The plan in one paragraph
Two weeks. Days 1–7 are unassisted: cold reps, weak-spot list, gap-filling study. Days 8–14 are assisted: Cloak-paired reps with the same problems and behavioral questions, focused on delivery, structure, and confidence. Day 14 evening is rest. Day 15 is calls.
Day-by-day
Day 1 — Diagnostic
Pick 5 LeetCode mediums and 5 behavioral questions ("tell me about a time…"). Do them cold, on a timer. Don't grade yourself yet. The goal is data, not feeling.
Day 2 — Review
Score each attempt: did I solve it within budget? Did I clarify scope first? Did I narrate while coding? For behavioral: did I use STAR structure? Was the situation specific? Was the result quantified? Make a weak-spot list of 5 items.
Days 3–4 — Targeted study
For each item on the weak-spot list, find one explainer (NeetCode, an internal blog post, a Hacker News thread) and read until you have the mental model. No coding yet. The goal is to upgrade your understanding before grinding more reps.
Days 5–6 — Cold reps round 2
New problems, same format. Score yourself the same way. Compare to days 1–2. The weak-spot list should shrink by half.
Day 7 — Behavioral writeup
Write 6 STAR stories in plain text. Each one: 2 sentences situation, 1 sentence task, 4 sentences action, 2 sentences result, 1 sentence reflection. These will be your scaffolding on every behavioral round in your career — write them once and refine forever.
Days 8–14: AI-assisted polish
Day 8 — Cloak setup
Install Cloak. Upload your resume and the JD for one target role into Pro Workspace. Pick the persona for your first round (NeetCode for coding, STAR Behavioral for recruiter screen). Verify the overlay is invisible in a self-share test on Zoom.
Days 9–10 — Coding with overlay, talking first
Re-attempt the cold problems from days 1 and 5 with Cloak running. The rule: restate the problem out loud, clarify constraints, then glance at the overlay. The overlay is a sanity net, not the first move.
What you're practicing isn't the algorithm — you already solved these. You're practicing the rhythm of talking and reading at the same time, which is the actual interview skill on a Zoom call.
Day 11 — Mock interviewer
Use Cloak Pro's mock interviewer mode. Pick a JD-specific scenario. The model asks you 6 adversarial questions in sequence. Answer each one out loud. Watch the post-session score and read the feedback on where you got hand-wavy.
Days 12–13 — System design + behavioral with overlay
Two system design walkthroughs with the overlay, focused on structure (constraints → scale estimate → component sketch → tradeoff per component → operational concern). Two behavioral rounds where you tell the same STAR stories from day 7 against follow-up questions Cloak generates from the JD.
Day 14 — Rest
Light walk, no studying after lunch. Set out clothes, charge laptop, run a final 5-minute Cloak preflight. The single biggest predictor of interview performance for prepared candidates is sleep the night before — protect it.
Day 15 — Calls
Cloak on, persona set, water nearby. Restate every question. Pause before answering — a deliberate 2-second pause sounds confident. Glance at the overlay only when you need to. The work is already done; today is delivery.
The mindset
The 14-day plan works because it separates "build the skill" from "deliver the skill" into distinct phases. People who try to build and deliver in the same week underperform on call day because the skill is fragile.
The reason to bring AI into the second week and not the first is that AI-assisted reps make weak fundamentals feel strong. You want the strength to be real before you start polishing.
Get Cloak for the polish phase
Download from the home page. Free tier is enough for the cold-rep phase; Pro unlocks the mock interviewer and resume-grounded answers for days 11–14.