Walk into the interview prepared

Reading your notes and nodding along feels like preparing, but it skips the part that counts. Knowing an answer and being able to say it are two different skills. The first time you turn a story into spoken sentences should not be in the room. Out loud, a point you were sure of suddenly wanders, loses the thread, or runs a minute too long. Now you can fix it.

Saying answers aloud also takes the edge off the nerves. A lot of interview anxiety is just not being used to talking about yourself. Do it a dozen times in private and the real thing feels like one more go.

• Practise full answers out loud rather than in your head. Record one and play it back if you can stand to.
• Time yourself. Aim to land most answers in one to two minutes, before you start to drift.
• Rehearse the awkward ones, the weakness question, the gap, why you left, until they come out calm.

Behavioural questions, the "tell me about a time when" kind, are won or lost on structure. Without one, a good story sprawls: too much scene-setting, no clear action, an ending that peters out. A simple frame keeps you concrete and lets the interviewer follow what you did and what came of it.

The most dependable frame is Situation, Action, Result. Set the scene in a sentence, spend most of the answer on what you specifically did, then land on the outcome. Keep the weight on the action. Interviewers are hiring your decisions, not your circumstances.

1. Situation: a sentence or two of context, no more.
2. Action: the bulk of the answer, in the first person, what you did and why.
3. Result: the outcome, with a number or a clear consequence where you have one.

Prepare a handful of flexible stories: a time you led, a conflict, a failure you learned from, a win you are proud of. Most questions are a version of one of these, and a few well-shaped examples will carry the bulk of an interview.

Generic answers mark you as a generic applicant, someone sending the same thing everywhere and hoping. The quickest way to stand out is to make it clear you are there for this role, at this company. That comes from a bit of genuine homework: what they make, who they sell to, where they are heading, and what has changed for them lately.

You are not memorising trivia. You are collecting a few specific hooks to tie your own experience to, along the lines of "I saw you have just launched X, and in my last role I did something similar when". That turns a rehearsed answer into a conversation about them.

• Understand the product or service well enough to sum it up in a sentence. Try it yourself if you can.
• Read their recent news, launches or announcements for something current to bring up.
• Go back through the job description and map your strongest evidence onto the responsibilities they stress.
• Find out who you are meeting and, roughly, what they are likely to care about.

"Do you have any questions for us?" is not the wind-down. It is part of the assessment, and it is the part you control completely. Having nothing to ask reads as indifference. A few thoughtful questions show you have engaged with the role and are weighing it up as seriously as they are weighing you. It is also your chance to work out whether you actually want the job.

Ask about the substance: the work, the team, what good looks like. Steer clear of things you could have found on the careers page. Bring a few more than you need, because some will get answered along the way.

• What would success in this role look like over the first six months?
• What are the biggest challenges facing the team at the moment?
• How is the work organised, and how do decisions get made?
• What do the people who do well here tend to have in common?

Leave salary and benefits out of a first interview unless they raise it first. There is time for that once it is clear the interest runs both ways.