The Elevate Team  - 4 minute read

The STAR method is a technique you can use to prepare for behavioural and situational interview questions. Once mastered it’s an easy methodology to apply, on the fly, to answer any questions of this nature.

Behavioural interviewing is a technique employed by interviewers to evaluate your past behaviour to predict your future behaviour in a particular situation.

"STAR stands for situation, task, action, and result. This method will help you prepare clear and concise responses using real-life examples".

The crux of the method is that by telling your audience a specific story and combining this with an example, you are providing a compelling and authentic answer.

While you won't know the interview questions ahead of time, the average interviewer will focus on questions in a work-related environment that demonstrate critical thinking, problem-solving, leadership skills, conflict resolution, and performance under pressure. 

The simple acronym allows you to remember the formula for a structured response; let us consider the individual components.

Situation: Describe the relevant situation or the task at hand. Focus on a specific event or situation, rather than a generalized description. Try to employ examples and responses that require limited context in order to reduce the time required for your response. 

The situation can be from a previous internship, volunteer experience, or any relevant event. 

Task: What goal or objective were you working toward? 

Action: Describe the actions you took to remedy the situation or complete the task with an appropriate amount of detail - remembering to keep the focus on your actions. 

• What specific actions/steps did you take to achieve the result?
• what was your particular contribution? 
• Be careful not to describe what the team or group did when talking about a project; keep the focus on yourself. 

Result: Describe the outcome and or results achieved, taking credit for where due. 

• What happened in the end? 
• How did you complete the task? 
• What goal or objective did you accomplish? 
• What did you learn? 
• Where possible focus on positive outcomes and use quantified results that increased revenue, reduced costs or improved profits.

Be as specific as possible, using a concise description of each point - recall the interviewer can always ask clarifying questions for further detail later.

Always utilise examples with positive outcomes unless the question calls for the alternative - then try and use an example that had a negative result (such as "lost the game") but can still highlight your strengths in the face of adversity. 

When to use the STAR method

This method works effectively when interview questions start with phrases such as:

• Tell me about a time when…
• What do you do when…
• Have you ever…
• Give me an example of…
• Describe a…

In crafting your responses to typical interview questions, use bullets points representing each letter of the STAR method with a single concise line as a guide to your model response. Using this strategy, you can easily create sample answers for all common interview questions in advance.

Examples of the STAR method 

Situation (S): Advertising revenue was falling off for my college newspaper, The Daily Review, and our largest advertiser was in the process of not renewing their annual contract with us. 

Task (T): My goal was to generate new ideas, materials, and incentives that would result in retaining our advertising revenue.

Action (A): I designed a new promotional deck to present to potential customers, including comparing the benefits of our circulation with other ad media in the area. In addition, I changed our emphasis from print to digital channels by showing customers that our digital channel was showing significant growth in readership.

Result (R): We signed contracts with eight former advertisers for daily ads and five for special supplements that would run on Instagram. At the end of the semester, we increased our new advertisers by 18 percent over the same period last year, using the same strategy.

Download your copy of our checklist for quick reference in future. 

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