Most platforms will allow you to get a feel for it with practice questions before moving on to the real thing. It is very important that you do these to check if you have technical difficulties (video/sound), and to get used to the timer UI. Remember, you can’t re-record any of these questions. They are one shot.

Besides getting used to the platform, it’s a good idea to prepare a few stories in advance. You won’t know what the questions are exactly, but you’ll want to have a variety of stories that can be retold for different questions. Here’s an example:

1.) Story about how you became varsity captain

Tags: Leadership, discipline, learning something new

2.) Story about how you studied abroad

Tags: Culture differences, communication, learning something new

3.) Story about how you failed your first class

Tags: Resilience, discipline

You’ve prepared 3 distinct stories, but you have a different angle that you could tell in all of them. Most interview questions are trying to uncover some soft skill that you have, such as leadership, resilience, and communication. By preparing these stories in advance, you’ll be able to tell a story for any question.

As you do your prep, it is important that you speak it outloud at some point. Writing down bullet points and actually speaking it are very different. You want practice speaking it out loud because of the recording platform. If you’ve never practiced it, a slip up might result in disaster. If you’ve practiced it and you accidentally misspeak, you’ll be a lot calmer in recovering.