The STAR Method When answering behavioral questions, or any other story-based questions, one should always respond using the STAR method. The STAR method follows is an interview technique in which one lays out the Situation, Task, Action, and Result of a story, giving an interviewer a digestible, yet complete, vision of what one accomplished. One should keep their answers concise, aiming for one to two sentences per letter; however, the most focus should be placed on the Action and Result sections.
Situation - Begin your story by setting the scene. You should describe specifics of the event, giving enough details for an interviewer to have a clear picture of what was happening.
Task - The task section is where we discuss what exactly your role was in the aforementioned situation. Give specifics of what your responsibilities were and the expectations that were placed on you. Do not use this section to discuss your actions, save this for the next section.
Action - In this section one will detail exactly how they solved the given problem and the specific steps he/she took. Make sure to avoid vague answers such as, “I worked hard to..”; always give specifics, this is your chance to show off your skills and expertise.
Results - This is where you show the fruits of your labor. Show what results you achieved and do your best to quantify the effects; you could mention long-term effects of your actions or any other positives that occur, make sure that all results are positive even when discussing a negative situation.
S - Over this summer at RemeGen Biosciences, the head of operations as well as the head of biology wished to integrate a new procurement/inventory management system for the lab.
T - I was tasked with researching, demonstrating, and presenting several pre-selected systems to the executive team with my recommendation for the optimal choice. After weeks of due diligence and research I had a recommendation I was happy with.
A - After the initial presentation, I was told that the executive team wanted to explore other options and that I was to research other systems. I was discouraged but went back and re-evaluated all systems within the industry, primarily focusing on ease of accessibility for scientists, integration into our current system of quickbooks, and the overall cost for the first three years.
R - After presenting all my research to various executives, they were pleased and chose my recommendation. It was actually really cool because in the last week of my internship I was able to see the rollout of the system, and it was extremely rewarding. I was taught to not be discouraged after a single failure and the ability to persevere.
S - I was positioned during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as the brotherhood chair of my professional business fraternity.
T - We had scheduled and budgeted events for the entire semester, but had to move events virtually and found an glaring lack of attendance at the beginning as we attempted to continue with our original plans
A - My co-chair was a newly-joined member and had not experienced previous in-person brotherhood events, so I took it upon myself to schedule meetings with the co-chair as well as the VP of membership to discuss shortcomings and marketing failures. We created a new wave of events focused on member interaction, for example we hosted a virtual talent show that was a huge success. I got to watch one of my best friends freestyle and got to see a side of people I had never seen before.
R - With the excitement of events like these we were able to triple our member engagement from the beginning of the pandemic. I was also able to use my newly gained knowledge of virtual events to help the philanthropy chair and the professional chairs respectively in boosting engagement in a virtual 5K and a virtual speaker panel.
S - In my previous sales role, I was put in charge of the transition to an entirely new customer relationship management (CRM) system—on top of handling my daily sales calls and responsibilities.
T - The goal was to have the migration to the new CRM database completed by the start of Q3, without letting any of my own sales numbers slip below my targets
A - In order to do that, I had to be very careful about how I managed my time. So I blocked off an hour on my calendar each day to dedicate solely to the CRM migration. During that time, I worked on transferring the data, as well as cleaning out old contacts and fixing outdated information. Doing this gave me enough time to chip away at that project while still handling my normal tasks.
R - As a result, the transfer was completed two weeks ahead of deadline and I finished the quarter 10% ahead of my sales goal. The new CRM has also helped us get more organized as a team, and overall our department sales are up 25% year over year.