For candidates
Interview preparation.
A modern, role-agnostic approach to interview success — including how to put generative AI to work in your preparation.
This guide is written for the candidates we work with, but it belongs to anyone entering a serious conversation about a serious role. It assumes what we assume throughout a search: that an interview is a mutual evaluation, not an examination.
Prepared by Saxskiold, a member of The Taplow Group.
01
Preparation breeds confidence
Prepare because you want the choice.
An interview is not an exam you pass or fail — it is a mutual evaluation. When you are genuinely prepared, you decide whether the opportunity is right for you, rather than simply hoping to be chosen. And even where a particular role is not the right fit, a strong impression often earns you a referral to one that is.
Would a barrister walk into court without having read the brief? Would a pilot take off without a flight plan? Preparation is what allows performance under pressure — and an interview is performance under pressure, for a decision that can shape the next several years of your career.
Most candidates under-prepare. A surprising number spend under an hour readying themselves for a meeting that can redirect their working life. No one else is going to insist that you prepare — least of all the people asking the questions — so the responsibility sits with you.
The candidates who interview poorly are usually the ones without an agenda: they have not worked out why they want the role, what is distinctive about the organisation, or what they specifically bring to it. Enthusiasm alone will not compensate for that gap. What impresses is evidence of thought.
What good preparation gives you
- Confidence that you have relevant, specific examples ready the moment the interviewer's attention turns to you
- Visible evidence that you take the role, the organisation and the interviewer's time seriously
- A signal that your professional habits — once hired — will be equally disciplined
- The basis for a genuine, exploratory conversation rather than a scripted Q&A
02
Using generative AI to prepare
Use it to sharpen your own thinking, not to replace it.
Tools such as Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini have changed what thorough preparation looks like. A generation ago, researching a company meant an annual report and whatever a search consultant could tell you. Today, a well-directed AI conversation can compress days of research into an evening.
1. Building your company and market briefing
Paste the job description, the company's own website content and a handful of recent news links into an AI chat and ask it to synthesise a briefing: strategy and recent direction, competitive position, leadership changes, and anything that has recently gone publicly well — or badly. Ask follow-up questions until you have a point of view, not just a summary.
“Acting as a strategy analyst, summarise this company's current market position, recent strategic moves and likely near-term pressures, based on the sources I have given you. Then suggest three intelligent questions I could ask that would show I understand their situation.”
2. Reverse-engineering the role
Paste the job description in full and ask the AI to break it down into the three or four outcomes the organisation most needs delivered in the first six to twelve months, the likely success measures, and where the role probably sits in tension with other stakeholders — finance, delivery, the board. This turns a generic posting into a working hypothesis you can test in the room.
3. Mapping your fit — honestly
Give the AI your CV or LinkedIn profile alongside the job description and ask it to map your achievements against the stated requirements and, just as importantly, to flag the gaps you will need to address candidly. Treat this as a mirror, not a script.
4. Rehearsing live
Ask the AI to role-play the hiring manager and put you through a realistic session, including at least one difficult or unexpected question. Then ask it to critique your answers: where did you hedge? Where did you say “we” when the interviewer needed to hear “I”? Where was the impact left unquantified?
5. Tightening your stories
For your two or three flagship achievement stories, ask the AI to help you structure each in a clear situation–task–action–result shape, tighten the language and strengthen the quantification of impact — without inventing detail that is not true. You are the source of the facts; the AI is a disciplined editor.
Guardrails worth keeping in mind
- Verify anything factual an AI tells you about the company — a confidently wrong fact in the room is worse than no fact at all
- Never let AI write your personal narrative for you — interviewers are increasingly good at spotting an over-polished answer
- Keep genuinely confidential material — employer data, unreleased client information, anything under NDA — out of public AI tools entirely
- Use AI to rehearse structure and tighten delivery, not to fabricate achievements, credentials or experience
03
Speak in the first person
What an employer wants to know is what you did — not what the team around you did.
A central part of preparation is becoming comfortable interviewing in the first person. When describing a team effort, be explicit about your individual contribution. It is entirely fair to say “I worked as part of a team to achieve X”, but pair it with “my personal responsibility within that was…”.
Candidates sometimes worry this sounds self-promoting or un-collegiate. From an employer's perspective it is essential: they need to understand precisely where your responsibility began and ended on a given piece of work.
04
Difficult questions — and how to handle them
Three questions that decide more interviews than they should.
“What are your salary expectations?”
State your current total compensation — base, bonus, benefits and any other quantifiable elements — then follow with something like: “This sounds like an excellent opportunity. If you feel I am the right candidate, I am confident we can agree a fair package.” Avoid naming a precise figure at this stage; let a recruiter or the later stages of the process do the negotiating on your behalf.
- 01You may price yourself out — without full visibility of the total package you may name a base figure higher than you would actually require.
- 02You may undersell yourself — under the pressure of wanting the role, it is easy to anchor lower than your real worth.
- 03A vague range is often worst of all — “somewhere in the low six figures” can create an invisible gap discovered only later.
