Two to three days before: research
- Re-read the job posting and the exact resume version you sent.
- Write down the top five priorities of the role (the same list you used to tailor your resume).
- Read the company's website, recent news and LinkedIn page. Note one or two things you genuinely find interesting.
- Look up your interviewers on LinkedIn to understand their roles.
- Check the salary range in the posting. Several provinces, including BC, now require pay ranges in public job postings; if yours doesn't, research typical ranges for the role and city.
Prepare five to seven stories using STAR
Most behavioural questions ("Tell me about a time when...") can be answered with a small set of prepared stories. Structure each one as Situation, Task, Action, Result, and spend most of your time on the Action.
| Common question theme | Story to prepare |
|---|---|
| Handling a difficult customer or stakeholder | A specific escalation you resolved |
| A mistake or failure | What went wrong, what you changed afterwards |
| Working under pressure | A deadline, peak season or incident |
| Improving a process | Something you made faster, clearer or more reliable |
| Disagreement with a colleague | How you reached a decision together |
| Learning something quickly | A new tool, system or domain |
S: Our intake log was a shared spreadsheet and staff couldn't tell who owned each request.
T: My manager asked me to reduce missed follow-ups.
A: I added owner, status and missing-information columns, set up filters for each coordinator, and ran a 20-minute walkthrough.
R: Within a month we stopped getting "who has this?" emails, and the manager asked me to train two new hires on it.
Questions to ask them
- What would success look like in the first 90 days?
- What is the biggest challenge the team is facing right now?
- How does the team measure quality in this role?
- What does a typical week look like?
- What are the next steps in the process, and when can I expect to hear back?
The day of the interview
- For video interviews: test the link, camera, microphone and lighting 30 minutes early; close notifications.
- For in-person: plan to arrive 10 minutes early; bring two printed copies of your resume.
- Have your five priorities and story notes nearby, but don't read from them.
- Keep answers to about 1–2 minutes and check whether they want more detail.
- Ask your prepared questions, then ask about next steps.
After the interview
Send a short thank-you email within 24 hours to each interviewer if you have their addresses (or to the recruiter to pass on). Reference something specific from the conversation.
Subject: Thank you — Data Analyst interview
Hi Sam,
Thank you for taking the time to speak with me today. I enjoyed hearing about the plan to consolidate store reporting, and it made me even more interested in the role — it's very close to the Power BI work I led at Prairie Retail.
Please let me know if there's anything else I can share.
Best regards,
Daniel Okafor
- Record who you met, what they asked, and the next step in your tracker.
- Set a follow-up reminder for the date they gave you (or one week later if they didn't give one).
- Write down any question you struggled with and prepare a better answer for next time.
Prepare interviews from the job you applied to
- In your Tunquest pipeline, open the job you're interviewing for to see the posting, your tailored resume and your notes in one place.
- Review the match breakdown: the requirements you cover strongly are your best STAR stories; the gaps are the questions to prepare for.
- Move the job to the interview stage, add your interviewers' names and set the follow-up date.
With a free account, Tunquest finds up to 3 matching jobs a day in Canada and tailors your resume to each one. You review everything before you apply.
Frequently asked questions
How many STAR stories should I prepare?
Five to seven strong stories can cover most behavioural questions, because each story can be adapted to several themes.
How do I answer salary expectation questions?
Give a researched range based on the posted range or market data for the role and city, and say you're flexible depending on the full package.
Should I follow up if I haven't heard back?
Yes. If the date they gave you has passed, send one polite email to the recruiter asking about timing.