Careers Service

Using AI for Interview Preparation

This guide outlines what AI can and cannot help you with for interview preparation and how to use it effectively. If you are new to using AI or are thinking about using it at other stages in your career thinking (career exploration, job-search, applications), check out our AI and You: Careers, Jobs and Applications page for a broader understanding of effective AI use and our Considerations when using AI page for information about university guidance and how to mitigate challenges presented by using AI in your career thinking.

What AI can/cannot do for interview preparation

AI can:

• Act as an on-demand practice tool, suggesting likely interview questions to help you with your preparation. You can submit the job description and person specification documents straight into AI for it to generate the questions.
• Provide basic feedback to interview questions, such as general pointers.

AI cannot:

• Research the role and the organisation as effectively as you can.
  • AI may provide information that is inaccurate or unrelated. You must research thoroughly yourself. If AI does offer information, be critical of this, can you check this is up-to-date?
• Provide personalised, informed feedback.
  • AI output may be based on out-of-date information, it is often generic, and it can’t reflect on how your personal employability aligns with the role. The Careers Service run interview simulations (practice interviews), which are a great opportunity to receive personalised, tailored feedback on your answers. Book via CareerConnect.
  • Be aware that employers can use AI to see what information it generates about them. It is important that you do not directly copy material that AI produces. Implement your own insights.

Using the 3 P's to apply AI in interview preparation

If you haven’t heard of our ‘3 P’s’ (Prepare, Prompt, Proofread), there is more information on our AI and You: Careers, Jobs and Applications page. If using AI for interview preparation, this is an example of how you might apply the 3P's:

Prepare

You have an interview, congratulations! Before thinking about potential questions (which is where AI may be helpful), it is essential to remind yourself of the role, the organisation and, most importantly, how your skills, interests and experience align with the opportunity.

As a starting point for this research, we would recommend using:

• The job description and person specification.
• The organisation's online profiles i.e. website, LinkedIn, other social media.
• Your original application.

Our page on Interview Practice and Preparation has more advice on this.

This preparation provides the key ingredients needed to build your answers, your AI prompts and to be critical of AI suggestions.

Prompt

AI tools can generate useful interview practice questions, but the quality of the output depends on the quality of your prompt. For the best results, structure your prompts using the RTF model (developed by Durham University):

• Role – Who should the AI act as? Be specific about the perspective you want the AI to take.
  • Example: Instead of “Can you help me prepare for this interview?”, try “You are an experienced interview coach.”
• Task – What exactly do you want it to do? Clearly define the activity and include relevant context.
  • Example: Instead of “I have an interview for a marketing role”, try “I have an interview for a marketing executive role within an FMCG organisation. Based on the attached job description, list 5 competency-based questions I might be asked and explain what each is assessing.”
• Format – How should the output be delivered? Guide how you want the response structured and how interactive it should be.
  • Example: Instead of “What skills should I display in an interview?”, try “Based on this person specification, what skills is the employer likely to assess? Present these as a bullet-point list and match them to my experience: Paste CV. Then run an interview simulation, allowing me to answer one question at a time and providing feedback on each response.”

This helps you get responses that are structured, realistic, and relevant to the role you’re preparing for. Always adapt the suggestions to reflect your own authentic experiences and voice.

When prompting AI, remember different AI tools have different data privacy policies. Make sure you are anonymising your data when using AI to avoid it being used elsewhere

Proofread

Do not take what AI says at face value. When you read the AI suggestions, consider:

• It doesn’t know you and you may be missing key points about your own experiences that could enhance your answers.
• Its information may not be accurate. Free tools (older versions of ChatGPT for example) use limited or older data sets to generate its outputs. AI can also fabricate facts (known as hallucinations).
• The organisation may have its own advice about their interview question structure and recommended preparation. Use this, instead of AI, as your primary source of insight into the structure of the interview. Platforms such as LinkedIn, The Student Room or Glassdoor may have testimonies from people who have interviewed with the company in the past.

Using AI on the day - Things to be aware of

There are some AI tools that allow you to input live information and receive on the spot answers. This may help you to feel more comfortable and therefore be tempting to use.

However, it can negatively impact your interview:

• Your delivery may be compromised or you may be distracted.
• The tone can seem generic or impersonal.
• The information may not be correct or up-to-date.

Interviews are an opportunity for employers to meet and engage with you and for the above reasons AI may be detrimental to this. Several employers have shared with us that they can tell when students are inputting into AI tools during interviews, and/or reading out generic answers that do not reflect the candidate's experiences.

Employers’ attitudes also vary with regard to the use of AI by job applicants. Some employers endorse its use, such as the Teacher Training programme, whereas others seek to detect or ask you to disclose its use. For example, the Civil Service have put together a guide outlining acceptable and unacceptable use of AI when applying to their opportunities. Always check an employer’s guidelines for applicants before applying and remember if you are using AI to support your application, it is not the finished product. You must add your own reflection, experience and tone. Using AI in a live situation does not allow you to prepare or proofread the prompts you give, and therefore is unlikely to be as effective. It is most useful as a tool for you to enhance your own preparation.

Remember AI is a supplement, not the whole answer to your preparation. Assess AI output from a critical perspective and ensure that it is meeting all the requirements of a good interview response. These pages have more information about how to build a good answer:

• Types of Interview Questions
• Interview Practice and Preparation

Considerations when using AI:

When considering using AI to support your career-planning, it’s important to understand further considerations. For example, data privacy - submitting confidential or sensitive information to an AI system may result in that information being unintentionally revealed to other users. For more information including examples of how you might manage challenges when using AI in your career thinking and the university’s wider policy, go to Considerations when using AI.

Useful Resources

• AI and You: Careers, Jobs and Applications

If you get stuck, come and speak to the Careers Service.

Good luck!