If pressed for a specific figure, it is entirely reasonable to say:
“This conversation has given me a much clearer sense of the role. Rather than naming a figure off the top of my head, I would like to think it through properly and come back to you tomorrow.”
One modern addition: in many markets, salary ranges are now published in the advertisement or disclosed early by law. Where that is the case, treat the published range as your starting frame of reference — and sanity-check beforehand where your experience should sit within it.
“What are your weaknesses?”
Avoid disguising strengths as weaknesses — “I work too hard”, “I am impatient with people who do not pull their weight”. Interviewers see through this immediately. Instead, name something specific and genuine: “I have not worked in the consumer goods sector before, and I would need to get up to speed on the key drivers of that industry.”
If you are missing a piece of relevant experience, name it plainly and frame it as one of the reasons the role appeals to you. Equally, be careful not to volunteer an interpersonal weakness that would directly undermine your candidacy for that specific role — attention to detail is not the weakness to confess to if you are interviewing to lead an audit or quality function.
“Tell me about your biggest mistake.”
Choose a real example of something that went wrong, and focus the story on what happened next: how you diagnosed it, corrected course and what you took from it. Most employers are less interested in the mistake itself than in how someone responds to constructive challenge — that response is the actual answer to the question.
05
Questions worth asking the interviewer
They give you information — and reveal what the interviewer is actually looking for.
Where the interviewer opens with “tell me about your background”, it is worth qualifying first: “I would be glad to talk through my experience — but so I can focus on what is most relevant to you, could I first ask a couple of questions?” Then draw from a list such as this.
- 01What are the two or three most important things you need this person to deliver, and by when?
- 02What is not getting done today — or who is covering it — because this role is open?
- 03What is the hardest part of this job, technically and interpersonally? What experience best equips someone to handle that?
- 04What is the biggest adjustment for someone joining this organisation from outside?
- 05What is the single quality you most want in whoever takes this role?
- 06How would you describe the culture here? What kind of person thrives — and what kind struggles?
- 07Where could I be in three to five years, and what opportunities to grow into more responsibility would I have?
- 08What are the strategic priorities for this function — or, for a leadership role, for the organisation — over that horizon?
- 09What happened to the person who held this role before? What was their path?
- 10What makes this a genuinely good place to work?
06
Interviewing across multiple stakeholders
The same underlying strategy applies to each conversation.
Where a process involves several people — a hiring manager, a peer, a senior sponsor, a future direct report — ask each of them: “with me in this role, how can I help you achieve your goals?”, and then demonstrate, with examples, how your experience answers that.
With each person, it is worth asking directly: “Do you feel confident I could do this job? Is there any area of my experience you would like more detail on?” You may hear “we still have other candidates to see” — but you were not asking for a decision, you were asking for feedback on your fit. You can clarify:
“I understand you cannot tell me where I stand in the process, but I would value your honest view on whether you think I could do the job — are there any gaps you see?”
Having just interviewed you, that person will already have formed a view; asking surfaces any reservations while you still have the chance to address them. If you meet someone who would report to you, come with real examples of how you have delegated and developed people, and ask what they are hoping to grow into. If the process involves only one conversation, the same approach applies — compressed into a single meeting.
07
Your CV and career narrative
Work through your history in advance, with specific examples of achievement.
- Career history — be ready to speak to progress, goals achieved and increases in responsibility. Interviewers actively look for unexplained gaps, unrealistic claims or timeline inconsistencies. Do not paper over a difficult chapter; explain it straightforwardly and focus on what you took from it.
- Education and early development — evidence that you made the most of the opportunities available to you, including anything outside the classroom.
- Formative background — a stable narrative of what shaped your work ethic, briefly and without oversharing.
- Wellbeing and sustainability — evidence that you manage your energy and health in a way that supports doing demanding work well over time.
If, by the end of a conversation, you have met the key decision-makers and you like what you have heard, say so plainly: “This is exactly the sort of opportunity I was hoping to find — I would very much like to be considered for the next stage.”
Afterwards, if you remain genuinely interested, send a brief note of thanks the same day. A short paragraph is enough — and personalise it with something specific from the actual conversation.
08
The active interview — take control
Do not let the meeting collapse into a recital of your greatest hits.
Set the agenda early
Near the start of the meeting, say plainly that you would like to spend some of the time demonstrating how you would approach the work they actually need done — not only recounting your history. History establishes credibility; showing your thinking on their live problem is what moves a decision.
Be ready to do the job, live
Come prepared to engage directly with a real challenge the organisation is facing, if invited to. This need not be intimidating — it is simply an extension of the work you would be doing daily if you got the role.
Offer to solve a real problem
Ask the interviewer to describe a current challenge relevant to the role, and offer to sketch — verbally, on paper or on a whiteboard — how you would think it through. This single technique tends to leave a stronger impression than almost anything else you can do in the room.
“Would it help if I took a few minutes to talk through what I understand to be the main challenges facing this part of the business right now — and how I would approach tackling them?”
Ask it — but only once you have genuinely done the homework to answer it well.
