"mental" automation
[...]
Write down responses that you will repeat.
Just completed a long job search and this is spot-on. I wish I could go back in time and show this to myself.
I interviewed with quite a few companies. There is a pool of about 20 stock questions that interviewers ask. Each interviewer will ask maybe 5-10 stock questions and a few you haven't heard before, whose responses typically be cobbled together from other things you've mentally rehearsed.
Give yourself some sample interviews. Write down your responses or rehearse them verbally, whatever works for you.
By the end of my job search, one of my challenges was actually forcing myself to take a pause for "thought" before answering one of these stock questions. So that the interviewer hopefully wouldn't know I was repeating something I'd "rehearsed."
It's important to note that while I was "rehearsing" things, my answers were always 100% genuine. They were my feelings and experiences.
In other words, I wasn't rehearsing the act of simply telling the interviewers what they wanted to hear. I was rehearsing the act of digging through 20+ years of engineering experience to think of good examples and stories with which to answer common questions like "tell me about a project where you overcame adversity."
I interviewed with quite a few companies. There is a pool of about 20 stock questions that interviewers ask. Each interviewer will ask maybe 5-10 stock questions and a few you haven't heard before, whose responses typically be cobbled together from other things you've mentally rehearsed.
Give yourself some sample interviews. Write down your responses or rehearse them verbally, whatever works for you.
By the end of my job search, one of my challenges was actually forcing myself to take a pause for "thought" before answering one of these stock questions. So that the interviewer hopefully wouldn't know I was repeating something I'd "rehearsed."
It's important to note that while I was "rehearsing" things, my answers were always 100% genuine. They were my feelings and experiences.
In other words, I wasn't rehearsing the act of simply telling the interviewers what they wanted to hear. I was rehearsing the act of digging through 20+ years of engineering experience to think of good examples and stories with which to answer common questions like "tell me about a project where you overcame adversity."