Job Interview Preparation Guide: Strategies & Questions
Prepare for any job interview: a preparation timeline, common questions, the STAR method, technical interview strategy and a remote interview checklist.
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Quick answer
Prepare for a job interview in stages: research the company and role weeks ahead, draft STAR stories and practise common answers a week before, and handle logistics the day before. Use the STAR method for behavioral questions, prepare questions of your own, and check your setup if the interview is remote.
Key takeaways
- Start two or more weeks ahead if you can: research the company, industry and your interviewers.
- Draft a handful of STAR stories and practise answers to the most common questions out loud.
- Answer 'Tell me about yourself' with a short past, present and future structure.
- For technical roles, know the stack, practise fundamentals and explain your trade-offs aloud.
- For remote interviews, test your camera, audio and internet and look at the lens when you speak.
Good interview preparation is mostly planning: know what you will be asked, have stories ready, and remove surprises from the day itself.
Preparation Timeline
Work backwards from the interview date.
Two or more weeks before
- Study industry trends and competitors.
- Refresh technical skills if the role needs them.
- Network with current employees.
- Optimise your LinkedIn profile.
One week before
- Deep dive into company culture and recent news.
- Draft several STAR stories.
- Run a mock interview with a friend or colleague.
- Prepare a few thoughtful questions to ask.
24 hours before
- Review the keywords in the job description.
- Practise your "Tell me about yourself" pitch.
- Lay out your outfit and test your webcam.
- Research your interviewers on LinkedIn.
For the logistics of the day itself, use our interview day checklist.
Common Questions & Answers
Each answer below shows a strategy and an illustrative example. Replace the details with your own.
Tell me about yourself
Treat this as your elevator pitch and use the past, present and future formula.
I'm a marketing manager with several years of experience in digital campaigns. Before that, I helped a startup grow its user base. I'm drawn to this role because of your innovative approach to AI marketing.
Keep it to roughly a minute to a minute and a half. For sample answers by career stage, see how to answer "Tell me about yourself".
What is your greatest strength?
Pick a strength relevant to the job description and back it up with evidence. Prepare the pairing question too: see how to answer "What is your greatest weakness?".
My strength is turning complex data into actionable insights. At my last job I built a dashboard that saved the sales team hours every week and helped them focus on their best prospects.
Why do you want to work here?
Connect your values to the company's mission and show you have done your research. Our guide to answering "Why do you want to work here?" shows where to research and gives examples by industry.
I've followed your company's commitment to sustainability. Your recent partnership showed me you value long-term impact over short-term gains, which fits my own professional values.
Mastering the STAR Method
STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action and Result. It is a framework for answering behavioral questions such as "Tell me about a time you failed" concisely and with a focus on impact.
| Step | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Situation | Set the scene and context. | Our email open rates had dropped. |
| Task | Your specific responsibility. | I needed to revamp our email strategy. |
| Action | The steps you took. | I segmented our list, A/B tested subject lines and personalised content. |
| Result | The outcome. | Open rates recovered and the campaign generated new revenue. |
Our behavioral interview guide goes deeper, with a full worked answer and common mistakes.
Technical Interview Strategy
Technical interviews vary by role, so find out the format early.
What to expect
- Live coding: solving problems on a shared screen.
- System design: architecting scalable solutions.
- Take-home project: completing a realistic task over a few hours.
- Theory: a deeper discussion of language specifics.
How to prepare
- Research the stack (languages and frameworks used).
- Master the fundamentals, including data structures and algorithms.
- Think out loud during practice sessions.
- Prepare to explain trade-offs, such as speed versus memory.
Remote Interview Checklist
- Visuals: camera at eye level, a professional background, and dress as if you were meeting in person.
- Tech check: test your internet speed, use wired headphones and close unnecessary tabs.
- Engagement: look at the camera lens, not the screen, nod and speak clearly.
For a full setup guide, see our virtual interview guide.
Written by the Woberry Editorial Team
We research each guide from primary sources where we can, name the source for every statistic we quote, and review, fact-check and edit every draft before it is published. We update a guide when the advice or the underlying data changes.
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