How To Use The STAR Method In A Job Interview (With Examples)

By Amanda Covaleski and Experts - Jul. 27, 2021

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Job interviews are tough.

Oftentimes, they’re the hardest part of the job search process. Between the stresses of presenting yourself well, giving good answers, and not letting the nervousness get in your way, there’s a lot to pay attention to in order to have a great interview.

It can become especially difficult when your interviewer transitions from questions about your work experience to questions about your behavior. Behavioral interview questions can be the trickiest part of an interview, but with a little bit of practice, you can perfect your interview performance.

Key Takeaways:

  • STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result.

  • The STAR method is an efficient and effective way to highlight your skills through experience when answering interview questions.

  • The STAR method is particularly useful for behavioral questions as well as certain situational questions.

  • Be as specific as possible in your answers to make the most of the STAR method.

How To Use The STAR Method In A Job Interview (With Examples)

What Is the STAR Interview Method?

STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. This acronym is meant to help you answer questions about specific times you demonstrated a skill or got an important result in your professional work.

  • Situation. Set the scene for your story — discuss who was involved and what was going on. Your answer won’t work unless you can come up with an appropriate anecdote to discuss. Make sure you really listen to the interviewer’s question so you don’t start telling an irrelevant story.

  • Task. Next, state what your responsibility was in this situation. It might have been a task you were given or an initiative you took on your own. Often, you can combine the situation and task to both fit in one sentence.

  • Action. This is the meat of your answer. Discuss what actions you took along with your thought process and reason for choosing that approach. Make that your direct impact is obvious in the context of the story.

  • Result. Wrap up your story with a positive result that clearly shows how your actions created a better situation. Even if the question is about a negative topic, like making a mistake, be sure to finish with positivity — lessons learned and improvements made since then.

The STAR method can help you stay on track and answer behavioral interview questions quickly and thoroughly.

The STAR method is best for answering behavioral questions, so make sure to stop and think about what is being asked of you before referring to the STAR steps.

Behavioral questions are easy to identify since they are meant to gather specific information about a task you performed or a goal you achieved in a previous job. If the question starts with something along the lines of “tell me about a time you…” or “describe an experience where…” then the interviewer is looking to get concrete examples of how you complete tasks and achieve goals.

Answering these types of questions with the STAR method will help you keep your responses focused and give the interviewer the information they’re looking for in a concise way. Think of STAR as a framework that you can use to stay on track and ease the nervousness of not knowing what to say in an interview.

Examples of Behavioral Interview Questions That Require the STAR Method

The first part of answering a question with the STAR method is determining if that question is in fact a STAR question.

The STAR method works best for behavioral interview questions, so let’s take a look at some of the interviewer’s favorite questions you can answer with the STAR method.

  • Tell me about a time you had to complete a project with a short deadline.

  • Can you tell me about a time you disagreed with a coworker? How did you resolve it?

  • Is there a time where you had to set a goal and meet it?

  • Tell me about a situation where you failed to meet a specific goal. How did you deal with it?

  • Have you had to make an unpopular decision?

  • Can you explain a time when you were under a lot of pressure at work? How did you handle it?

  • Have you ever worked with multiple departments to complete a project? How did it go?

  • What do you do when you need to motivate your coworkers?

  • Have you been in a situation where one of your coworkers refused to complete their work?

  • Tell me about a time you showed initiative in a professional setting.

Once you’re able to recognize these types of questions, you can use the STAR method to help you frame and guide your answer.

During the interview, remember the four steps- situation, task, action, and result. These will help you focus your response and give the interviewer a sense of your capabilities.

Situational Interview Questions and the STAR Method

Situational interview questions are very similar to behavioral questions, except they ask about a hypothetical scenario instead of a real one. These questions start with phrases like “what would you do if…” and “how would your respond when…”

The great news is that the STAR method works just as well for situational interview questions as behavioral ones. After all, the hiring manager or recruiter will be thrilled to hear about a real example that relates to their hypoethical situation.

Even if you don’t have a concrete example for a situational question, you can still use the STAR method to format your answer into a neat and coherent narrative.

Example Questions And Answers Using The STAR Method

  1. Tell me about a time you made a mistake. How did you fix the situation?

    • Situation: In the beginning of my career I was responsible for collecting the week’s sales figures from sales team leaders and compiling them for my supervisor. One week, I forgot to get figures from a few of the teams, resulting in skewed data to present to my supervisor.

    • Task: I had to fix the situation quickly before my supervisor’s big monthly meeting so she could accurately present the company’s sales figures.

