Here at RECRUITERS, we’re experts when it comes to interviews, both from an employer’s point of view looking to conduct the perfect interview and from a candidate’s point of view hoping to land their dream job.
One of the most important methods answering interview questions is the STAR method. For competency-based interviews, this method of answering questions is absolutely vital and will be exactly what the interviewer is looking for. However, even in more casual or informal interview questions, the STAR method is the most direct way to demonstrate your skills and leave the interviewer feeling assured that you’re up to the job.
STAR is an acronym for how you should structure your answer. Firstly, you should describe a situation you were in. Then, you should explain the specific task you had to complete. Then talk about the action you took, and finally describe the result of your actions.
Situation – Briefly describe the background to the situation
Task – Specifically explain your responsibility
Action – Talk about what you did
Result – Describe the outcome of your actions.
It can be hard to figure out how to structure these answers when you don’t know what you’ll be asked, but you ought to know what skills and experience they will be looking for by looking at the job description. Therefore, we advise you to go through the job spec and highlight the skills and competencies they require. Below is an example:
You can see some of the competencies or experience you might highlight include: implementing design frameworks, leading and mentoring, wireframing and prototyping, and HTML, CSS and JavaScript experience. Based on this information, you can start to craft answers using the STAR technique, based on these competencies. Whether the hiring manager asks you about these directly or not, you’re going to want to showcase these competencies with demonstrable experience. So, for each of the highlighted competencies from the job ad, think of an example in which you utilised those skills. Map your example out using the STAR technique. This will help you stay on point. Think of a situation that called for creating user personas, for instance. Explain the task you had to complete, the action you took to create those personas and the results.
We suggest you add in a final element to the STAR structure and that is: Learning outcome. So, after you explain your result, you would say: “If I were to do it again, I would do X differently” or, “What I learned from those results was, Y. This helped inform future campaigns”. This additional element shows self-awareness. It demonstrates that you did not just mindlessly complete a task, but instead, you are learning and developing through each challenge in your career. For each skill, it’s a good idea to come up with two or three examples that demonstrate your abilities and make you stand out as a candidate.
While the above job spec focuses on technical capabilities or ‘hard skills’, it’s important to prepare for the more general questions around soft skills as well, such as communication skills or your ability to work as part of a team. Once again, the STAR method will stand to you here and it’s important to always remember to include that learning outcome.
Want more interview advice? Check out the RECRUITERS interview guide here.
Written with contributions from the RECRUITERS team
Star photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash
