The Career Move: How to Use AI to Prepare for Interviews (And Why 99.9% of People Aren’t Utilizing It’s Full Power)

*Welcome to “The Career Move”: A new series of blog posts with a special emphasis on actionable advice to help modern day job seekers find and land work they love in a highly competitive job hunting environment*

The air conditioning was doing that thing where it kicks on too hard and then goes silent, and in the silence I could hear her scrolling. Thumb on glass. She was pulling up the rejection email on her phone, tilting the screen toward me like I needed to see the evidence with my own eyes.

Third interview. Third rejection. Two months.

And here's the part that made it sting: she was perfect for this role. 12 years of project management. PMP certified. She'd led cross-functional teams of 40+ people through product launches that generated real revenue. This wasn't someone hoping to get lucky. She was exactly who they were looking for.

I leaned forward. "Walk me through how you prepared."

She'd Googled "common project management interview questions." Read a couple of articles. Practiced her "tell me about yourself" answer in the car on the drive over. That was the extent of it.

I didn't say anything for a second. Because I recognized it. I'd done the exact same thing early in my career, walking into interviews for roles I was genuinely qualified for, armed with nothing but confidence and a vague sense that I'd figure it out in the moment. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I sat in my car afterward replaying the question I'd fumbled, knowing I had a great answer, knowing I just couldn't find it under pressure.

I've been on both sides of that interview table for over 15 years. I've hired people. I've passed on people who were probably better than the person I picked, because the person I picked showed up more prepared. I've watched brilliant candidates fall apart and average candidates absolutely nail it. The difference almost never comes down to talent.

It comes down to preparation.

And right now, the most powerful interview preparation tool in human history is sitting on your phone. Most people are using it to ask what to have for dinner.

As a life and career coach in Phoenix, I now build AI-powered interview prep into every single client engagement. It's not a nice-to-have. It's the baseline. And I'm going to give you the exact playbook.

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Why Most People Are Terrible at Interview Prep

I'm going to tell it to you how it is.

Most candidates treat interview prep like cramming for a test they haven't studied for. They Google "top 50 interview questions." They skim a listicle that was written in 2019. They rehearse two answers in the shower and walk in hoping for the best.

That's not preparation. That's wishful thinking wearing a blazer.

Here's what nobody tells you: the hiring manager sitting across from you has very specific concerns about a very specific role. They've written or reviewed that job description line by line. They know exactly where the last person in this seat fell short. They've got 3-5 things they're trying to figure out about you, and those things are woven into every single question they ask.

Generic prep for a specific conversation is a losing strategy. Full stop. It's like studying the wrong textbook for a final exam. You might get lucky. But luck isn't a career strategy.

When clients come to me and say their confidence is shot, 9 times out of 10 the real problem isn't confidence. It's preparation. Those two things get confused all the time. Confidence doesn't come from a pep talk or a deep breath in the parking lot. It comes from walking into that room knowing you've done the work. You've anticipated the hard questions. You've got stories loaded up. You know where your resume might raise an eyebrow and you've already rehearsed that conversation.

Job hunting is a full-contact sport. You don't show up to a game without studying the opponent's film. And the irony? The tool that lets you study film better than any generation of job seekers in history is free, available right now, and most people are pretending it doesn't exist.

The AI Interview Prep Playbook: 4 Steps to Walk in Sharper Than 95% of Candidates

Here's the exact framework I use with my coaching clients in Phoenix and Scottsdale. Every step is free. Every step takes minutes, not hours. And by the end, you'll be more prepared than almost every other person interviewing for that same role.

I'm not being dramatic. I've watched this play out dozens of times.

Step 1: Feed It the Job Description

Open Claude, ChatGPT, or your AI tool of choice. Copy the entire job description, every word, and paste it in. Then type something like: "Based on this job description, give me 15-20 interview questions across these categories: technical, behavioral, scenario-based, and role-specific."

One prompt. That's it. And what comes back will change how you think about preparation forever.

The AI reads that job description the way a hiring manager does. It catches the repeated themes, the specific competencies, the language patterns that signal what this company actually cares about versus what's just filler. When I was running sales and operations teams at startups, I built my interview questions directly from the JD. Every time. I'd highlight the phrases that showed up twice and build questions around them. The AI does exactly what I used to do. It just does it in 30 seconds.

You'll get questions you never would've thought to prepare for. That's the whole point.

