| name | interview-prep |
| effort | high |
| description | Use when someone needs a structured interview preparation plan before their interview process begins — a study schedule, gap analysis by topic area, and STAR story bank. This is planning, not practice. Triggers on: "interview prep plan", "how to |
| scenarios | ["I have 8 weeks until my Google interview — give me a structured prep plan","I'm preparing for Kakao backend engineer interviews — what should I study?","Make me a FAANG interview prep schedule with STAR story prompts","카카오 백엔드 면접 준비 계획 세워줘","기술 면접 8주 전인데 어떻게 준비해야 해?"] |
| compatibility | {"recommended":[],"optional":["sequential-thinking"],"remote_mcp_note":"sequential-thinking이 있으면 컨텍스트 수집 → 회사 캘리브레이션 → 갭 분석 → 플랜 생성 순서를 강제하여 갭 분석 전에 플랜부터 생성하는 흔한 오류를 방지합니다. Claude 설정 → MCP Servers에서 remote SSE 엔드포인트를 추가하세요."} |
Standing Mandates
- ALWAYS run gap analysis against the target role before generating the study plan.
- ALWAYS calibrate the plan to the specific company, role, and timeline.
- NEVER generate a generic study plan without knowing the candidate's interview date.
- NEVER conflate interview prep planning (this skill) with interview practice (portfolio-interview skill).
Interview Prep Planner
When to Use / When Not to Use
Use when:
- 2–12 weeks before an interview and you need a structured study plan
- You want gap analysis across coding, system design, and behavioral topics
- You need STAR story prompts calibrated to a specific company type
Not for:
- Live mock interview practice (use portfolio-interview)
- Resume tailoring to a specific JD (use resume-tailorer)
- General portfolio improvement (use portfolio-feedback or portfolio-rewrite)
Process
- Gather context — experience level, target company/role, timeline, interview format, biggest worry
- Calibrate to company type — FAANG, Korean Tier-1, growth startup, or enterprise — each tests differently
- Identify weak areas — coding, system design, behavioral across specific topic areas
- Produce week-by-week plan — primary focus, daily practice, named resources, measurable weekly milestone
- Generate STAR story bank — 6-8 behavioral story prompts matched to common question areas
- Final week guidance — consolidation, mock interviews, logistics prep
Standalone Inputs
If following portfolio-feedback, portfolio-jd, or portfolio-company, you can start here by providing:
- Your experience level and tech stack
- Target company and role level
- Interview timeline (weeks until interview)
- Known format (e.g., 2 coding rounds + system design + behavioral)
- Your biggest area of concern
Output Template
For each prep session, Claude delivers:
- Question bank — 10-15 likely questions tailored to the role and company
- STAR responses — structured answers for behavioral questions with specific examples
- Feedback — scoring on clarity, specificity, and impact; suggestions for improvement
- Improvement plan — 3 targeted areas to practice before the interview
What Claude Does / What You Do
| Claude | You |
|---|
| Calibrates study plan to company type (FAANG, Korean Tier-1, startup, enterprise) | Does the actual practice problems and mock interviews |
| Identifies weak areas from your described background | Builds and refines your STAR story bank |
| Produces week-by-week schedule with measurable milestones | Validates study plan with anyone who has done this interview |
| Generates STAR story prompts for behavioral areas | Shows up rested and prepared on interview day |
Related Skills
../portfolio-interview/SKILL.md — practice answering questions live after building this plan../portfolio-feedback/SKILL.md — overall portfolio assessment before targeting specific companies../portfolio-jd/SKILL.md — JD-specific gap analysis if you have a posting
Why Generic Prep Fails
"Study data structures and system design" is not a plan — it is a wish. Engineers who prepare without a structured plan study what they already know, avoid what they do not, and arrive underprepared in exactly the areas that matter for their target role.
A good prep plan starts with two facts: what the company actually tests, and what the candidate's current gaps are. Everything else follows from those two inputs.
Workflow Note — Sequential Thinking and Parallelization
If sequential-thinking is available, use it to enforce this sequence: (1) gather context → (2) calibrate by company type → (3) identify gaps → (4) generate plan. Skipping gap analysis before planning is the most common failure.
