Over the past few months, I've noticed something interesting.

A few friends and juniors who recently landed offers from companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Tata Consultancy Services Digital, and other SDE-1/fresher roles weren't necessarily the people who had solved the most LeetCode problems.

Some had 200–300 solved.

Some had less.

What they did have was interview practice.

One thing that surprised me was how many of them were using AI interview tools before their actual interviews.

A couple of them mentioned using tools like LastRound AI to simulate interviews, practice explaining solutions, answer follow-up questions, and get feedback on communication.

Initially, I thought:

"How much difference can that really make?"

But after seeing a few of them get multiple interview calls and convert offers, I'm starting to think interview preparation is evolving.

Most of us spend months learning:

Binary Search
DP
Graphs
Trees
System Design

But very little time learning:

How to explain a solution
How to think out loud
How to answer follow-up questions
How to discuss projects confidently
How to recover when stuck

The reality is:

LeetCode gets you shortlisted.

The interview gets you hired.

And those are two completely different skills.

I'm curious:

Have any of you used AI interview tools before technical interviews?

Did they actually help, or was it mostly hype?

Would love to hear honest experiences from people who recently cracked SDE-1, New Grad, or Internship interviews.