1 min lesson
The five prompts to rehearse
Match each case in "The five prompts to rehearse" to the signal and response that fit it.
Step 1 of 3
The five prompts to rehearseRapid-fire set
“Tell me about a time you changed your mind with evidence.”
“Describe a deliberate cost-vs-reliability call you made.”
“Walk me through an incident you ran.”
“When did you push back on a senior engineer?”
The fifth prompt is the one most people fumble, so rehearse it hardest: “Tell me about a time you were wrong.” The trap is choosing a fake flaw. Pick a real mistake with a real cost and a real fix.
Learn more
Advanced table
Hold every answer to this shape
Hold every answer to this shapeTwo-minute structure
- Situation (20s)
- The stakes and the constraint, fast. Skip the backstory.
- Action (60s)
- What you personally did and the decision you owned - “I,” not “we.”
- Result (30s)
- A number. Latency, cost, downtime avoided, time saved.
- Reflection (10s)
- What you'd do differently, especially for the “wrong” story.
If an answer runs past two minutes, you're narrating the backstory instead of the decision.
After each answer, check it against a Cursor value. A story that doesn't map to one isn't wrong, but it's a wasted slot.
- Prompt
- Changed your mind
- Cursor value it should hit
- Truth-seeking - evidence over ego
- Prompt
- Cost vs reliability
- Cursor value it should hit
- Decisive, defensible tradeoffs
- Prompt
- Ran an incident
- Cursor value it should hit
- Calm under pressure, ownership
- Prompt
- Pushed back
- Cursor value it should hit
- Spirited debate on a flat team
- Prompt
- Time you were wrong
- Cursor value it should hit
- Truth-seeking + bias to learn fast
| Prompt | Cursor value it should hit |
|---|---|
| Changed your mind | Truth-seeking - evidence over ego |
| Cost vs reliability | Decisive, defensible tradeoffs |
| Ran an incident | Calm under pressure, ownership |
| Pushed back | Spirited debate on a flat team |
| Time you were wrong | Truth-seeking + bias to learn fast |
Every story should land on a value; if it lands on two, even better.
Generic enthusiasm and the humble-brag fake flaw both read as job-shopping, which the whole loop is built to filter. “I care too much about quality” isn't a wrong story - it's a non-answer. They'd rather hear you took down a region with a bad Terraform apply and what you changed so it can't happen again.