Interview Preparation: Practice Sessions and the Q&A Document

preparAItor gives you two complementary ways to prepare for a real interview: a static Interview Q&A document generated alongside your application documents, and the Interview Practice page, where an AI runs a full mock interview with you — typed or spoken — and scores your performance afterwards. This guide walks you through both, how they differ, and how to use them together.

Before You Start

Prerequisites

• An uploaded, parsed CV (Upload your CV)
• A saved job in the app (Add job details)
• For the live sessions: the Interview Practice page in the app's main navigation

The Two Preparation Channels at a Glance

Interview Q&A document

• Format: Static document (PDF, editable DOCX and TXT — all included for everyone)
• Delivered via: Normal document generation, together with your cover letter and email
• Availability: Everyone — it's part of the standard five-document package
• Output: A gap analysis of your CV against the job, plus 17 tailored questions with talking points and sample answers

Interview Practice live sessions

• Format: Real-time chat — answer by typing or speaking
• Delivered via: The dedicated Interview Practice page
• Availability: Every account gets one free session — you pick the mode. After that, a session costs 150 credits.
• Output: Full mock interview plus an AI-scored Session Summary

Channel A: The Interview Q&A Document

What It Is

When you generate application documents, you can include an Interview Q&A document in the output. It opens with a gap analysis: the job's key requirements listed next to your strongest evidence from the CV, each rated strong, partial, or gap — so you see at a glance where you're safe and where an interviewer will dig. Then come exactly 17 questions tailored to the specific job and your CV, each with:

• A why-likely note — one line on why this question is probable for this role and company
• 3 to 5 key points — the talking points you actually rehearse
• A spoken sample answer — around 45 to 60 seconds out loud, built from your real CV evidence

Question Structure

The 17 questions come in three blocks:

• 12 high-probability questions across motivation, company & culture fit, experience & skills, technical, behavioral, and situational topics — weighted toward what this interviewer is most likely to ask, not spread evenly for symmetry
• 4 pressure questions aimed at your biggest gaps from the analysis — asked the way a skeptical interviewer would, each with the likely follow-up they'd fire at a too-smooth answer and a response strategy for holding up under it
• 1 closing question — "Do you have any questions for us?" with smart, company-specific questions to ask back

How to Use It

1. Start with the gap analysis — it tells you where the uncomfortable questions will come from.
2. Read all 17 questions once, end to end, and mark the ones you find hardest.
3. Rehearse from the key points, not the sample answers — the samples show the length and tone, but memorizing them word for word sounds scripted.
4. Drill the 4 pressure questions until the follow-up doesn't rattle you, then take the weak spots into an Interview Practice session and drill them live.

Channel B: Interview Practice Live Sessions

This is the main preparation tool. The AI interviews you in a real-time chat, then produces a scored summary of how you did.

Session Modes

When you set up a session you pick a Mode:

• Practice — "Realistic interview — no feedback, no hints." The AI plays the interviewer and stays in character from the first question to the last. You get honest interview pressure, and all feedback arrives afterwards in the summary. Pick this when you want to simulate the real thing.
• Coaching — "Supportive coaching — detailed feedback after every answer." Aitor — preparAItor's ibex coach, see Meet Aitor — runs this mode: after each of your answers he tells you what worked and how to improve before moving on. (Practice mode deliberately keeps him out: there a faceless interviewer stays in character.) Pick this when you're still building your answers.

A common path: start with Coaching to learn, then switch to Practice to test yourself.

Cost and Availability

• A session is 15 exchanges (one AI question, one answer from you, fifteen times) and costs 150 credits from your credit balance.
• Every account gets one free session — Practice or Coaching, your choice. While it's still available, the setup screen shows a FREE badge and "Free — no credits will be used"; otherwise it shows "Cost: 150 credits".
• Beyond the one free session, a session costs 150 credits from your credit balance. If you're out of credits, top up with a credit pack — the CHF 3.90 pack covers exactly one session. See Credits and billing if interview practice is a core part of your preparation.

Starting a Session: The Setup Wizard

On the Interview Practice page, click New Session (or Start your first session). The Prepare your interview wizard has three steps:

1. Select CV — pick which of your parsed CVs the interviewer should know about.
2. Select Job — pick a saved job, or add and analyze a new one on the spot.
3. Configure — choose:
   • Mode: Practice or Coaching
   • Difficulty: Easy, Medium, or Hard
   • Focus: Behavioral, Technical, or Mixed
   • Language: English, German, French, or Italian
   • For German sessions, a Swiss orthography toggle (ss instead of ß), pre-set from your account settings

Then click Start Interview. Before the first question, a short briefing screen explains the format — realistic behavior and no hints in Practice ("Ready for your interview?"), question-by-question feedback in Coaching ("Welcome to your coaching session!"). Confirm with I'm ready (Practice) or Let's go (Coaching).

During the Session

• The chat header shows your progress through three phases: Warming up → Main questions → Wrapping up.
• Type or speak — switch any time mid-session. Typed answers must be between 3 and 2,000 characters.
• The session ends after 15 exchanges with a warm closing from the interviewer; the detailed scorecard is generated separately right after.
• You can click End Session at any point. If you leave a session unfinished, it stays Active in your session list and you can pick it up later with Continue (X remaining) — finishing your unused exchanges costs nothing extra.

