Interview practice with ChatGPT or Gemini
ChatGPT and Gemini can act as an interviewer if you tell them to, and both can talk with you by voice. They are good for generating questions and for feedback on what you said.
They do not score you the same way each time, and they tend to be kind about weak answers. Use them for drafting and early practice, then test yourself under interview conditions.
What can a general AI assistant do for interview practice?
- Turn a job description into a list of likely questions.
- Ask you those questions one at a time in a voice conversation.
- Point out where an answer has no example or no result.
- Suggest a clearer way to say something you struggled with.
- Explain a term or a topic you were unsure about.
Both apps change their voice limits from time to time. OpenAI says the ChatGPT free plan includes limited voice use, and the paid plans include more. Check the app before you plan a long session.
A prompt that makes it act like an interviewer
The default behaviour of a chat assistant is to help you, which is the wrong habit for practice. Start a new chat and paste something like the text below, with your own details filled in.
You are interviewing me for a [role] position at a [kind of company]. Ask me one question at a time and wait for my full answer. Do not help me answer. After five questions, tell me which answer was weakest and why, quoting my words. Be strict, the way a busy hiring manager would be.
Then use voice mode and answer out loud. Typing an answer lets you edit as you go, and that hides the problems you would have when speaking.
Where do they fall short?
| Gap | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| No fixed scoring | Ask the same assistant twice and you can get two different verdicts, so it is hard to see whether you are improving. |
| Polite by default | Unless you push it, an assistant tends to praise an answer that an interviewer would mark down. |
| It loses the thread | A long chat drifts. The assistant may stop being strict or start answering for you. |
| Little sense of time | It will rarely tell you that an answer ran for four minutes. |
| Interruptions | In voice mode, a short pause can make it jump in before you have finished your point. |
How to get more out of them
- Start a fresh chat for each practice round, so earlier help does not leak into the interview.
- Ask for feedback only at the end, not after every answer.
- Ask it to quote your exact words when it criticises an answer. Vague feedback is hard to act on.
- Keep your own note of the same three checks each time, e.g., example, result and length, so you can compare rounds.
When should you use a dedicated practice tool?
Use a tool built for interviews when you want the same conditions each time and a score you can compare. On Just One Interview, you type the role and the skills, and an AI interviewer runs a spoken round. The report afterwards scores every answer and counts the filler words you used. It runs in the browser, and the free plan includes 20 minutes of practice a month.
A sensible split is to use ChatGPT or Gemini to prepare your examples, then practise saying them in a timed round. Our comparison of which AI is best for interview preparation goes through the options.