Booked a P2P Video Interview with a senior instead of doing AI practice — here's how it went

Been doing AI mock interviews for a couple weeks and felt decent about it, but wanted to try the P2P Video Interview feature since a senior from my college offered to help. Sharing how it actually went in case anyone's on the fence about trying it.

Setting it up

Booked a 30-minute slot, picked Technical round, sent the invite link to my senior. She didn't need to make an account or anything — just opened the link at the scheduled time. There's a recording-consent screen both people accept before it starts, which felt like a good thing to have upfront.

How different it was from AI practice

Honestly — a lot different, in a way I wasn't expecting. The AI asks a fixed set of questions and waits for your answer. She kept interrupting to dig into things ("wait, why did you choose that approach over X") the same way a real interviewer would. I got asked to actually whiteboard-explain something over video, which the AI format doesn't really do. It felt closer to the real pressure of an actual interview.

The report afterward

Call ended, and within a minute or two I had a full AI-generated report — score, strengths, weaknesses, the works. Kind of strange getting an AI report on a conversation with a real human, but it was genuinely useful — it picked up on a couple of rambling answers I didn't even notice while talking.

Would I recommend it

If you have someone willing to do it — yes, definitely worth doing at least once before real interviews start. It's a different kind of pressure than talking to an AI, and the automatic report means you're not relying on your senior to remember detailed feedback afterward. Doesn't replace regular AI practice though — I'd still do both.

Anyone else tried this instead of / alongside the AI interview? Curious how others set it up.