How to Use AI for Job Interview Prep (With Practice Questions)"
Most people prepare for job interviews by reviewing their resume and hoping for the best. That’s not preparation — that’s showing up.
Real interview prep means practicing out loud, getting feedback on your answers, and knowing what to expect for the specific role and company you’re targeting. It used to require a career coach or a very patient friend. Now you can do most of it with AI.
Here’s how to actually use ChatGPT or Claude to prepare — not just get a list of generic questions.
Why AI Interview Prep Works
AI is good at exactly the things interview prep requires:
- Generating realistic questions tailored to specific roles, industries, and companies
- Evaluating your answers for clarity, structure, and content
- Simulating the back-and-forth of a real interview
- Giving you feedback without the social awkwardness of asking someone you know
And it’s available at 11pm the night before your interview, which career coaches are not.
Step 1: Set Up a Role-Specific Mock Interview
Don’t ask for generic interview questions. Give the AI enough context to generate relevant ones.
Prompt:
“I have a job interview for a Senior Marketing Manager role at a B2B SaaS company. The role focuses on demand generation, content strategy, and managing a small team. I have 6 years of experience in digital marketing, mostly B2C. Act as the interviewer. Ask me one question at a time, wait for my answer, then give feedback before moving to the next question.”
This sets up a real simulation. The AI will ask behavioral, situational, and role-specific questions — and you’ll practice answering them before the real thing.
Step 2: Practice Common Interview Question Types
Behavioral Questions (STAR Method)
Most behavioral questions follow the same structure. Prepare for them explicitly.
Prompt:
“Give me 10 behavioral interview questions for a project manager role. Focus on leadership, handling conflict, and managing competing priorities. After I answer each one, evaluate my response and suggest how to make it stronger using the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result).”
Practice until your answers are clean, specific, and within 90 seconds to 2 minutes in length.
Situational / Hypothetical Questions
Prompt:
“Give me 5 situational interview questions for a customer success manager role. These should test how I’d handle difficult client situations, churn risk, and cross-functional collaboration. After each answer, tell me what I did well and what I missed.”
Technical Questions (Role-Specific)
For technical roles, AI can generate domain-specific questions and evaluate your answers:
Prompt:
“I’m interviewing for a data analyst role. Quiz me on SQL — start with intermediate-level questions about JOINs and aggregations, and escalate based on how well I answer. If my answer has errors, explain what’s wrong.”
Or for non-technical roles:
“I’m interviewing for a financial analyst position at a mid-size company. Generate 8 questions that would test financial modeling knowledge, Excel proficiency, and business acumen. I’ll answer them and you evaluate.”
Step 3: Research the Company — With AI’s Help
Use AI to accelerate your company research. Paste in the company’s About page, recent press releases, or job description, and ask:
Prompt:
“Here’s the job description and some background on the company [paste text]. Based on this, what are the 5 most likely themes or challenges this interviewer will probe on? What questions should I expect?”
This isn’t foolproof — AI doesn’t have inside knowledge of your specific interviewer’s priorities. But it identifies patterns you might miss when reading quickly.
Prompt:
“Based on this company description, help me prepare 3–5 thoughtful questions I can ask at the end of my interview that show I’ve done my research and am thinking critically about the role.”
Step 4: Refine Your “Tell Me About Yourself”
The opening question is the most important one and the most botched. Get it right.
Prompt:
“Here’s my background: [2–3 sentences]. Help me write a 90-second ’tell me about yourself’ answer tailored to this role: [job title and company]. It should connect my experience to what they’re looking for, end with why I’m excited about this specific opportunity, and not sound rehearsed.”
Iterate on it. Ask the AI to make it shorter, more confident, or more specific until it sounds like you at your best.
Step 5: Stress-Test Your Weaknesses
The hardest questions to prep for are the ones about your weaknesses. Don’t ignore them.
Prompt:
“Ask me the 5 most difficult interview questions — the ones candidates typically fumble. Include ‘What’s your greatest weakness?’, ‘Tell me about a time you failed’, and 3 others. After each answer, give me an honest critique.”
Also prep for salary questions:
“How should I answer ‘What are your salary expectations?’ for a [job title] in [city], if I currently make $X and am targeting $Y? Give me 2–3 ways to phrase it.”
Real Practice Questions by Role
Here are prompts to generate questions for common roles:
Sales:
“Generate 8 interview questions for an Account Executive role in enterprise SaaS. Include questions about prospecting, objection handling, and quota attainment.”
Engineering:
“Give me 6 behavioral interview questions for a software engineer role, plus 4 system design questions appropriate for a senior-level interview.”
Operations:
“Create 10 interview questions for an Operations Manager at a logistics company. Focus on process improvement, team management, and working with cross-functional stakeholders.”
Healthcare:
“Give me 8 interview questions for a registered nurse applying to an ICU position. Include scenario-based questions about patient prioritization and critical situations.”
What AI Can’t Do
Be clear about the limits:
- It can’t predict your specific interview. Every interviewer is different.
- It can’t feel your nerves. Practice out loud — saying answers in your head is not the same as speaking them.
- It won’t know the company’s internal culture. LinkedIn, Glassdoor, and people in your network are still essential.
- Feedback is based on text. It can’t assess your body language, filler words, or confidence.
Use AI to build the foundation. Then practice with a real person if you can — a friend, a mentor, or a career coach for high-stakes opportunities.
The Bottom Line
Interview prep used to mean buying a book, finding a patient friend, or paying for coaching. Now you can run a full mock interview in your living room at any hour, get specific feedback, and repeat until your answers are tight.
The tool is free to try. The gap between candidates who prepare and those who don’t is significant. Close it.
Set up your mock interview tonight. Your future self will thank you.