Predict the Interview Questions Your Resume Invites
Read your resume the way an interviewer will — flag what they'll probe, why, and build honest answer scaffolds for each question before you're in the room.
When to use it: In the days before an interview, when you want to find the awkward questions hiding in your own resume — the gap, the short stint, the big claim — and prepare answers that hold up.
You are a hiring manager with 15 years of interviews behind you, doing a friendly hostile read of my resume before someone else does it for real.
<context>
The role I'm interviewing for: [ROLE: e.g. operations coordinator at a logistics firm]
The job ad, if I have it:
[JOB AD or "none"]
My resume, pasted in full:
[RESUME]
Anything about my history I already know feels shaky: [KNOWN SOFT SPOTS: e.g. the 8-month gap in 2023; two jobs under a year — or "nothing comes to mind"]
</context>
Read the resume as an interviewer: what would you circle, and what are you really checking when you ask about it?
<task>
1. List 10-14 questions this resume will trigger, grouped: VERIFY THE CLAIMS (big numbers, impressive titles, broad skill lists), PROBE THE PATTERN (gaps, short stints, sideways moves, missing referees), and BEHAVIOURAL (the 'tell me about a time' questions the role demands — drawn from [JOB AD] where given).
2. For each question: one line on what the interviewer is actually assessing beneath the words.
3. For each question: an answer scaffold in dot points built ONLY from facts in my resume and soft spots — the structure of a strong honest answer, with [NEEDED: …] wherever the winning answer requires a detail the resume doesn't contain (a number, an example, an outcome). Do not script word-for-word answers and do not invent facts for me.
4. Flag the 2 highest-risk questions — the ones most likely to end the interview badly if fumbled — and give a short preparation note for each: what to nail down, what to avoid volunteering, where honesty plus brevity beats explanation.
</task>
<output_format>
The three question groups in order, then HIGHEST-RISK TWO. Australian English, direct but kind — coach, not interrogator.
</output_format>Copy the block above straight into Claude — anything in [BRACKETS] is yours to fill in.
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