I’ve just come out of a back to back session of mock interviews with candidates taking part in a career development programme. Although the roles being applied for were across various sectors, career levels and areas of expertise, there was one common denominator. Each person struggled to give “one-time examples” of situations and to properly structure their answers. It reminded me that for most people, the formulas that help when answering interview questions aren’t always widely known by job seekers, so I thought I’d write a little bit to explain how these work.
The one- time example I mention above essentially involves telling the interviewer a story. The interviewee describes to the interviewer how they have performed in the past in a given situation, so that the interviewer can predict how the candidate is likely to perform in a similar situation in the future. Essentially, it’s providing an example so that the interviewer can see you in their mind’s eye doing the task/role you are describing. You are telling them the story about one time you did something by describing the situation, the task you were undertaking, the action you took and the result of your efforts (STAR). It’s important to tell the story in specific rather than general terms and quantify your success.
So for example, when I asked one of my interviewees about a time when she’d gone the extra mile for a customer, her initial response was to give me a general answer about how she would look up the system to check if stock was available in another store for customers when what they were looking for wasn’t in stock.
When I dug a bit deeper and explained the STAR method, she told me about a time when she was working as a retail assistant in a clothes store. A customer came in looking for a particular top and they didn’t have the top she wanted in stock (Situation). She went on to tell me how disappointed the customer was as she had seen it in a magazine and thought it would be a perfect gift for a family member. My client explained how she really wanted to help the customer (Task). My client went on to describe how she “looked up the system to check availability in other stores. Unfortunately it was sold out everywhere else. So I took the customers details and made a note to contact her when the item was back in stock. When we had a delivery a week later I remembered the customer and called her to say it was now in stock and held one for her behind the counter (Action). She went on to tell me that “the customer was delighted, couldn’t thank me enough and practically skipped out of the shop when she came to pick it up!” (Result).
Here you can see how providing that “one time” example carries so much more weight than her first vague answer about checking the system. It helps the potential employer to see the jobseeker in action and also showcase their excellent customer service skills.
Other points to note when structuring answers with the STAR technique: it’s important to speak in the first person when describing the action part of the story, as it’s here that the interviewer can visualise you conducting your role. It’s also vital to finish your story on a positive note so that the overall impression is strong. Remember that the structure you are applying to your answer also needs to be invisible to your interviewer, so as to come across as a well thought out, articulate answer.