How to Leverage the STAR Interview Method

For years, interviewers have bombarded their candidates with similar questions—the kind that are never fruitful. These uneventful questions ultimately leave interviewers with only the option of following the clues that candidates deliberately offer when asked, "Tell us about yourself."

For the hiring team, the interview process is an important opportunity to understand a candidate's professional skills and fit with the organization. While most hiring managers have pre-set or frequently asked questions for each candidate, it's time to introduce more offbeat lines of questioning into the interview process. These could be questions that encourage candidates to delve into specifics—nuances where real insights into their problem-solving and strategic thinking lie. This is where the STAR interview method can provide a roadmap.

An Interviewing Technique that Would Yield Generous Returns

It could be argued that interviews are the most important stage in the recruitment process. Up to this point, you don't know much about the candidates you're considering. You've only seen their CVs and may have had a brief phone or video interview with them. Thus, the better your interview questions, the more you'll learn about your candidates. Many interviewers expect candidates to just come out and say why they are great. However, a good interviewer must take the lead.

Evidence gathered from past performance can be indicative of how an individual will perform in a similar setting, and the STAR interview method works on similar principles. The method can be a great way to develop a data-driven system for future recruitment. However, for the STAR method to be successful, hiring managers need to understand the work culture and the exact skills and competencies they are looking for. For example, if you are hiring a sales manager, your behavioral question may assess how a candidate aligns their department's goals with the sales team’s. In the absence of such knowledge, the hiring team may not be in a position to know what to look forward to in a candidate’s response or whether the answer is correct or wrong. This may result in a negative hiring experience.

Answering behavioral questions using the STAR method requires a candidate to think, explore, and process their experience. With responses to a situation, task, action, and outcome, candidates can present a linear story that is verifiable and provides sufficient evidence of their credibility as a company asset.

How Does the STAR Method Deliver Results?

Gone are the days when interviewers quizzed candidates on their strengths and weaknesses. Today, recruiters and hiring managers want to assess how candidates think and solve job-related problems.

The STAR interview questions start with prompts such as "Can you tell me about a time when..." or "What would you do if...". The purpose of these 'behavioral' or 'situational' questions is to objectively assess a potential employee's past behavior as a predictor of future results. Some of these questions may seem closed-ended, meaning that in a normal conversation, they could be answered with a simple "Yes" or "No". However, the real essence of a STAR interview lies in practicing a "Yes, and..." mentality. In other words, interviewers should prompt candidates to offer an example that can help demonstrate the depth of their skills and knowledge.

How to Optimize Your Interview Process with the STAR Format?

Using STAR interview questions can be a great way to make candidates feel that you're asking the right questions to learn about their skills and experience. This, in turn, can encourage attractive candidates to move forward in the interview process—an important advantage in this tight talent market. When answering questions during a STAR format interview, the candidate creates a story with conflict and resolution. The ease with which a candidate's story is followed and understood is an indication of how well they have prepared.

Recruiters can use the STAR interview method to understand a candidate’s following aspects:

• Strengths and weaknesses: Ask questions like "How will you manage a project that is probably going to be over budget or delayed?" or "What do you do when you don't like a colleague you have to work closely with?”

• Leadership potential: Use questions such as “What defines effective delegation to you?” or “Tell me about a time when you have provided leadership when you were not in a direct leadership position”.

• Ability to work in difficult situations: Ask questions such as "Describe a situation where you faced disagreement with your manager. How did you resolve the conflict?" or "As a manager, how would you handle the introduction of an unpopular policy?”

• Ability to exercise independent judgment: Ask questions such as "How would you deal with conflicting feedback on a project?" or "Has it ever happened that you missed your deadline or target? Why did it happen?”

Moving Beyond the Usual Script

The interview remains one of those activities that we think we know all about simply because we have been doing it for so long—but we are blinded by habit. It seems obvious that a modest effort aimed at analyzing our interviewing techniques would yield generous returns. While conventional interview questions that are so often asked, such as "Can you talk about your strengths and weaknesses?” or “Where do you envision your career path five years from now?” provide valuable insights, asking unconventional interview questions that go beyond the usual script can help uncover unique aspects of a candidate's personality and problem-solving skills.

Therefore, the STAR interview method is an indispensable tool in hiring teams' quest for exceptional talent. As employers recognize the incredible turbulence that the next few years are bound to bring, the STAR method can certainly help candidates present a compelling case to their interviewer while helping recruiters understand whether the role truly matches a candidate's inner aspirations and capabilities.