Voice Answers

• Click Start recording and speak your answer. Recordings run up to 90 seconds, with an on-screen warning when 15 seconds remain; very short clips (under 3 seconds) can't be sent. You can pause and resume while you think.
• Click Stop & review to listen back, then Send answer — or Re-record if you want another take.
• Your answer is transcribed and treated exactly like a typed answer. Audio only — no camera or video is ever used.

The Session Summary

After the session ends, the Session Summary appears (it takes a few seconds to generate). It includes:

• Overall Score out of 100, with a level badge: Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, or Expert
• Skills Breakdown — a radar across five dimensions: Technical Competence, Communication, Confidence, Problem Solving, Behavioral
• Strengths — what worked, drawn from your actual answers
• Areas to Improve — specific, concrete feedback
• Key Insight — the single most important takeaway
• Recommendations — concrete things to change before the real interview
• Next Steps — the focus areas a follow-up round would target

Note: a summary is only generated if the session had at least 5 exchanges. Shorter sessions keep the conversation transcript but skip the scorecard.

The Targeted Follow-Up Round

On a completed session, you'll see Continue with a targeted follow-up · 150 credits. This starts another 15 exchanges in the same session, and the AI deliberately targets the weak spots from your summary instead of starting from scratch. Follow-up rounds always cost credits — there's no free slot for them.

Session History

Every session is saved on the Interview Practice page. Each session card shows its status — Active, Completed, Expired, or Error — plus your score, and you can search and filter the list by mode, status, and recency. From a session you can:

• Continue an Active session (free, uses your remaining exchanges) or run the paid follow-up on a Completed one
• Export PDF — a transcript document with the position, date, every question and answer, and your summary scores, strengths, areas to improve, recommendations, and next steps
• Delete — permanent; the confirmation warns that all messages are removed, unused exchanges are lost, and credits are not refunded

Save a Session to a Tracked Application

A completed session doesn't have to live on its own. If the job is in your Application Tracker, use Save to application on the session card — preparAItor automatically suggests applications that match the same job. Once saved:

• The session appears in the application's Interviews section, scores included — your preparation record stays with the job it belongs to.
• The session is kept as long as the application itself (365 days, extended by activity on the application) instead of your normal session retention. This is the way to keep a session long-term.
• From the application you can start further practice with Practice for this interview — it works even if the original CV or job entry has since been deleted, because it uses the CV and job saved with the application.
• Remove from application undoes the link at any time; the session then falls back to its own expiry.

Only completed sessions can be saved, and a session belongs to one application at a time. The session list has a Saved / Not saved filter so you can see what's anchored where.

Retention: Sessions Are Deleted — Save or Export First

• Sessions follow your general Data Retention Period: 1, 7, or 30 days (default 30). It's the same setting that governs generated documents — change it under Settings → Preferences → Data Retention Period.
• The window is sliding: it's measured from the session's last message, so continuing a session pushes its expiry forward. A follow-up round also extends the expiry of the session it builds on.
• The retention period is fixed on each session when it's created — changing the setting later applies to new sessions only.
• Sessions saved to a tracked application are the exception: they're kept as long as the application, regardless of this setting.
• Session cards show an "Expires in X days" notice as the date approaches, and you get a warning email 7 days before a session expires.
• At expiry the session and all its messages are permanently deleted — there is no archive or undo. To keep a session, save it to a tracked application (see above) or use Export PDF before it expires.
• Your interview conversations, the CV snapshot used for context, and your performance summaries are encrypted at rest.

A Suggested Preparation Workflow

1. Generate your documents for the target job. Include the Interview Q&A document, study the gap analysis, and read through the 17 questions.
2. Run a Coaching session (your one free session is a good fit here). Let the coach correct your answers question by question.
3. Study the Session Summary. The Skills Breakdown and Areas to Improve tell you exactly what to drill.
4. Run a Practice session (150 credits) for a realistic, no-hints mock.
5. Go deeper with a targeted follow-up on whatever still isn't landing — another 15 exchanges focused on your weak spots.
6. Save the session to the tracked application so the scores and feedback stay with the job — and survive past normal session retention.
7. Export the PDF and re-read your weakest answers the evening before the real interview.

Good to Know

• You can practice silently by typing from anywhere, or speak your answers out loud to rehearse delivery — and switch between the two mid-session.
• Practice mode saves all feedback for the summary by design; Coaching mode gives it after every answer.
• Your free session produces the same full Session Summary as a paid one.
• Deleting a session is housekeeping, not a refund — credits spent on it stay spent.
• The exported session PDF is a great artifact to bring into a mock interview with a friend or coach.

Next Steps

• Track your applications — and the interviews saved to them
• Generate application documents
• Understand the document generation process
• How the credit system works

Good preparation is repetition with honest feedback. Use the Interview Q&A document to learn the questions — and Interview Practice to learn yourself — then walk in confident.