How to interview, pt 1

Greg Wyatt • May 14, 2026

Tomorrow at 1pm BST, Simon Ward and I navigate how to interview, in our LinkedIn Live. You can join us or view the recording here: The Interview Edition.

Interviews are a key area of anxiety in a tough job search - for good reason. If you've been struggling to convert applications or enquiries into interviews, the interview itself may seem an achievement. Yet for the employer, it's the 2nd step of many in their assessment process.

The assumption that you can get the job if you nail the interview can be a heavy load to carry, so it's only natural that you'll do what you can to actually nail it.

Yet, when I look at interview advice online, it's invariably of the J0b s3arch haxxor variety - whether it's killer questions you should ask at the end, the secret tricks of body language or other esoteric arts that seem to make a difference.

The irony is though that, even if there is truth to them, they are palliative rather than strategic.

Because if that's what you're relying on to change the outcome, you've missed opportunities that are in your control.

Foundational opportunities that lead to better outcome, some of which may seem unrelated to how you are on the day, while being central to better performance.

What follows is Chapter 46 in A Career Breakdown Kit (2026). You can buy it for an always-current guide to navigating your jobs market - or you can read all the chapters for free here.

It's the first in a 4 part series, but next week's Chapter is on the conflicting mess of advice and how you can unpick opinion from steps that helps you.

46 - Interview preparation

 

I see a lot of advice on how to perform well at interview.

Typically, it relates to STAR (situation task action results), CARL (context action results learning) or another derivation of this storytelling framework.

However this advice typically stands on its own and can set you adrift if you don’t have the right anchor:

Preparation.

The what and why of interviews

The goal of any constructive interview process is to understand

  • How a candidate will perform in a role,
  • What they will be like to work with
  • How likely they are to stick around long enough for the employer to see a suitable return on investment

And to compare each candidate against the vacancy requirements to identify the best hire.

Every employer has different priorities in assessing these points, different ways of conducting interviews and different strategies for how the process is run.

The problem is that it’s hard to tell what to expect when all initial communications are similar.

Transparency helps and is a great way to build trust yet few employers do this well.

If you were to know in advance that you are one of 25 people being screened by a panel on Teams, how would that affect your preparation compared to being one of 3?

Gaining insight into the what and why of any interview process should inform your strategy.

Typically, employers won’t include agency interviews as part of their interview process. I’m sure you might.

An employer might feel they only do a 2-stage process that is efficient. Your experience might look like this:

  • Application to agency advert
  • Registration with agency
  • Agency screening
  • Qualification call with TA Advisor at employer
  • Numerical and verbal reasoning test
  • 1st interview with hiring manager
  • 2nd interview stage comprising 4 separate calls with stakeholders around the world
  • Psychometrics
  • Quick chat with the CEO
  • Debrief with the hiring manager?

A former client who shut up shop in the UK a few years back regularly used to run 7 or 8 interview stages. Is it a surprise that they are a good company to work for?

The goals of interviewers

A legitimate interview process aims to appoint the most suitable candidate.

That isn’t necessarily the goal of any individual interview or interviewer.

Goals can be dictated by a number of elements such as number of candidates or differing views of stakeholders.

These goals can be anything from:

  • Checking broad suitability before progressing to decision makers
  • Looking for reasons to discount candidates from a volume process
  • Wanting to look credible to higher-ups in who is presented
  • Assessing cultural fit or technical capability
  • Investigating concerns or doubts
  • Confirming a decision

Interviews can also move from recruitment and selection to recruitment and elimination the closer you get to the end of a process.

This is particularly the case if candidates are close in overall capability - if you can’t find a clear reason to offer one candidate are there any reasons you can discount instead?

This is one reason why industry knowledge can become a problem at final stage when it wasn’t earlier.

Given there is such a huge variety in interview philosophy, purpose, strategy, process and execution, it can be tempting to second guess everything and overcomplicate your part in it.

I’d go the other way and simplify it to what you can control.

Interviews are your opportunity to show the employer why you are interested in them, how you will contribute, how you will solve their problems, and what you are like in a professional setting.

Put your best foot forward in a way that is professionally authentic and let the rest take care of itself.

Why do you interview?

Interviews can and should be a two-way process that gives you transparent information and enables an objective decision about whether this vacancy is the right move.

Interviews aren’t always though, are they?

You might think that getting the job is your goal.