Step 2: Go Deeper by Category

Most people stop after that first pass. Don't be most people.

Run separate prompts for each skill, technology, or competency mentioned in the JD. Get technical questions for every tool or platform listed. Behavioral questions around leadership, conflict, failure, adaptability. Scenario-based questions specific to the company's industry. Functional questions about the actual day-to-day of the role.

15 minutes. That's all it takes. You'll have 50-80 targeted questions custom-built for the exact position you're interviewing for. Not recycled questions from a generic career website. Questions that sound like they came from the hiring manager's notebook. Because functionally, they did.

I think of this as the Kaizen approach to interview prep. Small, continuous improvement. You're not trying to move a mountain. You're stacking advantages, one category at a time. 1% better with each pass. And those percentages compound into something that feels, from the interviewer's side of the table, like a completely different caliber of candidate.

Step 3: Stress-Test Your Resume

This is the step most people skip. It's also the most important one.

Upload your resume alongside the job description. Then ask: "If you were the hiring manager for this role, what would you question, challenge, or drill into about this resume?"

Sit with what comes back. Career transitions that need context. Gaps that need a clear explanation. Achievements that sound impressive but lack specifics. Areas where your experience doesn't quite align with the requirements. The AI will surface the gaps you've been hoping nobody notices.

Then go one level deeper. Ask: "What are the weakest parts of this resume for this specific role?"

That question takes guts to ask. But here's the thing: most candidates prepare for the questions they want to be asked. Smart candidates prepare for the questions they're afraid of. That's not pessimism. That's strategy.

It's the Kaizen principle applied to honest self-assessment. The AI does it without the emotional attachment that makes it nearly impossible to see your own blind spots. Your best friend will read your resume and say, "Looks great!" The AI will tell you that your third bullet point under your last job doesn't actually say anything. And it'll be right.

Step 4: Run a Mock Interview

Now give the AI both the job description and your resume. Tell it: "Play the role of a tough hiring manager for this position. Ask me questions one at a time. Follow up when my answers are vague. Rate each response 1-10 and tell me exactly what was missing."

Then actually answer. Out loud, ideally. Type it out at minimum.

30 minutes of this. That's all you need.

Here's the difference between practicing with AI and practicing with a friend: your friend nods and says, "Yeah, that sounded good." The AI says, "Your answer was 6 out of 10. You described the situation and the result but didn't explain your specific role in the decision-making process. Try again with more focus on what YOU did."

That's Radical Candor from a machine. It doesn't care about your feelings. It cares about making your answer better. And honestly? That's what a good coach does too. The difference is the AI doesn't charge by the hour and it's available at 11 PM on a Tuesday when your interview is Wednesday morning.

The Secret Weapon Most People Don't Know About: Google's NotebookLM

Everything I just described works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, any of the major AI tools. But there's one tool that almost nobody is talking about for interview prep. And it might be the most powerful one of all.

Google's NotebookLM is free. It's different from every other AI tool on the market. And the difference matters.

Here's why: NotebookLM only works with the sources you upload. It doesn't pull from the open internet. It doesn't mix in training data. It doesn't make things up based on patterns from a billion web pages. Every single answer it gives you is grounded in exactly what you've fed it, with citations you can click and verify. Think of it as a research assistant who's carefully read everything you've handed them and absolutely nothing else.

For interview prep, that constraint is actually a superpower.

The NotebookLM Interview Prep Workflow

Here's exactly how I walk my coaching clients through it:

Create a new notebook for the company and role you're targeting. Then upload everything you can get your hands on. The job description. Your resume. The company's About page. Recent press releases or earnings calls. LinkedIn profiles of your interviewers, if you know who they are. Glassdoor reviews from people who've interviewed there. Industry articles about the challenges facing their market.

Now you've got a research assistant that's absorbed all of it. Ask NotebookLM to analyze where your experience overlaps with what the role requires. Ask it to build you a study guide with key themes and likely questions. Use the mind map feature to see how your skills map to the company's needs, visually, in a way that makes connections you might not have seen on your own.

But here's the feature that changes everything.

The Audio Overview: Your Personal Interview Prep Podcast

NotebookLM can take everything you've uploaded and generate a 10-15 minute podcast-style audio conversation. Two AI hosts, talking about your materials. They make connections between your background and the role. They highlight themes you should be ready to discuss. They surface potential concerns a hiring manager might have. And they do it in a conversational, easy-to-absorb format.

