I think most of you heard about behavioral interviews and the competency based behavioral
interviews.
However not many know what exactly the behavioral interview means.
A behavioral interview is a job interviewing technique when a candidate is being asked
specific questions, which describe their past behavior.
Since yoUR past can be an indication of yoUR future performance, it helps the recruiters
to determine whether you are a fit for the interviewed role.
How about the Competency Based Behavioral Interview?
It is the same interviewing technique but instead of focusing on a past behavior, it
is directed towards evaluating A specific competency.
A competency (which is a set of behaviors, skills and knowledges) defined as a must-have
to perform the tasks successfully at the job.
Which means such questions would require a lot more effort rather than just answering
“yes” or “no”.
If we haven’t met before, I am Marat from Emmotion, myemmotion.com, Human Resources
and Career Services Agency, look me up on LinkedIn.
On this channel I train and coach you to ace your job interviews fast, to gain confidence
as a professional and learn how to deal with corporate politics, being a better person
yourself first.
So which is the best way to answer both behavioural and competency based interview questions?
Whenever you come across a complicated job interview question, think of a STAR interview
response technique, which we are about to discuss.
It will always give concrete examples of your experience and skills while responding to
questions.
Before I proceed further I would like to remind you to subscribe to my channel below, and
hitting the little bell so you won’t miss out on the latest career and personal growth
content.
And if you stick with me till the end of this video, I’ll be sharing competency based
job interview questions and answers, concrete answers using the STAR interview response
technique.
Answers which you could also use during your job interviews.
What is the STAR interview response technique?
It’s a method which breaks down your answer into a coherent structure to show the interviewer
why you’ve got the required competencies and skills.
The 4 stages breakdown of a STAR answer technique corresponds to each letter as follows:
Situation Task Action Result.
Situation – is the first part of your answer which should set the scene.
The tone and background to the example you are about to give.
Task – is where you discuss the task which you needed to perform, what your objectives
were.
So you can clearly state your goals, to be able to quantify your results at the end of
your response.
Action – This part is where you should be dedicating most of your response, explaining
in detail, which actions you took.
It’s important to mention what you did, not what your team or someone else did.
The interviewer needs to have zero doubts in your capacity of performing the necessary
actions by yourself.
You could also mention how you decided to perform these actions, giving the interviewer
indications of your initiative and decision-making skills.
Result – Explain the results of your task.
Whether the task was a success or a failure, you need to mention the consequences of your
action.
You could also state what you learned along the way, the conclusions you’ve made.
STAR technique is also widely used by recruiters and hiring managers to formulate the competency-based
questions.
Such questions typically start with phrases:
“Describe a situation when…”
“Give me an example where…”
“Describe a project or idea that…”
“Tell me about a time when…”
Etc...
The STAR response method enables you to answer interview questions in a powerful manner.
You might ask HOW, what makes it so powerful?
It is powerful because it helps to turn your answer into a story.
And people like hearing stories, facts are easier to remember when told as a story.
Stories don’t get interrupted; they are a proven way of getting your message across.
A STAR story should be around 2 minutes long or less, and delivered with energy and enthusiasm.
It’s about sharing a real experience you have had.
It doesn’t always have to be a work experience, as long as this story describes a relevant
skill or behaviour.
Let’s go through a few STAR questions and answers, the first two questions are already
formulated using the STAR method, it will help us understand this technique better.
STAR Question 1: “Describe a situation when you demonstrated excellent customer service
skills and what was the achieved result?”
STAR Answer 1: • Situation: “A customer rang up complaining
that they waited more than two weeks for a reply from our sales team regarding a product
request.”
• Task: “I needed to address the client’s immediate request and find out what went wrong
in the usual response procedure.”
• Action: “I apologised to the client, got their details and passed them to our head
salesperson in charge of the product, who contacted the client within one hour.
I investigated why the request hadn’t been responded.
I discovered that it was a combination of a wrong phone number and a generic email address
provided, which was not being checked by the client.
I followed up and informed the client about it, I also offered them a discount code on
their next order.”
• Result: “The client is still ordering from us and recently posted a positive customer
service review about us on Google.”
You see that the result shows exactly what the initial question requested.
Another question already formulated as a STAR Question #2: “Tell me about a time when
you were in charge of a project within a deadline.”
STAR Answer 2: Situation: “In my previous role, I was put
in charge of the transfer to a new customer relationship management (CRM) system projet,
which was added to my usual daily sales calls and responsibilities.”
Task: “The goal was to achieve the migration to the new CRM database completed by end of
the year, without letting any of my sales numbers slip below my targets.”
Action: “In order to do that, I had to be very careful about how I managed all of my
time.
So, I blocked off an hour each day on my calendar to dedicate solely to the CRM migration.
During that time, I worked on transferring the data, as well as cleaning out old contacts,
and updating the outdated information.
Doing this gave me enough time to work on that project split in portions, while still
handling my normal tasks.”
Result: “As a result, the transfer was completed two weeks ahead of the deadline and I finished
the year 10% ahead of my sales goal.”
