You're Preparing for the Wrong Interview
Stop researching only the company. Research the interviewer and align your stories to what they care about.
You're researching the company.
Every other candidate is also researching the company.
You're practicing common interview questions.
Every other candidate is also practicing common interview questions.
You're polishing your STAR stories.
Every other candidate is also polishing their STAR stories.
Your interviewer has opinions. Strong ones. About what makes someone good at this job. About red flags. About what impresses them and what annoys them.
These opinions aren't secret. They're on LinkedIn. In their talks. In the people they've hired before. In how they describe their own work.
But you haven't looked. Because no one told you to look.
Here's what I did when I was a hiring manager:
I tried to be objective. I wasn't. I pattern-matched against colleagues who embodied the specific hiring principles I knew led to high-impact work. I got nervous about philosophical mismatches, not just technical ones. I got excited when candidates demonstrated they valued the same trade-offs and working styles that I believed were critical for success.
Every interviewer does this. We're human.
The cheat code is embarrassingly simple:
Spend 30 minutes reading everything your interviewer has posted publicly. Look for patterns. What do they value? What do they avoid? What words do they use over and over?
Then tell stories that resonate with those values. Use their language. Signal that you see the world the way they see it.
This isn't manipulation. It's paying attention. It's treating your interviewer like a person with preferences instead of a faceless evaluation machine.
Research the interviewer. Not the company.
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