Pre-Interview Briefing for the Candidate

When to use it

The prompt

Write a briefing to send {{Candidate Name}} before their {{stage}} for a {{Job Title}} role at {{Company Name}}. WHO THEY'RE MEETING: {{names, job titles, and what each one is assessing}} FORMAT AND LENGTH: {{live coding, system design, behavioural, take-home review — and how long}} WHAT WE ACTUALLY SCORE: {{paste the scorecard or rubric if you have it}} WHAT CANDIDATES USUALLY GET WRONG HERE: {{if known}} LOGISTICS: {{link or address, what to bring, whether notes or an AI assistant are allowed}} Give me: 1. The email, under 250 words, skimmable on a phone. 2. A plain statement of what each interviewer is looking for — the real thing, not a euphemism. 3. What they should prepare, and just as explicitly what isn't worth an evening. 4. The tooling rules stated outright: whether they can look things up, use an editor they know, or use an AI assistant. 5. One line inviting questions that makes it easy to ask about adjustments without having to explain why. Warm and concrete. No "just be yourself", and no implying the interview is gentler than it is.

Tip

Say plainly whether AI assistance is allowed. Candidates are currently guessing, and the ones who guess wrong in either direction are what your process ends up measuring.

How to use it

Paste the prompt into ChatGPT, Claude or whichever assistant you use, then replace every {{bracketed}} part with your own detail. The more specific and messier your input, the better the output — a model given raw notes has more to work with than one given a tidy summary you wrote first.

More Interviewing prompts

Open the full tool for all 87 prompts, the glossary, and the JD decoder.