Today's AI Tip
Interview coming up? Make AI quote the job ad for every question.
What most of us ask AI
The usual move is to paste the job ad and ask what they'll ask and how to answer. We tried that with a fictional Marketing Coordinator ad. It returned 22 questions.
Source: Our GPT-5.5 test (OpenAI API), Oct 2026
Ready-made answers, invented experience
Real output · GPT-5.5 (OpenAI API) · Oct 2026
The ad never mentions this campaign. The reply did say to adapt answers to your real experience, but the story is made up and written in your voice.
Source: Our GPT-5.5 test, Oct 2026
Two rules that change the result
Every question must quote the ad line it comes from. Every behavioral question gets a blank STAR outline: Situation, Task, Action, Result, with no example written for you.
Source: MIT CAPD, STAR method
The prompt to save
Tested in GPT-5.5 (OpenAI API), Oct 2026
Paste the job ad right after it. Keep the blanks as blanks, and fill them in with your own real examples.
Six questions, six quoted lines
Real output · GPT-5.5 (OpenAI API) · Oct 2026
In our test, all 6 quotes matched the ad word for word, and no experience was invented. Four of the six questions got blank STAR outlines. Showing question 1 of 6.
Source: Our GPT-5.5 test, Oct 2026
What the list left out
It never used “Not in the ad”; it left out generic questions instead. It skipped “Tell me about yourself,” “Why should we hire you?” and four of the ad's ten lines. Prepare those yourself.
Source: Our GPT-5.5 test, one run, Oct 2026
Check it against the ad
Tick off each ad line that got a question, then fill the blanks with real examples only. MIT's career office recommends real experiences and “I” statements.
Try it: Paste a job ad you're applying for and count the lines that got a question.
Source: MIT CAPD, STAR method
Sources and assumptions
- MIT Career Advising & Professional Development: Using the STAR Method for Your Next Behavioral Interview: STAR = Situation, Task, Action, Result; STAR is used for behavioral interview questions that ask candidates to 'give specific examples of when they demonstrated particular behaviors or skills'; 'bending the truth in a job interview can be risky'; use real experiences and 'I' statements (checked 2026-10-19)
- Our own GPT-5.5 test runs (engine/ai-test.js, record.tests: before-gpt, after-gpt, after-gpt-8): All quoted outputs, the counts (22 questions + 8 to ask, 18,369 characters vs 6 questions, 1,814 characters), the invented-experience sample answers, the verbatim ad-line quotes, and the absence of 'Not in the ad' and generic questions in both constrained runs (checked 2026-10-19)
Assumptions:
- The job ad is fictional (Larkfield Home Goods is made up) and was written for this test; no real company or personal data was used.
- Only GPT-5.5 via the OpenAI API was run. The Claude runs failed to execute in this research session (the Claude CLI errored on every call), so the post must not claim any Claude result and the prompt card names GPT-5.5 (OpenAI API) only.
- The test ran on 2026-10-19 (US time; the run logs show 2026-10-20 UTC). Label the outputs 'GPT-5.5 (OpenAI API), Oct 2026'.
- '22 questions' counts the numbered questions in before-gpt's output; its separate list of 8 'Questions you can ask them' isn't included.
- The ad lines with no question are from the 6-question after-gpt run. The 8-question run (after-gpt-8) did cover '1-3 years…' and the social-scheduling line, but still never used 'Not in the ad' and still skipped 'Clear, friendly writing', the wholesale nice-to-have and the generic questions.
- The vague output does include a caveat ('I'll phrase the sample answers so you can adapt them to your real experience'); the slides must mention it rather than imply the model hid it.
- Readers paste only the public job ad, not their résumé or personal details, so no upload/privacy step is needed; if the draft adds a résumé step, it must carry the brief's redact-first and data-policy instruction.
The short version
- Make every question quote its ad line.
- Ask for blank STAR outlines, not answers.
- Fill the blanks with your real examples.
- Prepare “Tell me about yourself” yourself.