Make your interest clear
Candidates lose offers for a simple, avoidable reason: the employer is not convinced they actually want the role. If you would accept the position on the right terms, say so before you leave the room: “I can do this job well, and I want it.” Wanting a role and being free to negotiate — or ultimately decline an offer that does not work for you — are not in conflict.
Your worth to an employer is a function of the value you demonstrate you can bring, and that depends on how well you have understood what is valuable to them.
09
Appendix — commonly asked questions
Prepare honest, direct answers in advance, backed wherever possible by a brief, specific example.
Stick to what actually happened — do not embellish or fabricate. A generative AI tool can be a useful sparring partner for drafting and tightening these answers, but the substance has to be yours.
- 01What kind of people do you work with best?
- 02What kind of people do you find hardest to work with?
- 03Do you prefer working alone or as part of a group?
- 04What would you like to avoid in your next role, and why?
- 05How do you feel about travel, or time away from home, if the role requires it?
- 06What have you done particularly well, or where have you had your greatest success? Why do you see it that way?
- 07What did you find most difficult about your last role?
- 08What is prompting you to consider a change now?
- 09What are you looking for from your next employer?
- 10What are your salary expectations now — and in five years?
- 11What do you see as your strongest qualities?
- 12And on the other side — what traits or qualities would you like to strengthen?
- 13Would you describe yourself as a self-starter? Why?
- 14What would you consider your greatest achievement to date, and why?
- 15How do you feel about long hours, or working weekends when needed?
- 16Would you describe yourself primarily as an analyst, an entrepreneur or a manager — and why?
- 17How would you rate yourself as a communicator? Can you give an example?
- 18How do you look after your own health and energy levels?
- 19What do you do outside of work?
- 20How do you prioritise and structure your time?
- 21Describe the biggest problem you have faced in the last six months. How did you handle it?
- 22Tell me about a time delegation went wrong — and a time not delegating went wrong. How do you generally handle mistakes?
- 23What is the toughest decision you have made in your current role? What alternatives did you weigh?
- 24What change has been hardest for you to adapt to, and why?
- 25What does success look like in your current role — and where, if anywhere, have you had to compromise on your own standards?
- 26Give an example of a time you anticipated a problem, or influenced a change in direction, before being asked to.
- 27How do you handle pressure? Can you give a recent example?
- 28What are your medium- and long-term goals — where do you want to be in five to ten years?
- 29What matters most to you in a job or working environment?
- 30How would your friends describe you? How would your colleagues describe you?
- 31Have you been formally appraised before? What came out of it — strengths and areas to develop?
- 32Give an example that best illustrates the overall quality of your work.
- 33What do you think you specifically bring to this organisation? Why would you be a good investment?
- 34Which part of your experience is most relevant to the problem this role needs to solve?
10
Introducing yourself to us
There is no register to join. There is a conversation to open well.
We are sometimes asked how to be considered for future mandates. The honest answer is that we do not maintain a searchable database you can enrol in, and nothing you send here creates a stored record you can later log in and edit. What we keep is far simpler: the memory of a clear conversation, held confidentially and returned to when a mandate genuinely calls for it.
How to introduce yourself
Write four or five sentences in your own words. Specific beats comprehensive.
- The work you are responsible for now — scope, scale and the kind of organisation it sits in.
- The direction you are moving in, and why now rather than in two years.
- One or two situations you have actually resolved, stated plainly, with the outcome.
- Where you are based and how far your geography realistically stretches.
- A link to your LinkedIn page if it is current — as a reference, not as an application.
What not to email
- Unsolicited attachments. We may not open unexpected files or unfamiliar links from unknown senders.
- Identification documents, payslips, contracts or financial information.
- Confidential material belonging to your current employer, including candidate lists, strategy papers or figures not in the public domain.
- A CV with an empty covering note — the note is the part we read first.
- The same message sent repeatedly, or to several colleagues at once.
Anything genuinely needed later — a full career history, references, assessment material — is exchanged through an appropriate secure process once contact has been established, and only with your consent.
How future contact is handled
- We read every introduction. We reply to those we can act on, normally within two working days.
- Silence means no current mandate matches, not a judgement on your career.
- We may keep your introduction on file so we can come back to you when a relevant mandate opens. You can ask us to delete it at any time and we will.
- If we approach you later, it will be about a specific role, from a named person, and the first conversation is exploratory and confidential.
- Your name is never passed to a client without your explicit agreement, mandate by mandate.
If you are already in a live process with us, you do not need any of this — write to your contact directly and ask whatever you need to ask.
In summary
An interview is an artificial situation: both sides have a compressed window in which to make a significant decision, and the interviewer may not be especially experienced at asking the questions that would truly reveal your capability.
The most reliable approach is to be direct, honest and specific. If something is unclear, ask for it to be explained. Both sides should leave with a clear enough picture to make the right decision.
© 2026 Kenneth Saxskiold-Nørup · Candidate Interview Preparation Guide · The Taplow Group / Saxskiold.com
Before the interview
Understand the process you are entering.
What happens before, during and after an executive appointment — mandate, research, evaluation, transition and follow-through.
Talk to us
Questions before a conversation?
If you are in a live process with us, ask. Preparation is part of what we owe the candidates we approach.