    • Action: I quickly called, emailed, and checked in on all the sales team leaders to make sure I had all of the correct information. I had to track down one team leader who was out of office for the day, but luckily his assistant knew the figures for the week.

    • Result: I was able to remedy my mistake within an hour and provide my supervisor with all the correct data in time for her meeting.

  2. Can you tell me about a time when you boosted monthly sales figures for your team?

    • Situation: I led a sales team at my previous company and I was responsible for making sure we reached the sales goals my supervisor set.

    • Task: We were meeting our goals, but I wanted to surpass the expectation so I implemented a “check back” policy.

    • Action: I asked everyone on my team to begin checking back with leads that went cold. We began reaching back out to people who asked for more information about our services, but never followed up.

    • Result: We were able to convert 50% of those dead leads just by checking back in and seeing if the customer wanted to resume our conversation, bringing us $15,000 above our usual sales goal for the month.

  3. When have you demonstrated leadership skills?

    • Situation: As a consultant, I worked on various different teams to complete projects. One time, our designated team leader was suddenly reassigned to a new project so I stepped up and offered to lead our team.

    • Task: We had a few days to research, compile, and present our recommendations to a client so I had to manage the team to make sure we were all completing our work and staying within the guidelines the client provided.

    • Action: This meant that I had to balance both my own work for the proposal as well as fielding questions from teammates and overseeing the occasional disagreement. Acting as a mediator, I better understood the recommendations my teammates were proposing and helping them come to an agreement.

    • Result: We successfully pitched our proposal to the client, resulting in an ongoing partnership with them. I was also recognized as a strong leader and became a designated group leader for future projects.

  4. Have you had a time when you disagreed with your boss? How did you handle it?

    • Situation: We were given a small budget to run paid advertising campaigns for a new product that the company was launching. My boss thought that the money would be better spent on a Google Search Ad, but I wanted to spend it on a social media campaign.

    • Task: I had to convince her that an ad on social media would have a higher ROI than a Google Search Ad, so I had to calculate costs and results for both campaigns to show her why a social media ad made more sense for our budget and goals.

    • Action: I researched and compiled information about what we could expect to gain from these two different ads with our budget. I presented the findings to my boss to convince her to start a paid social media campaign.

    • Result:My work convinced her that we would ultimately see more conversion from a highly targeted social media ad than a Google Search Ad, so I became the person in charge of the project. I oversaw the creation of the content, the targeting, and more, and by the end, we saw a much higher conversion rate than we usually did.

  5. Share an example of when you had to deliver bad news to a coworker.

    • Situation: As a sales manager, I had to make sure that everyone on my team was meeting their weekly and monthly sales goals. There was one month when a man on my team was barely meeting the goal or did not reach it for four weeks. Our company policy was that after a month of inconsistent performance, we had to have a serious talk with the employee.

    • Task: I had to ask this employee about his work performance and inform him that if his sales remained low for another two weeks, he would be let go.

    • Action: Instead of approaching the situation as a chance to blame him for low sales or scare him about his future, I wanted to understand his point of view. We had a productive conversation about his work and what he was doing to improve his performance so it became a working discussion instead of a chance for me to talk down to him for not meeting our goals.

    • Result: After our conversation, I saw the suggestions he made come to life and I watched his sales numbers rise. Luckily, he improved before the two weeks were up and he became one of my best sales associates after that.

How Does the STAR Method Work?

The STAR method is not a specific answer or a preparation tactic. It’s a way to guide your response to an interviewer’s question during the interview. While you can practice with it before an interview, it’s just a way to help you make sure that you’re staying on-topic and presenting your best self.

Since behavioral interview questions are so open-ended, it can be easy to get off topic and stray from the key points that you need to make. The STAR method will help you make sure that you’re giving a useful anecdote to your interviewer and doing it with a positive spin.

Each part of the STAR method allows you to stay focused on the points you want to convey, while also helping you provide a story with full context so your interviewer understands what you’re talking about.

  • The first situation part gives your audience a clear context of the story you’re going to tell. Here, you can provide any details that you think are necessary to understand the situation you were in, like other people involved, what the issue was, or anything else helpful.

  • In the task part, you should describe what your role in the situation you’re describing was. Talk about how you were involved and what was expected of you to reach the desired outcome.

  • Next is the action, where you can tell your interviewer what concrete steps you took to get a result. Talk about how completed the task and provide any extra information that will show off your skills, like leading a team or a great idea you came up with.

  • Finally, you can talk about the result of your work.This is usually the longest part of your answer since interviewers are interested in knowing how you resolved an issue or met a goal.

