Amy Lindgren
Second Sunday Series – Editor’s Note: This is the seventh of 12 columns on AI and work, which will appear the second Sunday of each month, from September through August. Last month’s column described AI tools for resumes and cover letters, while previous columns looked at best practices for companies using AI; tips for using ChatGPT; work opportunities with artificial intelligence; AI use in the hiring process; and an overview of artificial intelligence in general.
Do you ever wish that you could pair up with someone for interview practice, or to give you ideas for answering difficult questions? Maybe you’re anticipating an asynchronous AI video interview in which your completed session will be reviewed by someone later — it would be nice to practice that format before it counts, right?
These are just a few of the ways job candidates are using artificial intelligence (AI) to prepare for interviews. They’re also using AI to help analyze a company’s position in the market, to identify opportunities and challenges a company might be facing, and to learn more about the trends occurring in particular industries.
If you’d like to use AI for your own interview preparation, read on.
Quick review of AI tools related to interviews
This list is short, but it should give you a starting point. While these tools offer enough free features for initial use, you can also pay for upgrades. To access each one, just type the name as given into your browser search bar.
• ChatGPT or Google Gemini –These are general AI tools that can be prompted in numerous ways that relate to interviews. In addition to specific information (“What are current trends for the risk management profession?”), these sites can generate potential interview questions and conduct mock interviews with feedback.
• Google Interview Warmup — This tool asks five basic questions and gives feedback on your responses. It’s simple but sometimes that’s a feature.
• Yoodli — This site operates like a speech coach, helping individuals prepare for interviews, presentations and even awkward conversations. To make best use of the offerings, start with online tutorials.
• HireVue — As a leading vendor to HR departments, HireVue is known for creating the asynchronous, AI-led interviews you might encounter as part of the hiring process. But they offer options for job candidates as well, so it’s worth a look to see what you can learn.
Tips for writing good prompts
When using an AI tool, your success will depend on the request, or “prompt” that you put in. A simple prompt such as “Give me three interview questions” will produce results but they won’t necessarily relate to your field.
Try instead, “You are an interviewer in a medical device company and I am the candidate for a communications job. Ask me three questions including one that is behavioral.” This will take some practice but eventually you will identify the prompts that provide the best practice for you.
What to watch out for
It’s easy to forget that AI tools, whether they’re free or subscription-based, are still AI. By their nature, they will collect and build on anything you share. That’s a warning to keep confidential data and personal information to yourself as you participate in these processes. Just modify your materials and answers to account for AI’s persistent kleptomania and you’ll still gain value without giving away state secrets.
More resources
If you’d like to become more proficient in using artificial intelligence to practice interviewing, try putting “free AI interviewing courses” into your search engine’s browser bar. I did and one of the resources that popped up was for Great Learning. Their web site doesn’t show the free classes easily, but using “Great Learning free courses” in your search engine will yield a list to peruse. This particular site leans to the technical sciences, but there are general courses mixed in, including one for using Google’s Gemini AI tool for interview prep.
As always, this short primer is only a sampling of the AI interviewing tools you might encounter online, and probably an even smaller slice of what will be available just a few months from now. For that reason, my best advice is to not worry about finding the perfect resource at this stage. Just choose something to try and if it works for you, that’s all you need.
Come back next month and we’ll take a look at more AI tools to help candidates build a successful job search process.
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Amy Lindgren owns a career consulting firm in St. Paul. She can be reached at alindgren@prototypecareerservice.com.
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