How to actually prepare for a HireVue interview
Most people go into HireVue blind and get filtered out. Here's a simple preparation method that works.
HireVue is an asynchronous video interview – you're shown a question on screen and record yourself answering it, with no interviewer present. You usually get around 30 seconds to think and 2-3 minutes to respond. Then it moves to the next question.
A lot of candidates find this format unsettling, and a lot get filtered out here. Most of the time it's not because they gave bad answers – it's because they weren't prepared and either froze, waffled, or gave answers that didn't hit what the recruiter was actually looking for.
Here's how to not be that person.
What HireVue is actually testing
HireVue questions fall into two types, and a typical set of 4-6 questions will include both.
Competency questions make up the majority. The recruiter is checking whether you can demonstrate a fixed list of behaviours – leadership, teamwork, resilience, analytical thinking, commercial awareness, and so on. The questions might be worded differently every time, but they're almost always targeting the same underlying criteria.
Motivational questions usually account for one or two questions in the set. These are things like "Why do you want to work here?", "Why this role?", or "What draws you to this industry?" They're assessing whether you've done your research and whether your reasons are credible – not just whether you can recite the company's values back at them.
Treating these as separate categories matters because they require different preparation. Competency answers are built from your own experiences. Motivational answers require you to have actually thought about the company and the role specifically.
Step 1: Generate your likely questions using AI
Before you sit the HireVue, use an AI chatbot (ChatGPT, Claude, whatever you prefer) to predict the most likely questions for your specific role. Paste the job description in alongside the following prompt:
You are helping me prepare for a HireVue video interview. Based on the job description below, generate 10 questions I am likely to be asked. The majority should be competency-based questions covering the full range of criteria the recruiter is likely to assess – such as leadership, teamwork, resilience, analytical thinking, and communication. Include 1-2 motivational questions relevant to this specific role and company. Return exactly 10 questions, nothing else.
[Paste job description here]
The output will give you a focused list tailored to that role. These won't be exactly what you're asked – but they'll be close enough that nothing should catch you off guard.
Step 2: Write three bullet points per question
For each of the 10 questions, write down three bullet points only. Not full sentences, not a scripted answer – just three short memory joggers that capture the key points of your answer.
Three points is enough to give a full, structured answer without needing to memorise a script. Anything more becomes hard to recall under pressure.
For a competency question like "Tell me about a time you had to lead a team under pressure":
- Q3 uni project, two weeks before deadline, teammate dropped out
- Redistributed the work, ran daily check-ins, kept team calm
- Delivered on time, learned to build buffer into timelines earlier
For a motivational question like "Why do you want to work at this firm?":
- Specific interest in their X division / recent deal / product area
- How it connects to my background or experience
- Why this firm specifically, not just the sector generally
The motivational answer needs to be specific to the company — vague answers about "a passion for finance" are exactly what recruiters are used to filtering out. If you can't point to something concrete about why this firm, your answer isn't ready yet.
Step 3: Practice answering out loud
Go through all 10 questions and answer them out loud, from your bullet points, in your own words. Don't read from a script – the goal is to sound natural, not rehearsed.
The reason this matters: people who freeze or waffle in HireVue usually do so because they're either totally unprepared or they memorised a written answer and can't quite recall it. Loose, spoken preparation avoids both. You know what you want to say but you're not trying to recreate exact wording.
Practice a few times until each answer feels natural. Record yourself once if it helps – you'll quickly notice if you're rushing, using filler words, or going off track.
On the day
Keep your notes in front of you. There's nothing wrong with glancing at your bullet points before you start recording your answer – you have 30 seconds of thinking time for a reason. Use it.
Beyond that: look at the camera rather than at your own face on screen and make sure your background is clean and your lighting is decent. These things matter more than people think when someone is watching you on a screen with no other context.
That's the whole method. It's not complicated – most of the edge comes simply from having done the preparation that most candidates skip.