A strong interview is not the same thing as giving perfect answers.

In fact, some of the most convincing candidates I have interviewed were not the most polished.

What they did well was much more important:

They helped me understand how they think, what they had actually done, what they had learned, and why the opportunity made sense for them.

When I interview someone, I am rarely looking for a rehearsed performance. I am trying to build a reliable picture of the person behind the CV.

Here are some of the things I pay particular attention to.

1. Can you explain your experience clearly?

If I ask about your current role, I want to understand it without having to translate internal company terminology.

What are you responsible for?

What is the scale?

Where do you personally contribute?

What sits with your manager or your team?

Who are your stakeholders?

A common interview problem is answering at one of two extremes.

Either the candidate gives almost no detail:

“I manage projects and work with stakeholders.”

Or I receive a ten-minute explanation containing every process, acronym and internal structure.

Good communication sits in the middle.

Enough context to understand the situation.

Enough detail to establish credibility.

Enough judgement to know what can be left out.

2. Do your examples show what you did?

Teamwork matters. But interviews are also assessing your individual contribution.

Candidates often say:

“We decided...”

“We implemented...”

“We improved...”

“We delivered...”

My next question is usually:

What was your role in that?

You do not need to pretend you achieved everything alone. You do need to make your contribution visible.

3. Can you distinguish responsibility from impact?

If you tell me you were responsible for onboarding, recruitment, project delivery or client management, I understand your remit.

I still do not know how good you were at it.

Strong answers usually contain some evidence of:

scale;
complexity;
improvement;
decision-making;
obstacles;
outcomes.

Again, not everything needs a percentage.

Sometimes the most useful evidence is simply understanding the difficulty of the situation and what you did about it.

4. Do you understand why you made your career decisions?

I often ask candidates why they moved from one role to another.

I am not looking for a perfect career plan that existed from the age of 22. Careers are rarely that neat.

I am looking for self-awareness.

Why did you join?

Why did you leave?

What did you learn?

Why does this move make sense now?

A candidate who can explain their decisions calmly and thoughtfully usually creates more confidence than someone trying to make every move sound strategically perfect.

5. How do you talk about difficult experiences?

Perhaps you had a difficult manager. Perhaps the company was badly run. Perhaps you were made redundant. Perhaps a role was simply a poor fit.

These things happen.

What matters in interview is how you discuss them.

I pay attention to whether the candidate can explain a difficult situation without becoming defensive, bitter or evasive. You do not need to pretend every experience was wonderful. But professionalism matters.

6. Do you answer the question I actually asked?

This sounds basic. It is not.

Some candidates are so focused on delivering prepared answers that they stop listening.

If I ask:

“Tell me about a time you changed someone's mind”

and you give me an excellent example of managing a deadline, the answer may be impressive but it still does not answer the question.

Interview preparation should therefore involve more than memorising examples. It should develop your ability to:

listen;
identify what is really being assessed;
choose the right example;
structure it;
answer directly.

7. Are you credible about your weaknesses?

I do not expect a candidate to be strong in everything. In fact, candidates who claim they are tend to worry me more.

If you lack experience in one area, tell me. Then help me understand:

what related experience you do have;
how quickly you have learned similar things before;
what you are doing to close the gap;
why you still believe you can succeed in the role.

Credibility is stronger than perfection.

8. Do you understand the job you are interviewing for?

I am always surprised by candidates who prepare extensively to talk about themselves but very little to talk about the role.

A strong candidate has usually thought about:

what the company needs;
what the role is likely to involve;
where the challenges may be;
how their experience connects;
what they would need to learn.

They may not know everything. They are not expected to.

But there should be evidence that they have considered the opportunity seriously.

9. Why do you actually want this role?

Answers such as:

“I am looking for a new challenge.”

“Your company is very innovative.”

do not tell me much.

What specifically interests you?

Is it the problem?

The industry?

The scope?

The team?

The stage of the company?

The opportunity to use a particular part of your experience?

The more specific the answer, the more credible the motivation usually feels.

10. What questions do you ask me?

The questions a candidate asks can tell me a great deal.

Good questions often reveal what the person values and how they think.

They might ask about:

what success looks like;
priorities in the first six months;
team dynamics;
decision-making;
current challenges;
expectations of the role;
why the position is open;
how performance is assessed.

Questions are not simply the polite final stage of an interview. They are part of the interview.

What makes an interview convincing?

For me, it is usually a combination of:

clarity + evidence + judgement + relevance + credibility.

You do not need theatrical confidence.

You do not need to memorise a perfect answer to every possible question.

You need to understand your own experience well enough to select the right evidence and communicate it clearly.

That is what good interview preparation should help you do.

What I Look for When I Interview a Candidate