Read that again. You upload the job description, your resume, and your company research. NotebookLM creates a podcast where two people discuss why you're a strong fit, where the gaps are, and what this company seems to care about most. You download it. You listen to it on your commute to the interview.

You walk in with context, confidence, and a clarity that the other candidates simply don't have. Free. Downloadable. Available in 50+ languages.

I had a client here in the Phoenix-Scottsdale area, a senior operations leader going after a VP role at a fast-growing tech company. She was qualified on paper. But the company had very specific challenges around scaling their fulfillment infrastructure, and she wasn't sure how to connect her experience to their exact situation. We uploaded everything into NotebookLM. She listened to the audio overview three times. On the third listen, she told me, "I finally hear my own story the way they need to hear it. I know exactly how to frame every answer now."

She got the offer.

I'm not going to pretend NotebookLM got her that job. She got herself the job. But the tool gave her a level of preparation that made her confidence real, not performed. There's a massive difference between walking into an interview hoping you'll sound smart and walking in knowing you've already connected every dot.

The Hard Truth: What NOT to Do with AI Interview Prep

I need to be straight with you about this part. Because the same tools that can make you a killer candidate can also torpedo your career if you use them wrong. I've seen it happen.

Don't memorize scripted AI answers. Hiring managers have sat across from hundreds of candidates. They can hear the difference between someone speaking from experience and someone reciting a well-crafted paragraph. It sounds polished and it sounds hollow. The AI should sharpen your thinking, not replace it. Understand the concepts, then put them in your own words.

Don't use AI during a live interview. I shouldn't have to say this, but I do, because people are doing it. The unnatural pauses give it away. The eye movement gives it away. And when you get caught, and you will get caught, the interview is over. Your candidacy is over. Your reputation at that company is over. Permanently. It's not worth it. Not even close.

Don't skip the human element. AI gets you prepared. YOU have to perform. Eye contact. Energy. The ability to read the room when the interviewer leans forward versus leans back. The warmth in your voice when you talk about work you actually care about. Connection. Presence. No AI on earth can replicate that. That part is still entirely your job.

Use AI to prepare. Use your brain to perform. The antidote to interview anxiety isn't more positive self-talk in the mirror. It's taking action. Concrete, specific action. AI gives you the plan. But you still have to walk into that room and be you. Not a scripted version of you. The prepared, confident, fully alive, authentic version of you.

Where a Career Coach Fits Into the AI Equation

Let me address the elephant in the room. If AI can generate 80 interview questions in 15 minutes and run a mock interview at 11 PM on a Tuesday, why would anyone hire a career coach?

It's a fair question. Here's my honest answer.

AI gives you the questions. A coach helps you figure out the answers that are authentic to who you actually are. AI can tell you your answer was vague. A coach can help you understand why you're being vague. What story you're avoiding telling. What strength you keep underselling because somewhere along the way, you decided it wasn't that impressive.

As a life and career coach in Phoenix, I bring the layer that AI can't touch. I'm watching your body language during a mock interview and noticing you cross your arms every time we talk about leadership. I'm hearing the hesitation in your voice when you mention a career gap, and I'm not going to let you gloss over it with a rehearsed transition line. I'm the person who sits across from you and says, with kindness and total honesty, "I think you're preparing for the wrong job."

My coaching framework has four pillars: Discover, Stabilize, Strategize, Execute. AI is phenomenal in the Strategize and Execute phases. I use it with most clients in various capacities. But AI can't do the Discover work. It can't help you figure out whether this career path actually aligns with your strengths and your values. It can't sit with you while you unpack why the Sunday Scaries hit every single week and help you figure out if that's about the job, the industry, or something deeper you've been avoiding.

It doesn't know you had a panic attack before your last interview. It doesn't know you're chasing VP titles because your dad told you that's what success looks like. It doesn't know you.

I do.

I'm not threatened by AI. I use it every day. I actually coach my clients how to become irreplaceable with AI. But AI is a tool, not a coach.

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Your One Next Step

Here's what I want you to do today. Not tomorrow. Not "when things slow down." Today.

Open Claude, ChatGPT, or NotebookLM. Pull up the job description for the role you're most excited about. Paste it in. Ask for 15 interview questions. That's it. Just see what comes back. Five minutes.

