STAR Questions

What are STAR questions?

STAR - this is an acronym for 4 critical stages that need to be followed in an interview. STAR questions are to be considered especially in behavior-based or competency-based interviews, as an interviewer always looks forward to understanding the candidate’s previous experiences, obstacles handled, leadership skills, performance under pressure and other such factors.

STAR questions are extremely structured behavioral interview questions where answers are provided by explaining the Situation, Task, Action, and Result of a particular topic are provided to the interviewer.

• Situation: The candidate is supposed to share a very detailed description of a challenging situation where he/she overcame a lot of difficulties to achieve a specific goal. A candidate is expected to provide as much detail as he/she can for the interviewer to analyze their hurdle handling capabilities. It doesn’t have to be restricted to a job from the past and can be spread across all experiences such as volunteering or any other such encounters.
• Task: What was the goal that the interviewee was trying to achieve? An interviewer seeks to understand the targets achieved by the candidate in the past to decide whether or not he/she will be able to manage in the organization’s culture and achieve their goals.
• Action: A candidate is expected to share an aggregate of actions taken to complete a particular task. Steps taken to solve problems while trying to achieve a goal, contribution as a team member to finish an assigned task within the expected time frame and details such as these will make the interviewer believe in what the candidate has to bring to the table.
• Result: Irrespective of how big or small a candidate’s contribution was, he/she must explain the outcome of the activities done to achieve the goal. Whether the goal was overachieved or underachieved and how well did the candidate perform in that situation. This is a factor where none of the interviewees must shy away from boasting about the work done to achieve a certain goal.

The most important aspect to consider in STAR questions is to be specific and detailed in every step of the interview and making sure that the specificity does not convert into verbosity. It will be better if the negatives of the previous job are kept at bay and the positives are highlighted in the best possible manner.

STAR Interview Preparation

Here are 4 tips to bear in mind while preparing for a STAR interview:

1. Include details: An interviewer would want to hire an individual who can step in to solve a challenge that a company must be facing. Details about how the candidate contributed towards solving a problem the organization was facing, within the desired time frame. This highlights the candidate’s perseverance, leadership skills and the will to learn along the way. It is advisable to include details which highlight the positives such as percentages or procedures. Generic answers such as “the results were better than last time” or “we achieved our desired numbers” will leave the interviewer disinterested.
2. Avoid beating about a bush: What a candidate has achieved in the past, is what needs to be showcased. Proving to an interviewer that he/she is best suitable for a particular job role is important but not at the cost of sounding too full of oneself. Candidates must highlight incidents that portray their problem-solving capabilities, communication, and leadership skills.
3. Don’t rush: If a candidate makes use of the STAR method to answer the interview questions, it is best if he/she avoids rushing through the interview as it may give the impression that the candidate is nervous or not confident of what he/she is explaining. Taking too much time to answer is the other extreme of time. A candidate can take 2-3 minutes to answer the each of the interview questions.
4. Use first singular person: To keep the interviewers engrossed in a conversation, it will be more impactful if the candidates express their stories and experiences in singular first person rather than plural. For instance, if the interviewer intends to understand the individual's contribution, “I performed under pressure...” will be more effective than “We performed under pressure..”

In the first method, you can arrange a panel that would respond to your surveys and give you precise insights. As a panel consists of selected, filtered and handpicked individuals who already qualify for the research, asking them questions and getting insights is not just more easier but far more accurate and detailed.

The second method is applied on site for B2B or B2C purposes where you appoint interviewers or in most cases employees, to collect data on mobile devices. This method is very effective during concerts or live events where face to face data collection is possible for understanding user experience and making improvements.

Another way of conducting this research is by collecting data from locations where internet isn’t available. In such cases, the data collected offline will get automatically synced once internet becomes accessible.

STAR Method Example for Interview

For a question such as: “Tell us about a time when you showed extreme patience and performed above everyone’s expectations under immense pressure.”

• Situation: “In my previous organization, website signups and conversions were reducing quarter after quarter in 2017.”
• Task: “It was my responsibility to come up with efficient market-approved ideas to make the website better and increase website signups and conversions by at least 20% in the first quarter of 2018.”
• Action: “I designed a plan to revamp the website homepage with attractive call-to-actions. I also optimized the blogs and created a plan to generate new content every week to boost website traffic. All these blog pages had CTAs so that if visitors wish to sign-up from the particular page, they easily can. The email marketing team was informed about my targets and with a few email campaigns in a quarter, the sign-ups improved.”
• Result: “By the end of the first quarter of 2018, my team and I were successful in increasing sign-ups by 20%.”