STAR method

• Do you feel like you still struggle to answer behavioral or situational interview questions? The STAR Method will give you the framework to answer almost any question your interviewer throws at you. Remember, the goal is to provide enough details while keeping your answers concise. Behavioral interview questions generally start with: Tell me about a time you…How did you overcome…Describe what you do when…Have you ever…What do you do when…
• Next, we’re going to cover the STAR framework and how to use it to answer questions. Remember, we’re doing our best to avoid military terms and acronyms. In your practice, circle military terms and replace them with industry terms from your research. 
• Situation: Give a brief explanation of the scenario, be sure to hit on why the task was so important.
• Task: What did you have to do? What was the scope of the task?
• Action: What specific steps did you take to accomplish the task? Why did you choose this option vs others?
• Result: What was the outcome? Use data here, “we saved xx amount more than the goal”, “we achieved an xx success rate, the highest in xx years”.

How to use the STAR method

1. Pull a relevant story from your experience
   
2. Layout the situation with enough detail to show the importance of the situation, but don’t provide irrelevant details.
   Example question: “Tell me about a time you led a team to achieve a challenging goal”
   
3. Situation: “My organization received notification that we had to fulfill a short-notice deployment tasking that was the #2 priority in the region. At the time we didn’t have anyone prepared and had people assigned to other priorities” Describe the task (what were your specific responsibilities) and the expectations/goals. It’s easy to mix this up with “action” but the action is “what” you did to accomplish the task.
   
4. Task: “I was responsible for deciding which team members to assign to our new tasking while still accomplishing our other priorities, developing a training plan, and ensuring they accomplished their required training & certifications in 60 days.”Explain how you took action (what steps did you take to accomplish the goal?). This is where you want to share specifics about what you did, what tools you used if you used software or a training certification, and why you did it.
   
5. Action: “First I scheduled a meeting with our mid-level managers to get their input on what individuals they recommended for this deployment. I wanted to empower our mid-level managers to be key stakeholders in the process because they were most familiar with their teams and had the ability to influence the training timelines. Within two days, we selected the deployers, re-allocated other team members to their previous responsibilities so we still accomplished our other priorities and formulated a training plan to get everyone certified with 10 days to spare in case we had any blockers. Then the mid-level managers began executing the training plan with their teammates and we established 10 minute daily stand-ups to ensure no one had any blockers, and weekly synch meetings to help ensure everyone was on track to meet our timeline.” 
   
   

Close it with the result. Remember, we’re sharing positive stories with positive results. When we get asked about failures and challenges we will share them honestly, but this is our time to shine.

Result: As a result, the 20 person team I was responsible for increased from 25% to 100% mission readiness within 60-days and our organization was able to fulfill that high-priority task. Additionally, because I was able to empower our mid-level managers and delegate the management of individual training to them, I was also able to keep the rest of my team focused on our second and third priorities so those projects stayed on their expected timelines as well.