Interview tips, from the team behind MockReady.

1. Research the company beyond their website.

The bare minimum is reading the "About" page and the company blog. The 90th percentile is reading three news items from the last six months and the LinkedIn profiles of two people in roles adjacent to yours. Look for what the company is actually struggling with: a missed earnings call, a leadership shuffle, a competitor pulling ahead. Bring up one specific thing you noticed naturally in conversation. The interviewer will remember you as the candidate who actually paid attention.

2. Use STAR, but stop at the result.

Most candidates use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) and stretch each section to roughly equal length. Don’t. Spend about 10% on Situation, 10% on Task, 40% on Action, 40% on Result. The interviewer does not need the backstory. They need to hear what you did and what changed because of it. Quantify the result whenever possible. "Reduced ticket resolution time by 23%" lands. "Improved customer satisfaction" does not.

3. Have three real questions ready to ask them.

Every interview ends with "do you have any questions for us?" and most candidates ask weak ones. Have three real ones prepared:

• One about the role’s biggest challenge in the first 90 days.
• One about how the team measures success differently from how the company measures success.
• One about a specific decision the interviewer wishes they had made differently.

4. On Zoom or Teams, pretend the camera is the person.

Looking at the camera, not at the interviewer’s face on screen, simulates eye contact. It feels unnatural but it changes how confident you read. Pair it with a slightly closed mouth between answers (a tiny smile), sit slightly forward (engaged, not slumped), and put your hands where the camera can see them (it has been shown to read as more trustworthy than hidden hands). For in-person, lean forward five degrees and put your phone away physically, not just face down. Both signal the same thing: you are here.

5. For "tell me about yourself," skip the chronology.

Most candidates start at college or their first job. The interviewer does not care. Open with one sentence about what you do now, one about what got you here, and one about why you are applying to this specific company. About 45 seconds total. Practice this until you can do it without thinking. It is the answer that decides whether the rest of the interview is energetic or polite.

6. Don’t bring up salary first. Anchor when they do.

Wait for them to ask your range. When they do, answer with a number that is the high end of what you genuinely think you are worth, plus 10 to 15%. Companies almost never rescind an offer over a salary ask that is slightly high. They counter. If you anchor low, you will get exactly that. Practice saying the number out loud before the call so it sounds natural, not nervous. "I’d be looking for around $X" is enough.

7. If you don’t know the answer, say so and reason out loud.

Interviewers do not expect you to know everything. They want to see how you handle not knowing. Don’t fake it. Don’t ramble. Say "I haven’t worked with that specifically, but here is how I would approach it" and walk them through your thinking. You are being evaluated on your judgment, not your trivia. Candidates who admit gaps and reason through them often outperform the ones who guess and get it wrong with confidence.

8. Send the follow-up email within 24 hours.

Not a generic thank-you. Send a four or five sentence email that references one specific thing you talked about, restates why you are a good fit in one sentence, and adds something useful you didn’t get to say in the interview (a relevant link, a thought on a problem they mentioned, a clarification). Make sure it goes to every person you met with. Most candidates send a generic thanks. The candidates who get hired send one that reads like a continuation of the conversation.

9. Watch the interviewer’s energy, not their questions.

The questions are mostly a script. The energy is real signal. If they are checking the time, asking shorter questions, or have stopped taking notes, you have lost them. Change something. Slow down, ask a clarifying question to reset the rhythm, or pivot to a story you haven’t told yet. If they lean in, ask follow-ups, or laugh at something you said, double down on whatever you just did.

10. If you bomb a question, name it and move on.

The worst recovery is pretending you nailed it when you didn’t. The best recovery is a brief, honest acknowledgment: "I don’t think I answered that well. Give me a moment to think about it differently." Take three seconds. Then answer again. Interviewers respect the self-correction more than the original mistake. The candidates who can’t recover from a single bad question usually fail the whole interview. The ones who can are signaling exactly the kind of judgment companies want.

11. Practice out loud, not in your head.

Reading your answers in your head feels efficient and is mostly useless. Saying them out loud surfaces every weird phrasing, every pause, every section where you ramble. Record yourself with your phone, play it back once, and you will know exactly which answers need work. This is the principle MockReady is built around: voice practice is the rehearsal that prepares you for the room.

12. For "what’s your weakness," skip the humble brag.

"I’m a perfectionist." "I work too hard." Every interviewer has heard these a thousand times and discounts them immediately. Pick a real weakness, then explain the concrete thing you are doing to address it. "I tend to over-engineer solutions when I should just ship the first version. I started using a rough-draft-first rule on every project this year, and it has saved me about a week per release." Interviewers want evidence of self-awareness, not perfection.