with public and private sector employers across industries. Initially, this appears to only address hiring talent with AI skills, but who knows what may happen. 

These are important points! AI doesn’t do everything. It’s up to the user to make it sound like you! I particularly liked point number 5:
“Use AI as Your Career Thinking Partner

Stuck on your next career move? AI can help break through analysis paralysis by serving as an objective thinking partner.”

🔮 WORKFORCE

A gloomy day with gloomy numbers as explained by Workforce economist, Guy Berger. We will have to see what happens next month. 

💰 CAREER

Layoffs can happen to anyone. Will you be ready? This checklist goes beyond what you might typically think to do (or be doing)! 

And if you are interested in learning more about how to regain control before, during and after a layoff, join Sharon and me for a LIVE conversation on Wednesday, September 10 at 12pm ET (9am PT). Use this link to sign up.

📶 RECRUITER PERSPECTIVE

Spoiler: It’s sending a thoughtful thank you message after the interview. From a recruiter’s perspective, learn why it can make a different (when well written) and how to deliver it. (I’ve met many job seekers who proudly declare they write the note before the interview and then drop off the hard copy before they leave. There is no way these thank yous can represent take-aways from the conversation and therefore they are not addressing what interviewers want to see. Don’t try this!) 

EVENTS

Monday, September 8, 2025 (Kick Off Call at 12pm ET)
Dates: Monday Sept. 8, 15, 22, 29 and Oct 6
Time: Weekly check-in call at 12pm ET every Monday
Cost: $39

Layoff Readiness with Sharon Markowitz
Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 12:00 PM ET (9 AM PT)
LinkedIn Live Event registration here

Join Sharon Markowitz, career coach and founder of Your Career Wings. Sharon brings real-world experience into her coaching from leadership roles at Zoom, LinkedIn, Intuit, and Del Monte. In this session, she will introduce her Layoff Readiness Checklist, a practical guide to help you stay ahead of uncertainty. Sharon will share:

  • Why proactive, private preparation is essential

  • The most common mistakes people make with finances and benefits, and how to avoid them

  • How to use your professional brand and accomplishments to thrive after a layoff

  • The single most important step you can take today, no matter how secure your job feels

If you want to feel confident and in control, no matter what happens next in your career, this is a conversation you will not want to miss.

This will be a LinkedIn Live. Yes, a recording is available if you are unable to attend in person. But joining live allows you to ask questions! 

JOB SEARCH VISUAL

Managing your time and energy during a prolonged (and challenging) job search requires you have a system to follow.

When we dwell on the negative and things outside our control it's easy to feel discouraged and/or overwhelmed.

Try implementing these 9 things to keep your job search momentum and feel productive!

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