Most people prepare for an interview by looking for answers.
They open a list of frequently asked questions, imagine what the recruiter might ask and build sentences correct enough to work in any situation.
Yet this is precisely where preparation starts to weaken.
An answer that works for any company rarely shows why a person is suited to that particular position. The more it is polished, the more it risks sounding like a formula learnt by heart.
Interviews are changing. Companies are using more structured processes, focusing assessment increasingly on skills and introducing artificial intelligence tools into sourcing, screening and question preparation.
According to LinkedIn’s Future of Recruiting 2025 report, 73% of talent acquisition professionals believe AI will change the way companies hire. The way people prepare for an interview, therefore, is already changing too. In this new article, we will look at how together.
The Interview Starts with the Job Advert
The job advert is the first document to study in order to reconstruct what the company is really looking for.
Every job description contains at least four layers:
| Level | What it reveals |
| Activity | What the person will need to do |
| Skills | What they will need to know how to use |
| Results | The change they will need to help bring about |
| Context | How they will work with teams, clients and managers |
“Managing projects” describes an activity; “Coordinating multiple projects on time and within budget” suggests responsibility, complexity and organisational ability; “Working with internal teams and clients” reveals that the role also requires relationship skills, negotiation and priority management.
Before the interview, then, it is useful to turn the job advert into a matrix.
| Company requirement | Related experience | Concrete evidence | Point to clarify |
| Coordination | Project already managed | People, timing and outcome | Level of autonomy |
| Analysis | Data-driven work | Decision taken | Indicators used |
| Relationships | Client or stakeholder managed | Problem solved | Frequency of interaction |
This table helps you bring genuinely relevant experience to the interview.
Research the Company, but Without Memorising the Website
Knowing the company does not mean obsessively reading the “About us” page and learning it by heart.
Research should help you understand the moment at which the organisation is hiring. A new office, an expansion, a reorganisation or the launch of a service can explain why that position has been opened right now.
The useful question is: What need might lie behind this hire?
A growing company might be looking for someone able to build processes. A small team might need autonomy. A complex organisation might place more value on specialisation and coordination.
Research serves to form intelligent hypotheses to test during the interview.
Prepare Experiences, Not Answers
In structured interviews, candidates are asked questions defined in advance and assessed against common criteria.
The Office of Personnel Management describes the structured interview as a tool for measuring role-related competencies through past behaviour or responses to hypothetical situations. Questions and assessment criteria remain consistent across candidates.
In this context, a list of standard answers is less useful than an archive of real episodes.
The six stories to have ready
Before the meeting, you should identify at least six experiences:
- a significant result;
- a difficult problem;
- a mistake or a failure;
- a conflict or disagreement;
- an initiative taken on your own;
- a situation in which you had to learn quickly.
The same experience can support different questions.
A complex project, for example, can demonstrate organisational ability, leadership, client management or how you respond to the unexpected. What changes is the part of the story you bring to the fore.
The STAR Method Without the Script
The STAR method helps structure behavioural answers in four steps: (i) situation, (ii) task, (iii) action and (iv) result. MIT recommends starting from the responsibilities listed in the job advert and preparing examples that can demonstrate the required skills.
The structure is simple:
- Situation: what was the context?
- Task: what were you responsible for?
- Action: what did you personally do?
- Result: what happened?
The most important part is the action.
“We completed a complex project” describes the team’s result.
“I handled the coordination between the people involved, redefining priorities and the delivery schedule” makes the individual contribution visible.
In a skills-based interview, the interviewer will often try to establish what the team did and what the candidate did.
When the outcome was not positive, the answer can close with what was learnt and how your behaviour changed afterwards, because a mistake analysed with clarity can show more maturity than a success described without depth.
How to Answer “Tell Me About Yourself”
No autobiography is needed. This question is meant to reveal how the candidate interprets their own career path.
An effective answer can follow three steps, and the structure can be as follows:
“Oggi mi occupo di […], con particolare attenzione a […]. Nel mio percorso ho lavorato soprattutto su […], sviluppando competenze in […]. Questa posizione mi interessa perché mi permetterebbe di portarle in un contesto in cui […].”
The answer should offer a direction without giving everything away, leaving the interviewer a few points worth exploring further.
