Last week, we took a quick break from our various skills series to spotlight digital marketing careers. Please remember you can always submit your requests for our next career spotlight in the comment section—we appreciate your input!
This week, we’re returning to our exploration of practical AI skills. You’ve already used GenAI tools to refine your goals and enhance your resume. Now, let’s move on to the next stage of the job search process: preparing for interviews.
By now, you’re likely pretty comfortable following the typical reflection and research advice when it comes to preparing for interviews. You may even have outlines for your responses to common interview questions. But now, with tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini at our fingertips, it’s easier than ever to tailor your interview prep to the exact role and company you’re interviewing with.
In the most recent episode of The Coursera Podcast, Jeff Maggioncalda shares insights on how he uses GenAI in his role as Coursera’s CEO. In one enlightening snippet, he revealed how he uses these tools when he’s interviewing job candidates for top leadership positions here at Coursera:
“If I’m going to interview somebody, I’m not going to say, ‘Should I hire the person?’ But what I will say is, ‘Here’s the job spec for a VP-level position that I’m interviewing for, here’s the person’s LinkedIn profile, here’s a description of Coursera, and these are the three things that I really want to investigate the most about this person. Generate five questions I should ask them in order to do that.’”
Let’s take Jeff’s process and flip it so that you, as the job candidate, can anticipate the types of questions you may encounter during your next interviews.
How to use ChatGPT to prepare for interviews
Jeff’s process for using ChatGPT as a thought partner has two key steps:
- Input your context into the GenAI tool.
- Prompt the GenAI tool to use your context in answering a specific question.
You can learn more about this process and get hands-on practice in Jeff’s one-hour course, Use Generative AI as Your Thought Partner. If you want to strengthen your GenAI capabilities, this is a great course for building practical, replicable skills.
To jump right into the process, you will need:
- The job description—including the job responsibilities, role requirements, and company description
- Your resume
Following the process, first you’ll input your context. Context is essentially any information that the GenAI tool needs in order to answer your question. In this case, that’s the complete job description and your resume.
To input the job description, try this prompt:
Read the following job description and reply “I understand the context,” but do not explain:
[Copy and paste the job description]
Follow the same process with your resume. In both instances, the GenAI tool should reply simply, “I understand the context.”
Next, prompt the tool to write job-relevant interview questions. Try this prompt:
Act as a hiring manager for the position described in the job description. Write five relevant interview questions for a candidate with the above resume.
You can also use the GenAI tool to explore other areas of your candidacy. For example, you can anticipate your perceived strengths and weaknesses by prompting:
What are some of the candidate’s potential strengths and weaknesses as they pertain to this role?
Consider the output ChatGPT or Gemini offer, then work through answering the practice questions and addressing potential weaknesses using the same interview prep skills you’ve built over time.
Keep practicing
To practice foundational prompting skills, Jeff’s one-hour course Use Generative AI as Your Thought Partner is a helpful starting point. If you enjoy hearing his perspective and want to learn more about how business leaders are thinking about GenAI, try his longer course, Navigating Generative AI: A CEO Playbook.
To deepen your understanding of GenAI, check out DeepLearning.AI’s Generative AI for Everyone. Here, you’ll learn more about how these tools work and the types of tasks they are best suited for.
To refresh your interviewing skills, try the University of Maryland, College Park’s Advanced Interviewing Techniques. In this course, you’ll learn strategies for framing your answers to common interview questions.
We’ll pause here for this week. Next time, we’ll explore another transferable technical skill.