Use a chatbot as a practice interviewer before the real one

A chatbot can play the hiring manager before the real one shows up. CNET tried ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude as interview prep tools and found them useful for practice, pay research and talking points. One weak spot: ChatGPT's voice chat was too friendly to play a tough interviewer, no matter how it was prompted.

What a chatbot can do

A chatbot can ask questions likely to come up for a specific job. It can also tell you, bluntly if you ask, where your answers fall flat. You can rehearse as many times as you need without leaning on a friend's patience.

It can also help you research a company, prepare stories for common behavioral questions (the kind that start with "tell me about a time when") and get a rough sense of what a role should pay.

Pay and talking points

The reviewer asked Gemini to draw on Glassdoor listings, public earnings and shareholder communications. The goal was salary ranges for mid-level marketing jobs at Meta, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and Alphabet. Gemini returned a five-year growth plan: a sign-on bonus in year one, vesting stock in year two, a raise in year three, a title change in year four and a big promotion in year five. The reviewer called it very idealistic.

Gemini also explained how each company tends to structure pay, such as all-cash salary, built-in bonuses or stock options. That helps when an interviewer asks what salary you expect. Some states, including California, have made employers post salary ranges for open jobs.

Claude was used differently. It researched the chief marketing officers at those companies, including their social posts and their teams' priorities. It then suggested one-word anchors for talking points, each tied to parts of the resume, and said which company might be the best fit.

Where it fell short

For a mock interview, the reviewer asked ChatGPT's voice chat to act as an unimpressed hiring manager at a made-up dog-sitting subscription company. The goal was to get used to the worst case. The text chat gave more of a critique of the resume. The voice version stayed too nice to get into character.

Other options exist. Final Round AI offers mock interviews and real-time transcription. Yoodli offers AI roleplays and coaching on how you speak and come across. Gemini Live lets you talk with Gemini and get real-time responses.

What to do

• Ask the chatbot to play the hiring manager for your exact job, then ask for blunt feedback.
• Use it to build stories that answer common behavioral questions from your own resume.
• Treat pay figures as a rough starting point and check them against the job posting.
• Remember the risks: data collection, bias and inconsistent messaging.

CNET's advice is to use AI to prepare, not to fake a performance. It does not replace real networking, and the guiding principle is to stay authentic.