S.T.A.R. Behavior | Responses
3.4b Practice Interviews
S ituation: Provide context of the situation helping an employer to see the big picture first. T ask or project: Within the larger context, state your role within the situation. A action: What actions did you take or what skills did you use to complete your task? R esult: State if your actions led to the desired result, but understand that great answers don’t always include a situation or task that went as planned. You can share experiences you have had that changed the way you approached a problem or taught you something valuable.
Congratulations! You have an interview! After taking time to investigate the organization and note the most important skills in a job description, you might wonder what the interview process will be like. If you have not had a professional interview or it has been a couple of years, you may be surprised by what lies ahead. Here are a couple of question types and strategies to prepare for answering them. Open-Ended Questions These are the most typical questions and can be used to help you think about what you most want an organization to know about you. Strategies: Look back at your resume and notes you have about your previous experiences. Highlight areas that overlap with the job description. This prepares you to talk about your experiences and skills during the interview process. Remember to keep your answers relevant! Behavior-Based Questions These are quickly becoming a key factor during interviewing. Rather than candidates only being asked to present their skills, candidates are being asked to share specific examples in which they used a skillset. Strategies: These questions can be both hypothetical or historical in nature so be prepared to share your past experiences as well as what you would do in certain scenarios. Frame your role within the situation and be ready to identify what skills and thought processes went into your actions. You can use the STAR method to help build your responses and practice using Big Interview .
Examples Question 1: Tell me about a time you had to deal with conflict in the work place. While at CT’s Superstore, my shifts would include working at the customer service counter to processing online orders and returns, and answer any questions our visitors had. One afternoon, a gentleman came in upset with a speaker he had purchased, saying that it was broken when he opened it. I was able to walk him through the return process to ensure policy was followed. I made sure to ask him if he understood some of the steps to ease any possible misunderstandings. At the end of the interaction, he was relieved that we were able to refund his purchase. Question 2: How would you handle a project if the manager did not provide a lot of detail? While I was an intern at Pointer Insurance, my manager asked me to analyze a set of claims. This led to some confusion, as I was currently working with a few different data sets. In this case I was able to limit my options to two sets of data, and then confirmed with my manager, which set he wanted me to work with. In this situation, I was able to show my initiative and problem-solving skills by presenting a more defined problem. In addition, I was able to ensure that I would not waste time moving in the wrong direction by seeking more input from my manager.
Open-Ended Questions
Behavior-Based Questions
• Tell me about a time when… • How would you handle…
• Tell me about yourself... • Is there anything else you would like to share with us?
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