Interview Coach

---
name: interview-coach
description: Run realistic mock interviews with structured feedback on answers, body language, and storytelling technique.
category: career
---

## Overview

Interviews are a performance skill, not a knowledge test. Candidates who prepare
stories and
rehearse out loud consistently beat candidates with stronger resumes but weaker
delivery. This skill
runs structured mock interviews — behavioral, situational, and role-specific —
then gives honest,
actionable feedback on content, structure, and presence.

## When to use

- - Preparing for an upcoming interview loop (recruiter screen, hiring manager,
  panel, final round)

- Practicing behavioral questions using STAR-style storytelling

- Rehearsing "tell me about yourself" and weakness/motivation questions

- Preparing for case, presentation, or take-home debrief rounds

- Doing a post-mortem on an interview that didn't go well

## Core concepts

- - - **STAR, upgraded to STAR-R.** Situation, Task, Action, Result — plus
  Reflection ("what I'd do
  differently"). The reflection shows growth mindset and ends answers on a
mature note.
- - - **Answer first, then evidence.** Lead with the headline ("Yes — I shipped
  it two weeks early"),
  then the 60-90 second story. Never build suspense; interviewers are not
waiting for the twist.
- - - **The 2-minute rule.** Behavioral answers longer than ~2 minutes lose the
  room. Practice
  trimming: one situation sentence, one task sentence, mostly action, punchy
result.
- - - **Bank of 8-10 stories.** Most behavioral questions map to a small set of
  themes: leadership,
  conflict, failure, ambiguity, influence without authority, customer obsession,
data-driven
  decision, disagreement with a manager. Prepare one strong story per theme and
reuse them.
- - - **Questions are half the interview.** "Do you have questions for us?" is
  scored. Prepare 3-4 per
  round: role-specific, team-specific, and one about success metrics or
challenges.
- - - **Calibrated honesty.** "What's your greatest weakness?" needs a real
  weakness with a genuine
  mitigation story — not a disguised strength.

## Practical workflow

1. 1. 1. **Scope the round.** Ask: company, role, interview round type,
   interviewer (if known), and
   timeline. A recruiter screen and a bar-raiser need different prep.
2. 2. 2. **Run the mock.** Ask questions one at a time, exactly like a real
   interviewer. Mix standard
   questions with role-specific ones drawn from the job description. Let the
user answer in full
   before responding.
3. 3. 3. **Score each answer.** Rate on four axes: relevance (did it answer the
   question?), structure
   (STAR discipline?), specificity (names, numbers, decisions?), and concision
(under 2 minutes?).
   Quote the weakest 30 seconds back to them.
4. 4. 4. **Give one fix per answer.** Don't dump ten notes; pick the single
   highest-leverage
   improvement ("your action section was 80% of the answer — move the result up
front"). Iteration
   beats lecture.
5. 5. 5. **Drill the money questions.** "Tell me about yourself" (2-minute
   professional narrative
   ending at this role), "why this company" (specific, researched, non-generic),
and "why are you
   leaving" (forward-looking, never bitter).
6. 6. 6. **Prepare their questions.** Draft 3-4 questions tailored to the round
   — never "what does the
   company do" and never nothing.
7. 7. 7. **Close with a checklist.** Logistics (dress, arrival, materials),
   energy management, and a
   24-hour follow-up thank-you template.

## Common pitfalls

- - - **Answering in your head instead of out loud.** Silent prep builds false
  confidence. The skill
  should push the user to actually speak answers; awkward phrasing only surfaces
verbally.
- - - **Rambling without a result.** The most common failure: 3 minutes of
  context, 10 seconds of
  outcome. Enforce the result-first discipline.
- - - **Trash-talking former employers.** Even when invited, stay neutral and
  forward-looking.
  Interviewers hear complaints as a preview of working with you.
- - - **Generic "why this company."** "I love your mission" is forgettable. Tie
  it to a specific
  product, decision, or team characteristic you genuinely noticed.
- - - **No stories prepared.** Winging behavioral questions produces vague
  answers. The story bank is
  the single highest-ROI prep activity.
- - - **Skipping the post-mortem.** After a real interview, debrief within 24
  hours: what landed, what
  didn't, what to change. Memory fades fast.