Interview Preparation Pack — STAR Builder, 60 Questions Decoded, Salary Scripts
An interview is not a test of whether you are good at the job. It is a test of whether a stranger can imagine you doing it. Those are different things, and the second one is mostly preparation — which is the part you control.
Almost every behavioural question is one of eight stories asked in a different way. Write them once, properly, and you stop inventing answers under pressure in a room where you are already nervous. About two hours of work, once.
What is in it
- STAR answer builder (.docx) — your eight core stories, with situation, task, action and result prompted line by line and ruled space to write. The eight: something difficult you delivered, something that went wrong, disagreeing with someone senior, learning fast, improving a process, a difficult person or client, too much to do, and something nobody noticed.
- The question bank (.pdf) — sixty questions in six groups, each with what the question is actually asking in the right-hand column: opening questions, behavioural, role and skill, gaps and awkward ground, money and terms, and the closing five minutes.
- Interview day checklist (.pdf) — the day before, the hour before, what to do in the room, and the twenty-four hours after, including the two things almost nobody does.
- Start Here guide (.pdf) — the two-hour method in order, the five questions to ask them, and the salary conversation written out as sentences you can actually say.
Eight stories, not sixty answers
Five or six well-built stories cover about twenty questions, because the same story answers “tell me about a conflict” and “tell me about persuading someone” and “tell me about a time you were wrong”. The builder maps each story to the questions it can carry, so you rehearse the story rather than memorising a script.
The salary part written out
Most packs tell you to “be confident about your worth” and stop there. This one gives you the sentences: what to say when they ask your current salary, what to say when they ask your expectation first, and how to hold a number without ending the conversation.
What you need
One editable Word file and three PDFs to read or print. Microsoft Word, Google Docs, Pages or LibreOffice.
Four files, on your Downloads page the moment you buy. Buy it on Etsy — $9
Sold through my Etsy shop, ThePlainLedger, so the download, the payment and the buyer protection are all handled by Etsy.
Would you rather I rewrote it for you?
This is the pack you work through yourself. If you would rather hand the whole thing over, the ATS Resume Rewrite is made to order and comes back within 48 hours.
The other resume and CV templates are on the ATS Resume & CV Templates page.