AI is changing the way we prep for interviews. Tools like ChatGPT, Interview Warmup, and Yoodli are making it easier than ever to get organized, feel confident, and communicate clearly. But here’s the thing: while AI can help you prepare, it shouldn’t be doing the talking for you. So, how do you find the right balance? Here’s how to use AI strategically to stand out in your next interview. 

AI Green Light vs. Red Flag

Decode Job Descriptions

Sometimes job descriptions are packed with buzzwords or vague expectations. AI can help you break them down and highlight what really matters. Try copying the job posting into ChatGPT and asking: 

“Can you help identify the key responsibilities and skills in this job description?” 

It’s a great way to: 

• Spot the most important keywords 

• Understand what the company is really looking for 

• Tailor your talking points and examples to match the role 

Practice, Not Perform

AI can help you brainstorm responses to common questions like “Tell me about yourself” or “What’s your biggest weakness?” Use it to: 

• Structure a STAR response 

• Edit for clarity and brevity 

• Get suggestions for how to explain tricky career transitions or gaps 

• Turn a “failure” into a growth moment 

But once you have the outline, fill it in with your own tone, language, and personality. That’s what will leave a lasting impression. 

Tip: Practice your answers out loud without reading from a screen. You’ll feel more confident and sound more natural.  

Get Personalized Feedback

Not sure if your answer is too long or too vague? AI tools like Yoodli or Google’s Interview Warmup can analyze tone, pacing, and clarity to help you tighten things up. 

Just remember: AI doesn’t know your specific job or industry as well as you do. Add personal context, real examples, and most importantly, you. Hiring managers want to get to know you, not hear a perfect script. 

Prep for Role-Specific Scenarios

AI is great for helping you prep for questions tailored to your specific field. If you’re a data analyst, ask AI to mock up a SQL-related question or help you talk through a past project. If you’re in marketing, have it help you simplify campaign results or ROI. 

Bonus: You can use AI to brush up on industry news, company research, and technical terms you haven’t used in a while. 

Run Mock Interviews

AI can run you through a full mock interview. Ask it to simulate questions based on your role, industry, or level of experience. You can even prompt it to ask follow-ups or give feedback on your answers.  

Try asking AI: 

“Pretend you’re a hiring manager. Ask me five behavioral interview questions for a [job title] and give me feedback after each answer.” 

Practicing in a low-pressure setting helps you refine your answers, catch nervous habits, and build muscle memory. 

Avoid the Technical Question Trap

Let’s say you get asked a question you don’t know how to answer on the spot. It’s tempting to just type it into ChatGPT and give a polished response. But interviewers can tell when your answer sounds too perfect. Instead, try saying something like this: 

“I’m not 100% sure how to solve that off the top of my head, but here’s how I’d approach it…”   

Then walk through your thought process or how you’d find the answer. That shows initiative, humility, and real-world thinking—because no one has the answer to everything, but showing you can figure it out makes all the difference. 

Don’t Over-Automate the Human Connection

This is where a lot of candidates go too far. Reading from a script or sounding overly polished can backfire. Interviews aren’t just about getting the “right” answer—they’re about building trust, showing what you can do, and connecting with the other person. 

Hiring managers want to see how you think, how you speak, and how you relate. If your responses feel too rehearsed, it can come across as inauthentic—even if they’re technically perfect. 

Let AI Help You Reflect and Improve

After an interview, write down what questions you were asked, how you answered, and what you wish you had said differently. Then, ask AI: 

“How could I improve this answer to make it clearer or more confident?” 

Use that feedback to sharpen your responses for your next round or interview. AI can be a great reflection tool—just don’t let it rewrite everything you said during the interview.  

Use AI Strategically But Stay Human

AI can help you level up your interview game. It’s like an editor and coach rolled into one. But in the end, your authenticity is what sets you apart.  

Use AI to practice—not perform. To polish—not exaggerate. To reflect—not replace your voice.  

Because the best candidate in the room isn’t the one with the most perfect answers, it’s the one who knows their story—and tells it like only they can. 

Here at Swoon, our recruiters see hundreds of resumes a day and are aware of what makes a resume stand out to hiring managers. While each company and position are unique, these three resume tips are relevant for any role in any industry.

The Simple Things Matter

It is important to have a clean, crisply designed resume that is easy to skim through. You can make your resume easy to read by choosing a simple, standard font. You may stand out if you choose a unique font, but not in a good way. If someone cannot easily find the keywords they are looking for, your resume will be dismissed.

You also want to remain consistent in your layout. If you are putting a range of dates on your resume and you spell out the months on one position, do not change this and use abbreviated months in a different position. The same thing goes with bolding and italicising If you bold one job title, bold them all.

Grammar and spelling errors can ruin your chances of getting hired from the start. In most cases, your resume is your only chance at a first impression. Make sure you have triple-checked your resume for mistakes. There are online services such as Grammarly that help explain why certain things are incorrect on your document and what you should do to fix them. Also, it never hurts to have another set of human eyes review your page for anything you overlooked.

PRO TIP: It is a myth that resumes must be only one page in length. If you have a large amount of experience to share, it is okay to continue onto more pages, but remember, nobody wants to read a nine-page resume either.

Keywords

It may seem obvious if you are a designer that you know how to use the Adobe Creative Suite. However, no skill should be left out of a resume, especially if it is a program or certification. Many times, hiring managers will do a search function on resumes, typing in keywords to be sure the resume has them listed. Even if you are a great candidate, you may be overlooked if you are not focused on including these common industry keywords. If you are experienced in Adobe, add the specifics. Do you know Adobe Photoshop, or are you only familiar with Adobe Illustrator? The more specific you can be in these cases, the better.

