Navigating Interview Prep with AI: A Practical Guide

Ott Niggulis

Interviewing candidates is a critical skill, demanding not only a deep understanding of the role and company but also the ability to ask the right questions. Using behavioural interviewing techniques is recommended as it can provide valuable insights, but coming up with behavioural questions is not always easy and can be time-consuming.

We've already seen how AI can speed up job analysis and create candidate summaries in minutes, and thankfully the same is true for interview preparation. This article isn’t about fancy jargon or complicated theories; it's about practical ways AI can save you time and help you get to the heart of what makes a candidate tick.

This article is part of a series of articles on the benefits of Generative AI for executive search and leadership assessment professionals. Part 1: Job Analysis, is available HERE, and Part 2: Candidate Summaries HERE.

Start by providing context

No AI has specific information about the company, the candidate, or the role you are hiring for. Meaning that apart from generic advice like how to structure an interview, it cannot give you any specifics.

While it understands the general responsibilities of a CMO, specific roles and duties can vary greatly across companies. The AI knows about companies like Apple, Microsoft, or Google, and thus has some background context, but lacks the specifics needed to truly customise and personalise the experience.

Thankfully, as detailed in our job analysis and candidate summary with AI articles, this is easy to overcome by giving the AI the information it needs. This can take the form of various documents and files, along with notes, webpages, and more that contain specific information about the company, the role, and the candidate.

Information from all of the above sources will be analysed by the AI and used as foundational knowledge to build hyper-personalised interview guides, templates, and even complete scorecards with interview questions.

Examples

Now that the AI has the specific knowledge it needs to give personalised advice, you can start using it for specific advice.

Areas where AI can help include (but are not limited to):

• Role- and candidate-specific behavioural interview questions
  AI can assist in creating hyper-personalised interview questions tailored specifically for the role, the company, and the candidate. It can also come up with follow-up questions and give pointers on how to recognise a strong answer.

• Feedback and evaluation templates
  To ensure a structured and unbiased assessment process, AI can help you create an evaluation template with a scoring system either to be used already during the interview or right after to gather your thoughts.

• Interview logistics and structure
  The AI can suggest best practices for structuring the interview, including time management, the sequence of questions, and how to create a welcoming and respectful interview environment.

When instructing the AI, you can opt to include specific candidate information, such as a CV or LinkedIn Profile, or create a generic yet personalised guide tailored to the position and your company's specifics.

For example, when developing the hiring scorecards library at Wisnio, our goal was to create hiring scorecards with interview questions and an evaluation guide that anyone could adapt and use for their own hiring. This meant that I couldn’t use company-specific and/or candidate-specific information as context. 

To get around that, we developed scorecards for different company stages or types. For example, a growth-stage company, a PE-backed company, etc. Doing it this way allowed me to include hyper-specific information relevant to a company of that specific type.

Interview questions based on candidate-specific information and a job advertisement

As another example, I used a candidate's LinkedIn Profile with a detailed job advertisement to prompt ChatGPT for tailored interview questions.

Without further, more specific instructions, the AI generates numerous questions, though not all may be relevant. In such cases, select the appropriate ones or provide additional context for more targeted queries. For example, by adding in the key objectives of the role.

With that extra bit of context, the AI is able to come up with interview questions that are more aligned with what you are trying to achieve:

Interview notes

Beyond interview questions, the AI can also produce notes for the hiring manager explaining a candidate's suitability. This is similar to a candidate summary, but slightly different.

For instance, with the earlier marketing role, I had the AI list three must-know bits of information about the candidate in the context of the role. You can use them to give hiring managers a quick overview of the candidate right before they go for the interview. 

Bring in talent data for more insights

Beyond CVs, LinkedIn Profiles, and interview notes, you can use different psychometric assessments to provide an extra layer of valuable insights, though they can be cumbersome to analyse in the context of the role and company.

To simplify this, we developed WisGPT, an AI chatbot with direct access to candidate-specific Wisnio talent data (based on our proprietary assessments of personality, values, and competencies) to deliver hyper-personalised insights.

WisGPT adds another layer of insights that are hard, if not impossible, to get from CVs and LinkedIn Profiles. With it, you can better understand the candidate as a person and how they as an individual might fit into the existing team. 

To illustrate, I asked WisGPT to give me a list of three must-discuss topics with a candidate. In its answer, it looked at the candidate in the context of the team and how their personality, values, and competencies can enhance or derail the team:

Conclusions

Learning to effectively use AI in interviews can significantly streamline your recruitment process. It's more than just a shortcut to save time and effort; it's about making the whole interview process more intelligent and focused. With AI, you're not just going through the motions faster; you're actually enhancing the quality of your interviews.

But, remember, AI is a tool, not a magic wand. It's incredibly useful, but it doesn't replace the need for human oversight. There's no substitute for your professional judgment and experience. AI can suggest, sort, and simplify, but at the end of the day, it's your insights and decisions that count.

Using AI in your interview preparations is about finding that sweet spot where technology meets human expertise. It's about letting AI handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on what really matters – understanding the person behind the resume.