Once Step 2 (company calibration) is complete, gap analysis (Step 3) and domain study structure generation (from references/study-domains.md) can be run in parallel.
Step 1 — Gather Context
Before producing any plan, collect:
- Background: How many years of experience? What is the current/recent role and tech stack?
- Target: Which company or type of company? Which role level? (IC3 vs. Staff, for example)
- Timeline: How many weeks until the interview (or target application date)?
- Interview format known? (e.g., two coding rounds + system design + behavioral, or unknown)
- Biggest worry: What area feels most uncertain right now?
If the user has already provided this, proceed directly to the plan. Do not ask for information already given.
Step 2 — Company/Role Calibration
Different companies test materially differently. Calibrate the plan accordingly.
FAANG / Top-Tier (Google, Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix-style)
- Coding: LeetCode medium/hard, emphasis on optimal time/space complexity
- System design: large-scale distributed systems, explicit tradeoff discussion expected
- Behavioral: leadership principles, specific STAR stories required (Amazon especially)
- Bar: correct solution is not enough — interviewers probe time complexity, edge cases, and alternative approaches
Korean Tier-1 (Kakao, Naver, Line, Coupang)
- Coding: algorithm-heavy, often includes implementation-level problems (graph, DP, BFS/DFS)
- System design: architecture of real services, Korean-scale traffic considerations
- Cultural fit: collaborative style, team contribution, communication quality
Growth-Stage Startups
- Coding: practical problems, less focus on extreme optimization
- System design: pragmatic choices, speed of delivery vs. scale tradeoff
- Behavioral: ownership, autonomy, self-direction — what did you initiate?
Enterprise / B2B / Fintech
- Coding: often take-home or lower difficulty
- System design: reliability, observability, security
- Cultural: process maturity, documentation, stability-oriented decisions
Adjust topic weights based on the target. A perfect LeetCode hard solver who cannot discuss distributed systems tradeoffs will not pass a Google system design round.
Step 3 — Weak Area Identification
For each major area, assess based on the user's description:
Coding
- Can they solve medium LeetCode problems consistently in 30 minutes?
- Are they comfortable with: arrays/strings, hash maps, trees, graphs, dynamic programming, sliding window, two pointers, binary search?
- Do they communicate reasoning while coding (not just the final solution)?
System Design
- Can they scope a system from vague requirements to a concrete design in 45 minutes?
- Do they address: API design, data modeling, scalability bottlenecks, caching, failure modes, monitoring?
- Do they drive the conversation or wait to be led?
Behavioral
- Do they have 5–7 distinct STAR stories ready covering: ownership, conflict, failure, impact, leadership?
- Are stories specific (numbers, outcomes, personal role) or generic ("we improved the system")?
Flag specific gaps. The prep plan allocates study time in proportion to gap severity.
Step 4 — Produce the Prep Plan
Structure the plan by week. Each week has:
- Primary focus area
- Specific resource or practice target
- Measurable milestone to verify the week worked
Plan Template
## Interview Prep Plan
Target: [Company] [Role] — [N] weeks
### Week-by-Week Schedule
**Week 1: [Focus Area]**
- Goal: [Measurable outcome]
- Daily practice: [Specific activity]
- Resources: [Named, specific resources]
- Milestone: [How to verify the week was effective]
[Repeat for each week]
### Topic Priority List (by urgency)
1. [Highest gap / highest weight topic]
2. ...
### STAR Story Bank
[6–8 prompts for stories to prepare, matched to common behavioral questions]
### Final Week Checklist
[Mock interview, review weak areas, logistics prep]
Domain Study Structures
For domain-specific study structures (coding topic sequencing and practice volume, system design core concepts and practice format, behavioral STAR story bank), read references/study-domains.md after completing Steps 1–4.
Final Week
Do not study new material in the final week. Focus on:
- Two full mock interviews (coding + system design)
- Review your STAR stories aloud — hear how they sound, not just how they read
- Re-attempt your three hardest practice problems to rebuild confidence
- Logistics: time zone, Zoom setup, whiteboard tool if virtual, rest
The final week is consolidation, not cramming.
