10 Tips From Mock Interviews

How to avoid the common mistakes that most candidates make.

I’ve been giving mock interviews on and off for 8 years, and real interviews as an interviewer and hiring manager for longer. After hundreds of interviews there are common patterns that stand out that most people can improve on.

Technical Interviews

• Follow a plan and spend the right amount of time in each phase of the problem.

  • Most people only focus on getting the right answer, getting the tests to pass, optimal performance, etc, but more important is having a plan to approach any technical problem in a structured way.

• If you don’t have a plan in the first 10 minutes, it’s unlikely you’ll find one later on.

  • Time management matters, a lot, and almost everybody rushes to start coding or designing a system. Ask AI to generate interview questions, set a timer, and practice getting to a really solid plan in 10 minutes.

• Find opportunities to show or tell how you’d write code in real life.

  • There’s never enough time in interviews to write code how we’d like to, but if you’d usually write tests, talk about that, if you’re writing one giant function, split it up, or at least mention you’re aware of it. Use good variable names. Getting the correct answer doesn’t matter if you write a mess of code to get there.

• Work with the interviewer, not alone.

  • Interviews are designed to see what it’s like to work with you, and most interviewers want to hire somebody they’d want to work with. Ask questions, carry a conversation, include them in your thought process, it goes a long way towards them imagining you in the role.

• In system design, find ways to incorporate your experience into the conversation.

  • It’s not just about boxes and arrows, it’s about how your experience sets you up to solve problems like this in the new role.

Behavioral Interviews

• Don’t read your resume.

  • I could repeat this 100 times and most people when faced with “tell me about yourself” will do it anyway. Your story is who you are, what you’ve done, and what you want to do next. It’s the start to the interview, don’t put the interviewer to sleep, get them excited to talk to you!

• Know your stories.

  • Write down stories to answer common interview questions and practice saying them out loud. Seems easy right, but not that many people actually take the time to do this.

• Slow down and say less.

  • It’s not a race, nor do you need to tell your entire life or career history, but when in an interview, all of us tend to talk too fast and ramble on and on after the initial answer was given. No answer should be more than 2 minutes and I usually try for 1 minute. Give a crisp answer and then let the interviewer ask questions to go into more depth.

• Your answers should match the scope and elevation of the role.

  • The easiest way to get down leveled in an interview loop is to answer questions a level below what your goal is. It’s not just about your past, it’s about selling the interviewers on how you can succeed in the role you’re applying for.

• Do your homework.

  • I know this is hard in the age of mass applying, but you should know as much as you can about the interviewer, role, team, company, culture, etc, and then blend some of these into your answer.

This list is not meant to replace mock interviews or career coaching, but if you’re going to invest money in those, at least show up somewhat prepared. Have your approach defined, have your stories ready, and then use that time to get feedback that’s specific to you.

There’s a lot of competition for jobs and I strongly believe that interviewing is a skill that needs to be practiced. When you get an opportunity, you need to be better than everybody else applying for that role. To do so requires preparation and a routine of working with somebody else to get feedback.

I hope this helps you prepare for interviews as we head in the 2nd half of 2025! As always, if you have questions or are interested in interview prep or career coaching send me a message.

- Dan

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