Preparing for Interviews: Using the STAR Method

Behavior interviewing is a typical interview tool for assessing a candidate. The interviewer wants to hear how a candidate responds to situational based questions as past behavior is often a predictor of future behavior. The interview focuses on experiences, behavior, knowledge, skills, and abilities that the candidate can bring to the position. 

STAR Method

 The STAR method stands for: Situation, Task, Action, Result. This method organizes your answer into specific stages, allowing for a clear and detailed response.

• Situation: Describe the situation that you were in or the task needed to be accomplished. Provide the context, overview the situation, and include any relevant background information. Remember to be specific and succinct.
• Task: What were the key objectives and goal(s)?
• Action: Describe the actions you took to address the situation. What specific actions did you pursue to achieve your goal?
• Result: Summarize the outcome and show your involvement and contributions. What was accomplished, how did it end, what happened? Use specific examples and details.

Sample Question:

Have you led a team to accomplish a project or task?

STAR Answer:

• Situation: Yes, I was elected Vice President of my student professional association and my duties included arranging for speakers for programs, publicizing the events, introducing the speaker, and program evaluation.
• Task: Attendance at meetings had drastically decreased due to a decrease in the number of members. My goal was to implement professional development programs and to increase attendance by 25% from the previous year.
• Action: I formed a committee to help with the program design and speaker selection. I also developed an online survey using Outlook to find out what programs and events the members were interested in attending. We worked as a team to reach out to the members to get them to complete the survey and to conduct follow-up interviews.
• Result: As a result of the information, we created a series of programs and events based on the feedback. We invited speakers to give workshops on topics that had been identified as areas of interest by our members. The attendance at events increased by 150% over the previous year.

Prepare for an interview

When preparing for an interview, develop 3-4 STAR examples for each of the positions that you have held. You will want to revise the statements to make them relevant to each of the positions you applied to.

Sample questions:

• Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation and how you handled it?
• Give a specific example of a time that you had to conform to a policy with which you did not agree.
• Have you led a team to accomplish a project or task?
• Tell me about a time that you had to deal with a very upset customer or co-worker. 

Things to keep in mind:

• Remain positive. Even when describing a mistake or a challenge, talk positively. Talk about what you learned, how you remedied the mistake, how you met the challenge.
• Be honest. Don’t embellish or omit key details. The interviewer isn’t looking for heroics, they are interested in you and your skill set.
• Vary your examples, pull from different experiences: clinical experience, work, internships, volunteering, student organizations, and other extracurricular activities.
• Be specific in your examples, use details to set the situation, and to describe the task, action, and result. The details will provide a clearer picture of your skill set.
• Be prepared for probing questions to seek additional information.