How to Prepare So Your Judgment Is Visible

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Introduction | Let’s Be Honest About What Interviews Really Are. READ ME ↴

If you are reading this, you are probably preparing for something that matters to you. Maybe it is a role you really want. Maybe it is a stretch opportunity. Maybe it is simply the next step.

And if you are like most people, your instinct might be to start rehearsing answers. To polish your resume. To scroll through common interview questions and try to memorise strong sounding responses. That is understandable. It also misses the point.

Interviews are not memory tests. They are not charisma competitions. They are not tests of how well you can recite your achievements.

They are judgment tests.

Every interviewer, consciously or not, is asking themselves a quieter question. Can this person make good decisions here? Under our constraints. With our pressures. Inside our environment.

Your job in preparation is not to sound impressive. It is to make your judgment visible.

This guide exists to help you do that. You can come back to it whenever you are preparing for an interview, regardless of your role or level. Think of it less as a script and more as a way of thinking. A system you can return to whenever the stakes are high.

We will move through it in parts. Each part can stand alone. But together, they form a deliberate approach.

Quick access:

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Part 1 | Before You Prepare Answers, Understand the Arena

One of the biggest mistakes people make is preparing in isolation. They build strong stories about themselves without first understanding where they are walking into.

Preparation should feel more like strategy than studying.

Before refining a single answer, pause and ask yourself:

• what kind of company is this?
• what stage are they in?
• what pressures are they likely feeling right now?
• what questions (read how to ask better questions guide here) do I have for them? Are they a good fit for me?

A startup fighting for product market fit lives in a different reality than an enterprise managing regulatory risk. A scaling company feels different from a stabilising one. The same behaviour that looks decisive in one context can look reckless in another.

You are not just preparing for an interview. You are preparing for this interview.

So look deeper than surface facts. Yes, read their website.

• But also look at recent product launches.
• Funding announcements.
• Leadership interviews.
• Job descriptions across the team.
• Listen for patterns by reading their blogs (engineering and others) as well as investor reports.
• Are they talking about growth? Efficiency? Alignment? Transformation?