Using AI to Practise
Artificial intelligence can analyse the job advert, simulate questions, spot vague answers and check whether the personal contribution comes through clearly.
Recruiters also use it to prepare questions more closely aligned with a position and to keep interviews more consistent. LinkedIn notes that AI can support question design, but still requires human review and genuine knowledge of the role.
A useful prompt might be:
“Agisci come recruiter per questa posizione. Fammi una domanda alla volta. Dopo ogni risposta, indicami quali affermazioni non sono sostenute da esempi, dove non è chiaro il mio contributo personale e quali approfondimenti potrebbe chiedermi un responsabile. Non riscrivere la risposta finché non ti ho fornito i fatti mancanti.”
AI should ask questions before offering formulas. We want the right questions from AI, not answers to recite.
Understanding What Kind of Interview Awaits You
Before the meeting, it is appropriate to ask:
- who will take part;
- how long it will last;
- whether it will be knowledge-based, technical or behavioural;
- whether there will be tests;
- whether it will be in person or remote;
- whether it will be recorded or supported by automated tools.
And to avoid any misunderstanding: no, these questions do not signal insecurity. On the contrary, they demonstrate preparation.
Questions to Ask the Company
When asked, “Do you have any questions for us?”, that is the moment the candidate shows they have understood the role and begins to assess the company.
The most useful questions concern the actual work:
- What result should this person achieve in the first six months?
- Why was the position opened?
- How are priorities set?
- Who will this role work with most frequently?
- How is the quality of the work assessed?
- What is the most complex part of the role?
- What are the next stages of the selection process?
A successful interview does not necessarily lead to accepting an offer, of course, but to a more precise understanding of mutual fit.
Which is extremely important.
Preparation in the Final 48 Hours
Forty-Eight Hours Before
During this window, reread the job advert, your CV and your LinkedIn profile. Complete the matrix of requirements and evidence. Prepare your six stories and check dates, figures and results.
Twenty-Four Hours Before
Do a run-through out loud. For an in-person meeting, check the address, route and timings. For an online interview, check your connection, audio, camera, background, lighting and the name displayed on the platform.
One Hour Before
Stop adding new answers. Reread only the essential points:
- Professional direction;
- Three main pieces of evidence;
- Questions to ask;
- Practical information about the meeting.
Preparation should reduce mental load, not increase it.
And remember: an Interview Is Not a Performance
Preparing well does not mean eliminating the unexpected, but being able to handle it without losing the thread.
An interview works when the candidate manages to show how they think, what they have done and how their background relates to the role.
The company needs to understand the candidate’s skills. The candidate needs to understand the company. In short, it is a moment of mutual discovery: it does not happen straight away.
This is why the real choice begins when both parties stop performing and start gathering information about each other.
How to Prepare for an Interview, with Bliss Agency
Preparing for an interview means, above all, arriving with the right experiences already clearly in focus, without turning the meeting into a performance.
To make this work easier, we have gathered the steps in this guide into a downloadable preparation sheet: a tool to fill in as you analyse the job advert, link the required skills to your own experience, organise the examples you want to share and prepare the questions to put to the company. A practical way to get organised before the meeting, so that during the interview your attention can stay on the conversation.
A good interview is not measured by how many answers we anticipated, but by the ability to recognise what matters when the conversation takes an unexpected turn.
And let’s be honest, that is exactly what preparation is for: getting to know your own career path better, identifying the experiences that show what you can do and working out what you want to learn about the company. The rest cannot be written in advance.
Because an interview remains, above all, a meeting between two parties trying to understand whether there is a genuine fit. And perhaps the best preparation is the kind we can afford to forget once the conversation has begun.
New Connections (FAQ)
What are the most frequently asked questions?
The wording changes, but the recurring areas concern background, motivation, skills, results, mistakes, conflicts, goals and interest in the company. Preparing real episodes is more useful than memorising an answer to every possible question.
How should you respond when you don’t know the answer?
It is better to acknowledge what you do not know, explain how you would look for the solution and link the question to a similar experience. Inventing an answer damages credibility more than a limitation stated with clarity.
Is it useful to simulate the interview with artificial intelligence?
Yes, especially for spotting generic passages, unsupported claims and overly long answers. The simulation should start from the job advert and from real experience. AI can help you rehearse the answer, not invent its content.
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