STAR method interview practice: questions and examples

Careers services describe the four parts in much the same way:

• Situation: set the scene. When and where it was, and whether you were working alone or with others.
• Task: what you had to do, and why it mattered.
• Action: what you did. Say "I", not "we": the panel wants your part, even in a team effort.
• Result: what happened because of what you did, and what you learned from it.

Your examples do not all have to come from paid work. Volunteering and your life outside work can show the skill a question asks about too.

Pick an example where you did something yourself, then check it answers the question you were asked rather than the one you prepared for.

Question: "Tell us about a time you had to put right a mistake that affected a customer."

Situation: "On a late shift on a hotel reception desk, a family arrived to find their room had been given to someone else."

Task: "I was the only receptionist on, so I had to find them a bed that night and keep them as guests."

Action: "I apologised and told them straight away what had gone wrong. I found a larger room free from the next day, booked them into the nearest hotel for that night and arranged a taxi both ways. Before I left, I wrote it up for my manager."

Result: "They came back the next morning and stayed the rest of the week. My manager used my note to change how late arrivals are held, and I now check late arrivals at the start of every shift."

This example is made up to show the shape. Yours should be true and your own.

The University of Reading says the Action should be the most detailed part, because that is where the panel sees what you did. The Open University advises keeping examples specific, recent and relevant, and the National Careers Service says to keep them short and to the point and to be ready for follow-up questions about them.

In practice that means the Situation and Task together take a few sentences, the Action is the longest part, and the Result is short but never missing. If you notice that most of your answer is scene-setting, cut it back and give the time to what you did.

These two examples are made up to show the shape in different kinds of work. Yours should be true and your own.

Question for a software developer: "Tell us about a time you found a bug in your own work after release." Situation: "A week after I shipped a new checkout form, support told me some customers were charged twice." Task: "I owned the code, so I had to stop it happening and make sure the customers were put right." Action: "I reproduced it, found that a double click sent the payment twice, switched the button off after the first click and added a check on the server. I told my team lead the same hour and gave support a list of the affected orders to refund." Result: "No new double charges after the fix, every refund was made within two days, and we added a test for repeated submissions."

Question for a teacher: "Tell us about a lesson that did not go as planned." Situation: "In a Year 9 science lesson on forces, a quick quiz at the halfway point showed that most of the class thought heavier objects fall faster." Task: "I had twenty minutes left and needed them to understand before the next topic." Action: "I stopped the planned task, dropped two different weights in front of them, asked them to predict and then explain what they saw in pairs. I then set a short follow-up question for the end." Result: "Most of the class got the follow-up right, and I moved the quiz to the start of the lesson for the rest of the unit."

These are the ones careers services warn about, and the marking looks for them too:

• Saying we instead of I. The University of Cincinnati advises focusing on your individual contributions, even when the work was a team effort.
• Leaving out the result. The University of Reading says the Result should include the outcome, the impact and what you learned.
• Picking an example that does not show the skill asked for. The Open University says the example should be relevant and describe the skill being asked for.
• Telling a hypothetical story instead of something that happened. The Open University says to show your direct involvement.
• Sounding scripted. The National Careers Service advises speaking naturally, so practise the shape and not the exact words.

The University of Reading says STAR suits competency-based questions about communication, teamwork, leadership, client focus, decision-making and problem-solving. Most of them begin with "Tell me about a time when". If you have no paid experience, the National Careers Service and the University of Arizona say examples can come from home, volunteering, study or clubs.

Our guide to behavioral interview questions groups real questions by theme and has more worked examples, and the common questions guide covers the classic openers that come before them.

• Behavioral interview questions
• Common interview questions and how to answer them
• Interview questions by job

Pick your job and answer a question out loud, or type it. Highlights show what landed, and a note shows the one thing to fix first.

Then try again with an account. The new score shows how far you moved.

Say it out loud rather than reading it through. An answer that looks tidy on paper can run long when you speak it, and the result is usually what gets cut. The marking shows you whether yours made it in.

Each job's page lists the questions panels ask for that job, grouped by the kind of question, with what each one is testing. Many ask for an example of something you did, which is where STAR helps.

Several have a strong answer you can open after you have tried the question yourself. Compare the shape, not the words: a strong answer starts with a direct reply, then gives the situation, your actions and the result.

• Band 6 nurse
• Care assistant
• Teaching assistant
• Customer service
• Project manager
• Police officer

Each answer is marked on four things, and each one shows up in a STAR answer:

• Relevance: does your situation match what the question asked about?
• Evidence: does your action give real detail of what you did?
• Structure: can a listener follow it from situation to result?
• Outcome: does it end with what happened?