If you find yourself on the sofa watching The Apprentice, you probably already witnessed the power of the STAR method in action without even realizing it.
When contestants appear before the judges they have the opportunity to explain a task, the role they played to solve it, and ultimately the outcome.
The STAR method teaches you to tell a good story with structure. But even more so, it creates an opportunity to give thorough examples when challenged with traditional interview style questions.
This method is frequently used during behavioral based interviewing.
The purpose of a behavioral interview is to discover how you might have acted in a challenging situation in your last job. An interviewer might argue that your past performance will predict your future performance. It teaches them a great deal about your personality and communication approach.
STAR stands for:
- Situation
- Task
- Action
- Result
Situation: Describe a time when you had to deal with a challenging situation.
Task: Describe your responsibility in that situation. Think of when, where, and who.
Action: How did you complete the task or meet the demands of the challenge? The key here is to focus on the actions you took, skills you might have used, behaviors, qualities, and characteristics. Think about teamwork, leadership, and dedication.
Result: Lastly, explain the outcome from the action taken. Elaborate on what you learned and specifically what you contributed to the outcome.
Preparing for an interview
When preparing for an interview, think about what skills you might need for your new job. Refer to the job description and identify the key responsibilities and competencies.
For example, if you’re applying for a sales position, the employer may be looking for someone who can work well under pressure.
Consider a challenging situation you have been in. Write it down and practice your response in relation to the STAR method. You want to hit all the high notes in bringing your point across.
Examples of using the STAR method
Below, see some examples of the STAR method in action to guide you.
Example 1
Question: Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a customer complaint.
This question is primarily testing your problem-solving skills.
Example Answer
Situation: A customer called to complain about not receiving a package within the delivery time frame promised. It was a week late and she wanted to cancel her subscription.
Task: I had to focus on what went wrong in the delivery process and needed to try and not lose the account as the client had a subscription with more potential sale opportunities.
Action: I apologized for the inconvenience and looked into the account to see what the problem was. I found out that we had entered the wrong address. I informed the client and due to the error on our part, I offered her overnight shipment on a replacement order and a 10% discount on her next purchase if she wanted to keep her account.
Result: The customer was happy with our accountability and efficiency. She spent another $5,000 with us over the next three months.
Example 2
Question: Tell me about a time when you had to deal with conflict at work.
This question is primarily testing your teamwork and project management skills.
Example Answer
Situation: I was working on a company presentation as a group and one of the key contributors, John, was not attending meetings to complete the project under a tight deadline.
Task: I had to focus on why John wasn’t attending the meetings so I could get the relevant data from him.
Action: Instead of criticizing him, I approached him with an understanding of what I could do to help him get the information to the team. It turned out that John was simply overwhelmed with projects and couldn’t do it on his own to meet our deadline.
I delegated some of my work to a junior staff member for a couple of days and completed the data analysis for him.
Result: We presented our team presentation and John put in a good work with management. Six months later, I received a promotion and raise, during which this situation was praised.
These are just a couple of examples of how to answer these questions. Notice that both examples have a positive ending which highlighted good qualities in the candidate.
Furthermore, try and spend 30% of your time on the situation and task, and 70% on the action and result. The idea is that you need to convey a strong answer as quickly as possible to keep the interviewers engaged.
Keep your story to less than two minutes so you can move onto the next question. The more of these situations you can go through the more opportunity you have to leave a lasting impression.
The STAR method is a great way to show your good qualities to potential future employers. From there you might just find yourself hired.
