A tender interview is routinely prepared as if it were a slide problem. The team assembles the night before, someone builds thirty slides restating the submission, roles get allocated in the car park, and everyone hopes the project director performs on the day. Against a rehearsed competitor, hope is not a method.
Know what the panel is testing
They've already read your written claims. The interview tests whether the people match the document, whether this team has genuinely worked together, and whether the client could stand to sit across a table from you monthly for three years. It's due diligence on the humans, and it moves contests the written scores left tight.
Prepare from your weak spots
Panels prepare from the same document you lodged, so the questions land wherever the bid is thin. An aggressive program will be probed. A key person light on directly relevant work will be asked about exactly that. List the ten questions you hope nobody asks, and rehearse honest, evidenced answers to those. A panel that watches a team handle its hardest question calmly learns more than any slide can teach, and a team that has rehearsed its worst moment stops fearing the rest.
Sound like the submission
Carry the same themes in the same language. A team that describes its methodology differently from its document plants a doubt about both. Share the answering, and rehearse the handovers as deliberately as the answers. Panels notice when one person carries the hour, and draw the obvious conclusion about how the project would run.
Try this: book a mock panel with hostile questions, timing and handovers, early enough that people can improve rather than just be alarmed.
The submission earned you the room. The hour in it is yours to lose.
Free tool: Interview prep worksheet. Fill it in online with your team, then save it as a PDF.