Career advice
Walk in knowing what the interviewer is looking for.
Knowing the job matters most. But interviewers are also asking whether you will fit the team, share what the organisation values and grow with it. Every answer here is written from both sides of the table: what the question is really for, and how to answer it well.
Interview questions, by what they test
In the order you are likely to meet them, from the first question to your own.
Opening questions
How to handle the questions that open and close an interview: introducing yourself, making your case and using the last word.
6 questions
Why this job, why here
Why you want the role, why this organisation and why you are moving on, answered honestly and backed by real research.
6 questions
Knowing the job
How to show you understand the work itself and could do it well, whatever your field and however much experience you have.
6 questions
Competency and behavioural questions
"Tell me about a time when...": how interviewers score your real examples, and how to tell them clearly using STAR.
6 questions
Personality and self-awareness
Strengths, weaknesses, feedback and stress: what interviewers learn from these questions and how to answer them honestly and well.
6 questions
Culture and team fit
Whether you will work well with this team, share its values and add something new, and how to show it honestly.
7 questions
Situational questions
Questions that begin "What would you do if...": how to show sound judgement in a situation you have not faced yet.
6 questions
Career goals and ambition
Where you are heading, why this role is a real step on the way and how to show ambition without sounding ready to leave.
6 questions
Salary, notice and the practical questions
Pay, notice periods, gaps in your CV, the right to work and availability: honest, confident answers to the practical questions.
6 questions
Your questions for the interviewer
The best questions to ask at the end of an interview, why they work and what they tell the interviewer about you.
6 questions
Guides
How interviews are really scored, how to prepare, and what to do after.
From the interviewer's side
How interviewers decide
Inside the scoring sheet: what a well-run interview panel is measuring, how answers are marked and why knowing that changes how you should answer.
For candidates
The STAR method, and when to use something else
The simplest way to turn a real experience into an answer an interviewer can score, the mistakes that cost marks and the other shapes worth knowing.
For candidates
Build a story bank
Six to eight true stories, well prepared, will answer most of the questions an interviewer can ask. How to choose them, match them to the job and keep them ready.
Both sides of the table
Culture fit, seen from the other side of the table
Why interviewers care whether you will fit the team, what they are actually looking for and how to show it honestly while checking the culture suits you too.
For candidates
Your CV is your brand
When you apply for a job you are taking yourself to market. Tell your career as a story an employer can follow in seconds, built only from things that are true.
For candidates
Phone, video, panel and assessment centre interviews
Phone screens, video calls, panels, assessment centres and trial shifts all test the same things in different ways. What each one is looking for and how to prepare.
Both sides of the table
Questions an interviewer should not ask
What UK law says an interviewer should steer clear of, why good interviewers avoid those questions anyway and how to respond calmly if you are asked one.
For candidates
After the interview
What to do once the interview is over: reflecting, following up and coping with a no, then handling an offer, a negotiation and your resignation well.
For candidates
Career changers, returners and first jobs
How to tell an honest, confident story when your path is not a straight line: changing field, returning after a break, finding your first job or starting out in the UK.
Before the interview comes the application
See how well your CV matches a job before you send it: the words the employer uses, and which of them your CV is missing.
Free CV check