How a Croatian Security Engineer Prepped for Google's Behavioral Interviews

The Gap Between Knowing and Explaining

Interviewers are not grading your accent. They need to follow your reasoning in English. She was a security engineer in Croatia. Day-to-day work used AWS. The team often spoke Russian, so live English was not daily practice. The next interviews were at Google, in English. She had already been through an earlier interview round. In the room, behavioral / STAR was what broke down.

Before and After

What We Practised

Practice matched the round she actually had to speak: behavioral / STAR for Google. Each mock got notes on the same answer — where she paused, which words were vague, and where the structure broke.

• Built reusable STAR stories from real work — situation, task, action, result
• Practised answering follow-up questions on the same story instead of switching prompts
• Replaced vague verbs with precise language (decided, shipped, measured)
• Practised giving the result earlier so the interviewer could follow the point

Useful references along the way: STAR interview framework, Pronouncing numbers and metrics.

The Turning Point

The useful change followed an earlier interview round. She stopped treating English as extra polish. The next mocks used the same format that had failed. Answers got a fixed order so follow-ups did not knock her off track.

What Other Engineers Can Learn

• Treat a failed round as data. Rebuild that exact format out loud.
• Write 5–8 STAR stories from real work. Practise the follow-ups on the same stories.
• Say the result in the first 20 seconds, then the action.
• Use first person for decisions: I decided, I measured, I pushed back.
• Keep answers short. Clear beats a long timeline.

After the Coaching

Built stronger interview English after earlier unsuccessful rounds. She could tell a clearer story after an earlier interview round. Readiness — not a promised offer — was the goal.

Why Behavioral Interviews Are Difficult in English

A behavioral round asks you to remember an experience, pick the relevant details, structure a story, and still sound natural — all in a second language. You are choosing tenses, names, and numbers while the interviewer asks follow-ups. STAR is useful because it is a spoken order, not a script. Without that order, strong work disappears into a long, unfinished story.

Preparing for a similar path? Read How a Serbian PM Prepped for Google in English.

Where She Started

She prepared for English-language interviews as a security engineer. The stack was AWS. Written English was stronger than speaking under the clock.