The real reason to interview is to establish as early as possible every non-negotiable reason why you shouldn’t take the job.

This means you do what you can to be the candidate of choice for the right reasons, and if there are no insurmountable problems at the end of the process you can accept the offer put forward.

You want to be able to be the person who says no if you have to rather than have them say no for you.

How you can prepare with these in mind

There are six types of preparation you can do for an interview.

The first two are ongoing preparations that serve every interview process.

The rest are mainly application specific.

1. Ensure you portray yourself in a way that has meaning to the interviewer

One pitfall in recruitment, whether you are a job seeker or employer, is the valuable information you have trapped in your head that will help the other see you as a viable match.

We aren’t mind readers. How can you give meaning about why you are a great candidate?

Read through Principles of a Good CV again.

Not because you should repeat your CV verbatim. It’s a distillation of your candidacy written for the reader. A reminder of how you can help.

You should be an expert on yourself who can draw on your achievements readily.

Get a friend to ask you questions on your CV, someone who isn’t an expert in your domain, and see how they react to your answers.

While you might hope interviewers have technical insight in your areas of specialism you will inevitably come across people in the process who aren’t.

An HR practitioner may be involved as a steward for their culture and to ensure you are interviewed fairly - should you expect them to understand jargon? And how might that work against you?

If you are fortunate enough to get interviews regularly, you can treat these as both practice and the real thing. Watch how interviewers respond to what you say and reflect on it afterwards. How can you give better meaning?

Interviewing is a skill you can sharpen over the course of your job search.

This is prep you should do before any interview. An anchor to your candidacy and a reminder of why you can be great at what you do.

2. Keep abreast of general industry and professional news related to your work

For anyone interested in continuous professional development, this should be a natural endeavour.

Yet it’s easy to fall into the trap of not doing so when you are between jobs or busy with other priorities.

Given how what’s going on in the near-outside world of your profession impacts your profession, I recommend you take some time every week to keep updated.

It may even help with interviewing showing the currency of your expertise.

3. The company, its people, its offering, its industry and its market

One of the pillars of negotiation is to gain as full an understanding of the situation as possible.

If you want to negotiate a successful interview, one where you’re seen as the right candidate, doing this is an advantage.

There are many resources available:

  • Their website
  • Their other vacancies
  • Their industry news
  • Media relations
  • YouTube
  • Endole / TechCrunch
  • Local resources. For example, Cambridge Network and Business Weekly (which is about the Cambridge tech scene)
  • LinkedIn to get a feel for their organisational structure
  • LinkedIn for information on the interviewers (why not connect and say hi)
  • LinkedIn for their content, which might give hidden insight to their attitudes
  • LinkedIn for past employees (what can they tell you?)
  • Glassdoor / Indeed / Trustpilot / Google reviews - what do trends say about customer and candidate experiences?

Every industry and company will have their own priorities in an interview - keep this in mind, particularly if you’re transitioning into a new domain.

Someone with only private sector experience might be surprised by the needs of a civil service recruitment process. Information is often available to help you prepare.

4. Give the interview what it needs

Every interview has its own priority some of which will articulate the part you should play.

If you want to stay in a legitimate interview process, give the employer what they ask for.

You may think presentations, on-site meetings, psychometrics, etc are worthless. If they are non-negotiable for the employer they are a requirement to fulfil.

You don’t have to play the game; if you choose to, play to win.

5. How you can deliver on the role requirements

Analyse what you can of their role against the achievements you have, problems you’ve solved and outcomes you’ve reached - in reflection of their needs.

It’s worth qualifying this in the interview itself to allow you to tailor your answers.

While this is role-specific preparation, it is also related to the first point above - the answers are within.

 

6. Why you want the job, or at least to work at the company

I expect most people who’ve been out of work for a while simply want a way to make ends meet.

Yet I wouldn’t recommend using this as an answer at an interview.

Many employers have an inclination to candidates who have reason to want to work for them specifically.

Take time to understand your reasons that relate to the job or company. What about them appeals to you?

This is the answer to give.

If the only reason you’re applying is because it is a job, how can you truthfully frame your answer to make it about them?

‘I enjoy the role of a <job title> especially around <essential requirements>‘ with examples from their job description - might be crude.

It is more effective than ‘I need to buy dinner on Friday’ no matter how true that is.

Your interest levels can be a deciding factor.

