What is the STAR method?
Are you good at telling stories? Do you get right to the point and include all the relevant details? Or do you maybe tend to forget to mention some key context or have a tendency to ramble? What if you add the stress of a job interview? Is it still easy for you to relay a well-structured story about your past work experience in response to an interview question—you know, the ones that start with “Tell me about a time when…”?
Yeah, that’s a bit tougher. Especially if you’re struggling to think of an example that answers the question and then have to jump straight into telling it as an easy-to-follow anecdote with a clear takeaway.
First of all, take comfort in the fact that we’ve all been there. Second of all, there’s a strategy you can use to come up with way more impressive answers to these dreaded questions: the STAR interview method.
The STAR method is an interview technique that gives you a straightforward format you can use to tell a story by laying out the Situation, Task, Action, and Result.
- Situation: Set the scene and give the necessary details of your example.
- Task: Describe what your responsibility was in that situation.
- Action: Explain exactly what steps you took to address it.
- Result: Share what outcomes your actions achieved.
The STAR method can be used to answer behavioral interview questions (or any other kinds of questions where you need to tell a story). In other words, use the STAR method for those prompts that ask you to provide a real-life example of how you handled a certain kind of situation in the past (i.e., how you behaved in the past).
Don’t worry—these questions are easy to recognize. They often have telltale openings like:
- Tell me about a time when…
- What do you do when…
- Have you ever…
- Give me an example of…
- Describe a situation…
When it comes to answering these sorts of questions, thinking of a fitting example for your response is just the beginning. You also need to share the details in a compelling and easy-to-understand way—without endless rambling. That’s exactly what the STAR interview method enables you to do. “It provides a simple framework for helping a candidate tell a meaningful story about a previous work experience,” Dea says.
By: The Muse, Kat Boogaard