Helpful friends are great. They’re there to offer advice and support, and generally listen to your complaints or concerns about looking for a job. However when heading on the interview trail, you might want to enlist a few of them for a more intense critique of your interview style. Here’s how you can make them not only helpful, but useful, by telling them what to listen for in your answers.

Of course the first thing you need to do is to take some time with your resume to identify what experiences you have had that you would like to tell an employer. What in your background makes you the perfect candidate for the position? Keep in mind that past behavior is the best predictor of future performance, so look for those examples of Teamwork, Obstacles, Duties, Achievements and Your Strengths and Weaknesses that will prove your excellent performance to them.

Once you have done some of the prep work, you can sit down with a friend or a group of friends for a mock interview session. They don’t have to have experience as a hiring manager or in Human Resources. They do need to be good listeners and willing to give you honest feedback.

What they’re going to listen for is this:

1. How well did you set the stage? Did you give enough background to the sound bite you were telling? Were your friends able to clearly visualize your situation? Regardless of the industry or their personal experiences, they should be able to understand the background of your sound bite.

2. You are the Star! I have to say that the most common problem I hear when I am coaching people on their sound bites is that they will dance around actually saying phrases like “I did this”, “It was my idea”, and “I thought we should”. The interviewer is hiring you, not the other people that you worked with. They want to know what you actually did. This is the #1 way to prove to them that you are qualified for their position. Make sure that your friends give you concrete yes or no feedback as to how well you get this point across. Make them repeat back to you exactly what YOU did on the project, and find ways to improve your sound bite to emphasize the points that you want an interviewer to remember.

3. How did the situation resolve? This is where you show an interviewer that you are a thinking, learning, rational person. The ability to draw intelligent conclusions and show that you learn from your mistakes is an important quality in any valuable employee. Some good ways to wrap up your sound bite is by answering the following questions in your conclusion: Would you do handle the situation the same way today?, Did you ever find yourself in another situation down the road and handle it differently?, How did you feel about how it resolved?

Using friends to prepare for interviews is a good way to get live feedback and dramatically improve your performance—especially for those of us who dislike hearing ourselves on tape. The key to making sure that you get the most out of this is encouraging your friend to be honest and that it is for your own good to hear their opinions. The benefit of hiring a coach however is that you will always get the good and bad feedback, and don’t risk the strain on a friendship (and you’ll still have a place to watch the Superbowl on Sunday.)