Tailoring your resume to each individual job description is another great tip. Look for keywords in the job description that you have experience with. Then, be sure to format your resume to include these words. A great perk when working with our team at Swoon, is that we do the tailoring for you. We will make sure that your resume is customized for each role we submit you to. As a bonus, you will get a leg-up on the competition, because we know what the individual hiring managers are looking for in each candidate’s profile.

Quantify Your Successes

Although it will take some extra work, quantifying your efforts is a key tip to getting your resume noticed. Instead of including a bullet point that says:

• Created and implemented a social media plan that grew the company following on all platforms

Say:

• Created and implemented a social media plan that grew the company’s Instagram following by 500 followers, Facebook likes by 40% and Twitter followers by 95

Including these numbers shows that you can quantify your work and gives a more accurate story of your success. Be mindful not to include numbers that are insignificant, or do not add value to a statement. You want to highlight your biggest successes in each of your roles, and then mention the day to day functions that can be transferred to the work you would do in the new role you are applying for.

If you are ready to start looking for a job, or simply want to update your current resume, these tips are sure to get you headed in the right direction. As always, we are here to help, so reach out with any questions or apply for one of our open roles today!

Written by: Jessica Henry

You have taken all the right steps to prepare for your interview and you are ready to give it your all. You have written down notes about the company and questions you have for the interviewer, you know the job description like the back of your hand, and you have your suit jacket back from the dry cleaner.

The interview starts off great, and you are nailing the questions the interviewer asks. But then, they ask about your weaknesses. You panic. You wonder, “how am I supposed to answer this without hurting my chances at getting the job? Should I say I don’t have any career-related weaknesses?” Take a deep breath.

There are many ways to talk about your biggest weakness that can actually improve your chances of winning the role rather than hurting them:

1. Be Specific – Don’t throw out a general trait like being lazy or messy. Instead, choose to talk about a software, certification or other skill sets that you have not yet mastered (Excel, foreign language, Adobe Photoshop) and be sure to explain what you are doing to become better at it (online classes, meet-up groups, etc.).
2. Don’t Give an Example Directly Related to the Role – Of course you may not be as good at Excel as you hope to be, but if you are applying for a data analyst role, this would not be a good weakness to bring up as it is a skill you would often use in this job. You want to make sure you do not make the interviewer question your ability to perform the tasks they need this person to do. Instead, focus on something that is still business related but not something that you would be doing daily in the new role.
3. Stay Composed and Focused – Do not let this question throw off your confidence. For some interviewers, the whole point of asking about weaknesses is to see how the candidates react to the question. Remain calm and answer just as you would any other interview question.
4. Don’t be Arrogant – Claiming you don’t have any weaknesses or trying to make a good attribute into a weakness is not a good idea. For example, saying you are a perfectionist or that you are just too well organized may come off as insincere. If you want to focus on something like this, be careful how you phrase it, you might say something like, “Sometimes I am so focused on keeping myself organized and making sure that everything is in its place that I lose sight of the greater goal of a project and the creativity needed to finish it.”

To best prepare your answer to this question, list out your weaknesses ahead of time so that you can choose which weakness is right to discuss at which interview. Interviewing can be a scary and overwhelming process, but it doesn’t have to be. Working with a Swoon recruiter will help you to get your resume recognized, help you prepare for your interviews and the type of questions you will be asked and ultimately easy your interview worries.

With the end of each year comes a list of goals and resolutions for the coming year. Everywhere you go, there is someone talking about what they are going to do differently this year and how they are going to fulfill new goals. In the spirit of the new year, we have compiled a list of advice and tips on job searching from some of our top Swoon recruiters. So, for all of you who have “get hired” on the top of your resolutions list, read on:

1. “When looking for a job, I believe the culture, opportunity for personal and career growth, vacation time, and volunteer initiatives the company pursues should outweigh your salary. Yes, you should make enough to cover your monthly expenses and enjoy life, but when a company takes care of you, your performance and overall health, that’s priceless.”
   Kelly, Professional Recruiter
2. “Do your research. Check out the company website and research the people you will be speaking to. Take notes and come prepared with at least 3-5 questions to ask.”
   Sara, Director of Recruiting
3. “The biggest piece of advice I can give to job seekers is to be communicative. Open and honest communication about what you are really looking for in your next position, what is going to make you happy, where you are in your job search, etc., will be the most helpful to your recruiter and those helping you land your next gig. We promise to always do the same!”
   Lisa, Recruiting Lead, Major Accounts
4. “When looking to make an employment change, I always tell the candidate it’s important to research a company but even more important to research what your role will be in that company. If you do not know how this opportunity will play out over your career, you may limit future advancement. More importantly, don’t be afraid to ask questions about job duties in interviews. You want to come out of the process feeling that this opportunity is the one!”
   Jim, Lead Technical Recruiter
5. “Referrals increase your chances of landing a job, so don’t forget about the network you’ve spent years creating. You never know who could help you along the way, so put in the effort to spread the word that you are job searching and be sure to let your recruiter know you’re actively looking for a job.”
   Ryan, Major Accounts Support Specialist
6. “Focus more on hard technical skills than soft skills and be able to speak about your specific job duties for each of the roles on your resume. Also, don’t be afraid to call the recruiter or HR department to follow up on your status.”
   Anna, Recruiter

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