Everything You Need to Prepare for Your Next Job Interview

You scored an interview for your dream technical job — get excited! As you imagine what your future could look like and how you’ll give notice at your current job, your mind might also be spinning a tapestry of worst-case scenarios. You sleep through your alarm. Show up to the interview with no pants on. Realize you had a goofy filter on for the whole video call.  

These situations sound outlandish, but when stakes and nerves are high, you want to feel completely prepared. Now with our Interview Simulator, you can practice what you’d actually do or say in the moment.  

This AI-powered tool generates questions that a recruiter or hiring manager would ask for Front-End, Back-End, and Full-Stack Developer job interviews. You can personalize it based on the type of company you want to work for, your level, and the interview stage (like a phone screener, and soon, a technical interview and final round).  

With mock interviews under your belt, you can feel confident that you’ve got this interview under control — well, so long as you remember to set your alarm. Read on to learn how mock interviews work, what to prepare, and how to start using our Interview Simulator tool that’s currently in beta.  

What is a mock interview 

A mock interview is essentially a practice session that simulates a real job interview experience. The point of a mock interview is to prepare for an actual job interview by rehearsing responses to common interview questions, getting feedback on your performance, and improving your interviewing skills.  

Before generative AI, you might do a mock interview IRL and have a friend, trusted colleague, mentor, or career counselor play the part of “interviewer.” We built our new Interview Simulator so you can practice mock interviews on your own. If you’re switching careers and have never interviewed for technical roles, the Interview Simulator can introduce you to the content and format of a tech job interview. Or if you find yourself back in the job market unexpectedly, mock interviews can help you strengthen your interview muscle and refine the story you want to tell about your career.   

How to prepare for a mock interview 

You can start using the Interview Simulator in beta now, and we’ll explain how to do it in the next section. Here are a few things you should do to prepare for this type of mock interview: 

Research the company and position: Familiarize yourself with the company’s mission, leadership, offerings, and competitors. Do a quick search to see if there’s any recent news about the organization or industry trends that you can mention during the interview. Also re-read the job description to make sure you understand the requirements and come prepared with your own questions to ask. 

Review common interview questions: Come to the mock interview with an understanding of the types of interview questions you might be asked. On the blog, we have tons of lists of common interview questions (and answers) for popular technical roles and programming languages, like this list of Front-End Developer questions, DevOps interview questions, and Angular interview questions. Read up, that way you’ll be even more prepared to ace your mock interview. 

Take it seriously: Treat this mock interview like it’s real. Put yourself in a professional mindset, reflect on what you want to convey, sit at your desk, and maybe even choose an outfit that you would wear for an interview (no one can see you in our Interview Simulator, but dressing the part can help you get in the zone). Update your resume with your latest achievements and refresh your LinkedIn and GitHub profiles. 

How to use our AI-powered Interview Simulator 

All you need to start using the Interview Simulator is a free Codecademy account. If you want full access to the Interview Simulator so you can use it up to five times a day, upgrade to a Pro or Plus plan.  

You can find the Interview Simulator on three career paths: Front-End Engineer, Back-End Engineer, and Full-Stack Engineer. Just click “Try out interviewing” to get to the Interview Simulator. You can also access the Interview Simulator and explore more job-search tools in our Career Center.

Your first step is to build out an interview by selecting the job title, level, company type, and scenario. For example, say it’s a phone screening for an entry-level Front-End Developer role at a startup.  

Next, feed the Interview Simulator some details about your work and volunteer experience. This can include past jobs that are unrelated to tech where you learned transferrable skills, open-source projects you’re involved with, hackathons you participated in, and Codecademy chapters you joined. We know how hard it is to gauge if you have “enough” relevant experience for a job, so don’t sell yourself short.  

Now you’ll get set up with the AI-powered “recruiter” that will start to ask you questions just like a real interview. The AI might ask you an icebreaker question, like introduce yourself or share a bit about why you’re interested in this position, before jumping into more specific questions tailored to your experience.   

It’s your turn to type or speak your responses using the microphone icon next to the chatbot and see where things go! At the end, we’ll give you useful feedback about what you did well and identify areas where you could improve. 

Good to know: Pro members are currently limited to five interview simulations per day. The questions you get won’t always be the same, but you can return to your saved interviews so you can re-read what you said during a specific round.  

5 more tools to help you land a job  

Did you know we have lots of other tools like this that can help you with all aspects of the job search? Read more on the blog, and upgrade to Codecademy Pro to get full access to the features listed below. 

Job-readiness checker: Add a LinkedIn or ZipRecruiter job listing and the job-readiness checker will analyze your resume and learning progress to come up with a compatibility score. Keep in mind, it’s just an estimate and doesn’t consider things like your stellar soft skills or networking connections. 

Career paths: Start from the beginning and learn the skills and languages you need to get a tech job, like Front-End Engineer, iOS Developer, Data Scientist, and more. You’ll also gain useful experience working on projects that you can include in a professional portfolio.  

Professional certifications: You can earn professional certifications when you pass all the exams in select career paths. These certificates are proof that you’ve mastered all the information in a specific domain — display them proudly on your LinkedIn, portfolio site, or in your office. 

With Codecademy Pro, you can earn professional certifications that show you’ve mastered a career domain and are ready to get hired.

Interview prep courses: There are specific courses and skill paths that get you ready for the technical portion of a job interview. Browse the options to find one that fits your goals, like Pass the Technical Interview with Python or Cybersecurity Analyst Interview Prep.  

Code challenges: Brush up on your coding skills with one-off code challenges. They’re based on actual technical interview questions at top tech companies, but you can also just do them for fun to practice.  

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