Practice-Until-Your-Worst-Is-Good-Enough Interview Prep
Interviewing is the one skill with zero feedback — so run dozens of mocks in a small peer group.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 90%
Walter names interviewing as the most neglected career skill, because getting into a great company is the gateway to every other skill you want to build there — and because it is the one activity where you never receive feedback after failing. His answer is volume of deliberate practice: dozens of mock interviews, ideally with someone who is good at interviewing, run inside a small standing group of three to five peers so that the psychological load is shared. The bar is not peak performance; it is that your worst performance clears.
Origin
Jules Walter's own experience: he interviewed at Google repeatedly from his MIT internship days in 2007 onward, and at Meta and others, failing for years before eventually joining YouTube via Google. He attributes the failures to interviewing skill and lack of network, not capability, and built the mock-group approach through his coaching of Black PMs.
Core principles
- 01Interviewing is a skill, and it is a barrier — especially for underrepresented candidates.
- 02It is the only skill where you never get feedback, so practice must supply what the process withholds.
- 03Mock interviews with real people beat rehearsing in your head by an enormous margin.
- 04Deliberate practice (with a skilled partner) beats undirected practice, but undirected mocks beat none.
- 05Interviews are high-stress and high-ambiguity, so you must train for your worst state, not your best.
- 06Practising in a group you like makes the process bearable and calms the nerves.
How to run it
- 1
Count your mocks honestly
Ask the diagnostic question Walter opens with: how many actual mock interviews have you done? The answer is typically zero — reading and rehearsing in your head do not count.
Watch out Reading question lists creates a false sense of preparation that collapses under live pressure.
- 2
Form a small practice group
Assemble a standing group of three to five peers who are going through the process at the same time, and practise together throughout.
Pro tip Pick people you actually like — it makes the process more fun and helps with nerves in the real thing.
- 3
Run dozens of mocks, ideally with skilled partners
Do dozens of live mock interviews. If you can mock with someone who is genuinely good at interviewing, you improve faster — but going from zero mocks to peer mocks is already a step change.
Pro tip Practise against big-company processes even when targeting a smaller company: the larger processes are more rigorous, so clearing them makes the rest easier.
Watch out Do not wait for the perfect partner. Peer mocks now beat expert mocks later.
- 4
Train for your worst state
Practise enough that even a bad performance clears the bar. Assume you will be stressed, in an unfamiliar room, with a panel of strangers, doing self-talk about whether you belong, while solving complex problems.
Pro tip Walter's own account: 'most interviews like I literally did my worst. It's just that it was good enough to pass.'
Watch out The self-talk problem is real and compounds for underrepresented candidates walking into rooms where nobody looks like them. Volume of practice is the counter.
- 5
Substitute a community for the missing feedback loop
Because no company will give you feedback after a rejection, plug into a community of people prepping for the same companies and let the group supply the signal the process denies you.
Watch out Do not read a rejection as a verdict on your capability — Walter was rejected by Google repeatedly over more than a decade before joining YouTube.
In the wild
Walter interviewed for roles at Google from around his MIT internship in 2007 and was rejected, and was rejected at Meta and other companies too. He attributes this to two things: he was not good at interviewing, and he did not know anyone at those companies. No company ever told him why.
→ He eventually got 'somewhat good enough' at interviewing to barely get the Slack job — which changed his trajectory — and years later joined YouTube at Google, the company that had rejected him repeatedly.
In his coaching work with Black PMs, Walter helps candidates form small groups of three to five people who practise together throughout the interview process, addressing both skill and the psychological load of walking into panels where nobody looks like them.
→ Candidates arrive with practised reps and calmer nerves, and the practice becomes something they actually enjoy rather than endure.
Common mistakes
Zero mocks
The overwhelming default is to read material and rehearse mentally. Walter's first question to anyone interviewing is how many actual mocks they have done, and the answer is nearly always zero.
Treating rejection as feedback
Companies do not tell you why you failed. Interpreting a rejection as evidence about your ability — rather than about an untrained skill — is what makes people quit trying.
Ignoring interviewing as a career skill
The company you join determines the mentors, artifacts and problems you get access to. Under-investing in the gateway skill caps everything downstream.
Is it for you?
Best for
Candidates targeting a step-change company, especially those without an internal network or from an underrepresented background.
Not ideal for
Roles filled through referral or founder networks where the evaluation is not a structured interview loop.
From the transcript
“And I would recommend people to do dozens of of those mock interviews. Now, the other thing about practice is it's always better if you…”
“But interviewing, you never get any feedback.”
“is really help them find groups of people, like small groups, let's say three of us, etc. Three to five, and then you practice with…”
“Yeah, you want to basically practice so much that even at your worst, you're good enough.”
From the episode
Leveraging mentors to uplevel your career
Jules Walter (YouTube, Slack)