I promise you'll look at that list and think, "I would not have been ready for half of these." That realization isn't failure. It's the exact moment where real preparation begins. And real preparation is what separates the person who gets the offer from the person who gets the email.

And if you want someone in your corner who's been on both sides of that interview table for 15+ years, who uses these tools every day and knows exactly where the human work begins, let's talk.

Schedule a free 60-minute coaching consultation. No obligation. No pitch. Just an honest conversation about where you are and where you want to be.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can AI help me prepare for a job interview?

AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Google's NotebookLM can analyze a job description and generate targeted interview questions you'd never think to prepare for. You can paste in the full JD and get 15-20 custom questions across technical, behavioral, and scenario-based categories in under a minute. You can also upload your resume and have the AI identify gaps, weak spots, and likely follow-up questions. It's like having a hiring manager preview your candidacy before you walk in the door.

Is it cheating to use AI to prepare for interviews?

Not even close. Using AI to prepare is no different from researching the company, practicing with a friend, or reading a book on interview strategy. You're building your knowledge and sharpening your answers ahead of time. That's just smart preparation. The line is clear: using AI before the interview to get ready is strategic. Using AI during the interview to generate answers in real time is dishonest, and hiring managers can spot it. Prepare with it. Don't perform with it.

What is NotebookLM and how does it work for interview prep?

NotebookLM is a free AI tool from Google that only works with the sources you upload. Unlike ChatGPT or Claude, it doesn't pull from the open internet or make things up. You create a notebook, upload the job description, your resume, company research, and interviewer LinkedIn profiles, and it gives you grounded insights with clickable citations. The standout feature is the Audio Overview: a 10-15 minute AI-generated podcast where two hosts discuss your fit for the role, surface likely questions, and flag potential concerns. You can listen to it on your commute to the interview.

What's the best AI tool for interview preparation?

It depends on what you need. ChatGPT and Claude are excellent for generating custom interview questions, stress-testing your resume, and running mock interviews with real-time feedback. NotebookLM is best for deep research when you want to cross-reference multiple sources without the AI inventing anything. The smartest approach is to use them together: ChatGPT or Claude for question generation and mock interviews, NotebookLM for source-grounded company research and its audio overview feature. All of them are free for basic use.

How do I practice for an interview using AI?

Give the AI both the job description and your resume. Then ask it to play the role of a tough hiring manager and ask you questions one at a time, following up when your answers are vague. Tell it to rate each response on a 1-10 scale and explain what was missing. Then answer out loud or type your responses. 30 minutes of this kind of deliberate practice will prepare you better than hours of passive Googling. The AI gives you honest, specific feedback without the social pressure that makes friends and family say "that sounded great" when it didn't.

Should I hire a career coach or just use AI for interview prep?

AI gives you the questions. A career coach helps you figure out the answers that are authentically yours. AI can tell you your answer was vague. A coach helps you understand why you're being vague, what story you're avoiding, and what strength you keep underselling. The best approach is both: use AI tools for question generation, resume stress-testing, and company research, then work with a coach on the deeper stuff like confidence, career clarity, and the personal narrative that makes you memorable. AI is a tool. A coach is a partner.

How long does it take to prepare for an interview with AI?

Using the framework I teach my coaching clients in Phoenix, you can complete a thorough AI-powered interview prep in about 60-90 minutes total. That breaks down to roughly 15 minutes generating custom questions from the job description, 15 minutes stress-testing your resume against the role, and 30 minutes running a mock interview with AI feedback. If you add NotebookLM's audio overview, that's another 15 minutes of passive listening you can do on your commute. Compare that to the old way of Googling generic questions for two hours and hoping for the best.

Can AI help me if I'm changing careers?

Absolutely. Career changers benefit from AI interview prep even more than people staying in their lane. Upload your resume alongside the new role's job description and ask the AI to identify exactly where your experience translates and where the gaps are. Then ask it to help you frame transferable skills in the language of your target industry. NotebookLM is especially powerful here because you can upload industry articles, company pages, and the JD together and get a clear map of how your background connects to what they need. You'll walk in sounding like someone who's done their homework, not someone who's winging a career pivot.

I’m Jeff Rothenberg, a personal growth and career coach helping people turn uncertainty into confidence and clarity. Whether you’re rebuilding after change, exploring your next career move, or simply ready to grow, I’ll help you create momentum that lasts.