A standard diagnostic

By Greg Wyatt • October 22, 2026
The other day I read a LinkedIn post about the iron triangle as it relates to recruitment. That you can be fast and good, but it will be expensive. That you can be fast and cheap, and it will be bobbins. Or that you can be cheap and good, but it will take longer than the heat death of the universe. At first glance it’s always made sense, with caveats, though that sense has been ablated with the promise of AI. Something that promises to be quicker, cheaper and better than people can manage. The only thing this triangle lacks is judgement-with-responsibility, something AI-style LLMs are currently incapable of, which is why they can be such problematic technology for recruitment. Though if your priority is speed, saving money, and filling jobs, the lack of judgement in even those algorithms that promise black box bias freedom might not be a problem you’d think much about. And when the top is spinning in an elegant way this might seem a standardisation you can apply everywhere, while you get on with your day job. Sadly the only place a spinning top doesn’t stop is when you were dreaming all along. AI has made me think about why the fundamentals of recruitment are so important, using judgement before we launch our projects. Which is why I like the 5Cs of project management as a way to look at recruitment: complexity, criticality, compliance, culture, compassion. With an adaptation and an additional C to be fit for purpose. It’s a great way to consider what approach to deploy: Complexity: the number of moving parts in a role, supply and demand in the candidate market, resources required to engage and bring forward the right people Criticality: the impact a vacancy has on the organisation. The opportunity a great hire brings. The damage the wrong hire can cause. And everything in between Channels: we go where the candidates are, whether at the end a headhunt, from an advert, from sourcing across LinkedIn Recruiter/equivalent tools, CV Databases, ATS records, other platforms, internal applicants, suppliers, consultants, temps, networking, referrals or even from a little black book, which I suspect will become more relevant again when data becomes noise Compliance: not just employment law, but how technology is used to find, engage and assess candidates in a fair, equitable and inclusive way Context: the full picture of the company – its organisational and local cultures, principles and values, mission, vision, goals, challenges and trajectory. The nuts and bolts, what that means for your candidates, and trying to understand the same in them Compassion: recognition of the impact a vacancy has on the employer and its team, balanced with how everyone can be brought together. And compassion for everyone that interacts with our recruitment, in process or invisibly Yes, I swapped context for culture. Hiring for context necessarily includes culture, and goes much further. And I've added Channels, which should always be established before going to market. I like these because they’re a way to ensure that how you recruit is proportionate and appropriate. They may even highlight you shouldn’t hire at all. But what you shouldn’t do is assume one recruitment process is the same as the next, nor that the investment made in reaching desired outcomes should be. What may seem expensive to you might bring an unexpected return on investment. What seems slow at the outset might bring a starter quicker than hoped – proper planning and all that. What seems good quality might fall apart, when the promises prove inadequate. That’s why it’s so important to diagnose first, before standardising. Greg p.s. You're welcome to try my free Hiring Diagnostic & Plan . It's not based on the 6Cs, which I think require more depth than a free tool can reasonably provide. Instead, it draws on principles from other disciplines: True and Fair from accounting, and Suitable and Sufficient from health and safety. It's free and private. Give it a go, and let me know if you'd like to chat through how the 6Cs might apply to your recruitment and enhance the resul 