    Make sure to provide any concrete results, like the goal you surpassed or the positive impact you had on your team. Interviewers are looking for your accomplishments and your strengths, and this is a great opportunity to list them.

How to Prepare for an Interview Using the STAR Method

The best way to prepare for an interview with the STAR method is to look at the example questions we listed and try to answer them. The more you practice with the format of the STAR method, the better you’ll be at using it during an interview.

Start by writing out your answer to a behavioral question so you can read it back and make sure it sounds like a good answer. Seeing the method visually will also help you remember the steps so you’re ready to answer questions verbally with the STAR method.

Once you feel comfortable with the format, you should answer the questions aloud to practice how you’ll organize your thoughts on the spot. You can do this alone or ask a friend to listen to your responses and help you fine-tune them.

It’s impossible to know what an interviewer will ask, but going through a few behavioral questions on your own will help you prepare for any kind of behavioral interview question and help you sound like a pro when you answer.

The great thing about behavioral interview questions is that they can be broken down into categories. Consider the following common topics:

  • Stress

  • Adaptability

  • Problem-solving

  • Attention to detail

  • Customer-focused

  • Communication

  • Creativity

  • Decision-making

  • Goal-setting

  • Taking initiative

  • Integrity

  • Interpersonal skills

  • Leadership

  • Time management

  • Negotiation

  • Teamwork

  • Resilience

  • Conflict management

Now, you might be thinking, “that’s a lot of example stories I have to come up with.” Don’t worry — many of these categories overlap.

For example, if you have a story about a time you helped an angry customer reach a positive conclusion, that covers stress, problem-solving, customer interaction, communication, interpersonal skills, and conflict management.

As long as you have a number of stories that cumulatively cover all of the above topics, you should be plenty prepared for your interview. Just be sure to review the job description before heading into your interview, to make sure that all of your stories paint yourself as the ideal candidate the hiring manager is looking for.

Common STAR Method Mistakes

  • Sounding rehearsed. It’s good to prepare and practice your answers, but you don’t want to sound like a robot. In order to avoid this, we recommend writing bullet points instead of full answers. That way, you’re sure to hit all the key parts of your story, but your phrasing will sound more natural.

  • Telling stories that make you look bad. All the stories you tell using the STAR method should end on a positive note. And if the interviewer asks you about a time you made a mistake, don’t bring up the time you cost your former employer hundreds of thousands of dollars.

    Be accountable, and discuss your weaknesses when appropriate, but always bring things back around to your improvements and successes.

  • Being vague. It’s important that your direct impact is super evident in your story. It’s good to talk about team efforts, but make sure that your specific contribution is what’s highlighted.

    If you can, use numbers whenever possible. Hiring managers won’t know about your various company policies, but they know that a 10% increase in revenue is always a good thing.

  • Lying. It’s better to admit you don’t have a great example story rather than make one up. But don’t just flat out say “I don’t know, that never happened to me.” Instead, turn the behavioral interview question into a situational one. Imagine how you would behave in that circumstance, and apply the STAR method as normal.

Frequently Asked Questions

  1. What is the STAR method when interviewing?

    2. When interviewing, the STAR method means your answer will address a Situation, what your Task was, what Action you took, and what was the final Result. The STAR method is a great way to neatly organize your answer in such a way that shows how your skills result in success. This helps the interviewer see that you understand the question and have the ability to effectively communicate a relevant answer.

  2. How do you use the STAR technique?

    3. Use the STAR technique by following each step in order. Start with a situation that is appropriate for the question. Then describe what your task or role was to resolve the situation. After, explain what actions you took to fulfill your task. Finally, in a positive manner, describe what were the results of your actions.

  3. Is the STAR method good a good technique?

    4. Yes, the STAR method is a good technique for interviews. The STAR method follows a logical progression of your involvement. It gives context, shows skills in actions, and provides results. These are all bits of information the interviewer can use to learn about you and see how you are a great candidate.

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    Author

    Amanda Covaleski

    Amanda is a writer with experience in various industries, including travel, real estate, and career advice. After taking on internships and entry-level jobs, she is familiar with the job search process and landing that crucial first job. Included in her experience is work at an employer/intern matching startup where she marketed an intern database to employers and supported college interns looking for work experience.

    Expert

    Denise Bitler, CPRW, CDBW, MRW

    Denise Bitler has 30+ years of HR experience working in various industries and with all level of employees from hourly through C-suite, as well as company Board Members.She is the founder of Resume-Interview Success, LLC and is an expert in best practices related to resume, cover letter, and Executive bio writing, LinkedIn Profile optimization, job search strategies, and interview coaching.

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