Challenge
Your Partner's Big Interview — Seven Days
Seven small, specific things you can do for your partner the week of a big job interview — from the prep grind through the day-of nerves through the wait for the call. Tomorrow's the interview, or it's next Tuesday: pick up wherever you are in the week.
Don't run the interview prep. Run the home around it — over and over, in tiny specific ways.
Ask what they actually want from you
Minimum that counts: Ask once, plain: “What would actually help — mock interview, prep buddy, or just dinner handled?” Then do exactly what they said. If they say “just space,” take it as the real answer, not modesty.
Full version (if you have capacity): Confirm the basics on a sticky note where you'll both see it — date, time, format (phone / video / in-person), company name, role. So you can support without asking them to brief you twice.
Take one specific prep job and own it end-to-end
Minimum that counts: Pick ONE prep task they keep putting off and finish it for them — print extra resumes, look up the parking, draft the email confirming attendance, iron the shirt. Tell them only after it's done: “Resumes printed, three copies, in the folder.”
Full version (if you have capacity): Do a quick company scan together — mission, recent news, the team page — and help draft two questions they could ask the interviewer. Keep it to fifteen minutes; this is help, not homework.
Run a short low-stakes practice — only if they want it
Minimum that counts: If they want a mock, do twenty minutes max — five common questions (“tell me about yourself,” “why this role,” “a hard situation you handled,” “why leave your current job,” “questions for us”). Stop if they get overwhelmed. Praise what landed, name one specific tweak — not a list. If they don't want it, drop it.
Full version (if you have capacity): Help them shape one strong story they can pull out for behavioural questions — what happened, what they did, how it landed. One story they can trust beats five they're shaky on.
Take the evening off their plate
Minimum that counts: Handle dinner, dishes, kid bedtime, the dog — whatever you'd normally share. Tell them: “I've got tonight. Just get yourself ready for tomorrow.” No quiz-the-answers loop at the table. No “have you thought about…” leading questions.
Full version (if you have capacity): Lay one specific thing out for the morning — outfit on the chair, shoes by the door, keys on the counter, the bag packed with copies of the resume and a pen. So tomorrow they don't have to make decisions on a nervous brain.
Run the morning so they don't have to think
Minimum that counts: Take the kettle, the coffee, the kid hand-off, the dog walk without asking. No “you've got this” pep talk loop — the job of the morning is to be boring. If they want to talk about nerves, listen. If they don't, don't make them.
Full version (if you have capacity): Send one short text timed for ten minutes before they walk in — “Thinking of you. No need to reply. I'm proud of you for doing the work to get here.” — keep it to one line, no questions, nothing to answer.
Ask one open question — then stop
Minimum that counts: One question: “How was it?” Let them answer or not. If they shrug, leave it. If they vent, listen and don't problem-solve. Don't replay the questions — “did they ask about X?” — they're done with the interview; let them be done. Resist “I bet you got it.”
Full version (if you have capacity): Make the landing soft — the comfort meal, the show they like, early bath, no obligations tonight. If they want to debrief later in the evening, let them lead it. Your job tonight is not the interview anymore.
Hold the wait without filling it
Minimum that counts: Don't ask “heard anything yet?” The silence is loud enough on their end already. Just keep doing the small things from this week — the dinner, the morning, the not-pep-talking. If they bring it up, ask once: “Want to talk about it or distract?” Then follow what they pick.
Full version (if you have capacity): Decide in advance how you'll show up either way. If it's an offer: you're ready to celebrate the way they actually like (quiet dinner, not a party they'd have to perform at). If it's a no: you've already got the next-day dinner planned and a sentence ready — “That was a lot. You don't have to bounce back today.” Don't wing this in the moment.
At the end
However the interview lands — offer, rejection, or the awful waiting silence — the part you ran is what stays useful. The handed-over morning. The dinner that arrived without a text first. The after-question that didn't try to fix anything. Pick one of these moves you'll keep doing the next time they're nervous about something. Put it on your phone. Don't renegotiate it.