Introduction to the hidden jobs market

By Greg Wyatt • October 14, 2026
On Wednesday 21st, I'll be doing a LinkedIn Live on The Hidden Jobs Market, joined by Paul Woodhouse. Paul is a marketing leader who has been looking for work in our challenging market. A previous role was a Hidden Job, and has also hired people himself. We'll be looking at his experiences to give a little substance to what can be a nebulous term. I'll show the steps anyone can take to become available for unadvertised vacancies, and for advertised vacancies that are filled by other means - after all employers consider more than only applications when taking a standard approach to recruitment. As a recruiter I don't advertise around half my vacancies, which might be for reasons of confidentiality, a lack of definition in the brief, a on the QT replacement for someone about to be dismissed, or mass availability of candidates. I'll use LinkedIn Recruiter to look for potential candidates, CV databases that can be more effective for immediate hires, my network for referrals and recommendations. My previous candidate pools for other vacancies - some of whom might have once open a time been applicants. Indeed, that last point shows the absurdity of much job search advice. If you apply for a vacancy on an ATS, you might be rejected, yet still be considered for future vacancies in the same employer. A hidden job hidden by an advertised job, where tailoring your CV with AI might make you less likely to be considered. Join us on Wednesday, or if you aren't free, the recording will be available immediately. Both can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7516049669924225027?viewAsMember=true . The chapter below from A Career Breakdown Kit (2026) shows a simple metaphor for the hidden jobs market, why it's such a silly term, and a better way to think about your own job search. 3 - The hidden jobs market In most of the calls I have with job seekers they will ask me about The Hidden Jobs Market. What is it? Is it real? How can I access it? Before we get into that, we should talk about tomatoes. As you read this next section, imagine a tomato is a job. So, you want to procure some tomatoes. How would you? Your local farm shop. The supermarket. Wednesday’s stalls. Maybe you subscribe to a weekly box of veg. Maybe you grow your own. Maybe you trade for the tomatoes from Tim’s allotment. Maybe you look at people funny when they ask for an intro to Tim because his tomatoes are wonderful. You likely wouldn’t buy some from Amazon - they don’t sell fresh food. Not to me anyway. Though you might buy tomato seeds from Amazon if you grow your own. Maybe even cans of crushed tomato, sauce, puree, or whatever meets your needs. As the channel you use to source tomatoes isn’t the only consideration, so too is the configuration of what you need. While you and others all access tomatoes in different ways, some of which overlap, and some of which are mutually exclusive - none of these channels are hidden. It’s just that you may not know how to access some channels, while others won’t be available to you. Now I want you to read that section again. Instead of being your desired job, you are an employer whose desired tomato is a candidate of choice. While recruitment is the inverse of a job search (more on this later), the analogy is better from the employer perspective because they are on a buyer’s journey where you are the product. Employers want to fill their vacancies through the best means. Some vacancies are easy to fill, others not so, and they will access the channels necessary to find the right people. In many situations, they won’t advertise a vacancy, which might be for reasons of confidentiality or convenience. Some say this is as much as 80%, a flawed figure which comes from a flawed survey, or perhaps it comes from a newspaper article in 1974 before computers were a thing. In my recent small-scale research, it was indicated more than 62% of vacancies are advertised. 53% responded they advertise more than 75% of vacancies. Many of the respondents were headhunters, whose business may be based on not running public adverts. I expect this will have skewed the results lower than the true figure. What employers don’t do is hide vacancies systematically. To access these vacancies, you need to understand the channels through which employers hire and invert these channels to form your strategy. Much like how tomatoes are sold through channels which consumers buy from. Is the hidden jobs market real? Yes and no. Yes, in the sense that not all jobs are advertised. Some are confidential, some for reasons as mundane as not wanting to deal with hundreds of advert applicants. No, because it isn’t a term that has inherent meaning. Speak to people who advocate for it, often a career coach, and they’ll tell you it’s anything from personal branding and networking to going direct and being referred in. When vacancies aren’t advertised by employers, they often fill them through sourcing - this is a specialist skill related to finding people where they may be found: LinkedIn, CV databases, corporate databases, GitHub, Facebook, YouTube. These are all channels you can access as part of an appropriate multichannel strategy. Which means if you have the right multichannel strategy (I call this Through-the-Line, which we’ll cover in parts 2 and 3), you access all jobs available to you, including those which are hidden and those which are in witness protection on another continent. Who are the headhunters that specialise in your domain? Who are the people who can refer you to jobs? How can you be more discoverable on LinkedIn and CV databases? How can you gain an understanding of the ways in which your ideal job is recruited, so you can take advantage of those channels? Those are better questions to answer to allow an effective through-the-line, multichannel strategy involving outbound and inbound leads. Despite me being vocal about why Hidden is a flawed notion, two people have thanked me for advice that led to their new roles claiming they’d accessed the hidden jobs market. As I gritted my teeth in hidden rage and congratulated them on their success, they unveiled the truth. What they actually did was map out their real life network of people they’d worked with and got in touch. If the people you know don’t know that you are looking for a role, what reason would they have to tell you about a vacancy? It’s simple marketing - right place (LinkedIn), right person (ex-colleague), right message (looking for work), right time (we’ve a vacancy). Of course, that takes a bit of luck to achieve the right congruence. Odds you increase through volume and follow up. And when you do find those opportunities, they are easier to win because you are a known name, not another unknown CV. There it is, the hidden tomato market.