Giving a response like this shows that you not only handled a project by the deadline,
but you’ve also met and exceeded your sales goals, thanks to your organization and time
management skills.
How about a question which isn’t formulated as STAR question.
For example, Question 3: Have you ever lead a team before?
This is a terrible closed question.
You could answer “yes” or “no”, or you could go an extra-mile, showcasing your
leadership skills, and using this chance to impress the interviewer.
So let’s formulate a STAR story answer:
STAR Answer #3: (Situation) “Yes; a relevant example took
place at my last company, where I was initially a software developer in a team of 5, developing
a new finance software for our main accounting product.”
(Task) “The project was critical as launch dates had been set with a lot of sales and
marketing on the product being already ready.
However the project was way behind schedule, when our team leader got sick and had to leave."
(Action) "I always loved the challenge and responsibility of leadership.
So I volunteered to stand in, and by using my technical analysis skills, spotted a few
small mistakes made in the initial coding, these were causing errors and slowing us down.
I negotiated with our Product Director a small bonus for the team involved, and some budget
for food delivery during evenings, so we did few of late night shifts to correct the coding
and catch up with the critical part of the project."
(Result) "Though this took us 1% over budget but the software was delivered on time with
a better fault tolerance.
The project was seen as a great success, the additional project cost was minimal compared
to the costs of delaying the product launch.
The team was delighted with the extra bonus and I have been officially promoted to team
leader position as a result."
Such answer not only shows leadership skills, but also negotiation and project management
skills among others, which turns such terrible question in your favor, showcasing more of
your competencies and skills.
You could practice your STAR ANSWER Technique further by taking a look at my most common
interview questions video which appears on card on the right side of the screen.
Here I share more examples of STAR Interview Questions and Answers, using STAR method:
Example Question 4: Tell me about a time when your communication skills helped at your job?
Think of some examples of communication skills, then use the discussed technique:
For example, STAR Answer 4: “I was working in the engineering department of a large manufacturing
company and we were running behind on timelines for a project.
So, I arranged and led a conference call to explain the reasons for our delay to the client.
It was a case of managing their expectations, communicated the project steps, which resulted
in us over-delivering for the project.
As a result, the client was much more understanding and decided to pursue another commercial opportunity
with our company.”
Emphasise your leading and communication skills.
Example Question 5: Tell me about a time you showed initiative on the job.
STAR Answer 5: Last winter, I was working as an account coordinator, supporting the
account executive for an important client at the agency.
The account executive had an accident and had to leave three weeks before a major campaign
pitch.
I volunteered to fill in and orchestrate the presentation by coordinating the input of
the creative and media teams.
I called an emergency meeting and facilitated a discussion about ad scenarios, media plans,
and the roles of various team members in relation to the presentation.
I was able to achieve an agreement on two priority advertising concepts that we had
to pitch.
I drew up a step-by-step plan of how we would present the pitch, which was well received
by the team based on our discussions.
The client loved our plan and adopted the campaign.
I was promoted to account executive six months later.
Example Question 6: Give an example of a situation where you had to deal with a conflict.
STAR Answer 6: “I was working at the reception desk in my current role when an angry client
came in.
He was frustrated that my manager had to miss an important meeting at the last minute.
I listened to his concerns, got him a seat and a glass of water, and was checking what
happened with my manager.
Away from the reception desk, I found out that the managing director had been called
away on an urgent personal matter.
By speaking to colleagues, I was able to source a head of department, who had been partially
involved in the project to attend the meeting in his place.
The client was relieved, and personally thanked me after the meeting, as well as apologising
for his heated words when he first arrived.
The client is still one of our most frequent customers.”
Example Question 7: Tell me about a mistake you’ve made.
How did you handle it?
STAR Answer 7: “I was working as an intern for an events company, and I was responsible
for ordering the floral arrangements for an event hosted by a high profile client.
Unfortunately, I mixed up the information from another event, and the flowers were delivered
to the wrong venue on the other side of the city.
I admitted my mistake to my boss.
Then I took an early lunch break, drove to the other venue, picked up the flowers and
delivered them to the appropriate venue about an hour before the event.
The client never knew about my mix-up, and my boss was glad how I handled the situation.”
Example Question 8: Tell me about a time when you received a negative feedback from your
manager.
How did you handle it?
STAR Answer 8: "I had worked hard on a presentation for a potential customer.
My manager told me that he was disappointed in the quality of the information I presented
and that the customer had not been impressed at all.
I was surprised since felt I had prepared well but I asked my boss to go through the
presentation with me again and explain exactly what the problems were.
He pointed out outdated information and I realized that I had not used the most recent
financial information in my presentation.
I researched the updated information and asked if I could rework things and prepare a new
proposal for the customer.
He agreed.
Once I had sent the proposal I followed up with the customer to ask if he had any queries.
We didn't get that particular contract but the company asked us to submit a proposal
for other business which eventually work on".
Hope these helped you learn to formulate your own competency based answers using the STAR
technique.
Thanks for watching.
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