What is the STAR technique and how do I apply it to my interview?
You’ve received an email letting you know that your CV has been shortlisted for a role you’ve applied for. It’s a wonderful moment, but that joy can quickly be eclipsed by nerves as your focus turns to the next step: the interview.
At Immersive Labs, we don’t want those moments to be filled with dread. Instead we want you to feel as confident as possible (with a healthy dose of nerves) during our interview process. We want you to dazzle us with your brilliance and make sure you’re talking us through the most relevant aspects of your experience.
Our interviews are competency based, which means we test your ability and behaviour against the role you’re interviewing for. This helps us predict your future success in the position. In addition, if we feel this role isn’t quite aligned for us both, we can give you some tangible feedback to help you reapply in the future or explore your career elsewhere.
The best way to prepare for a competency based interview is to make sure you have thoroughly read through the job advert. Really think about how your skills align to it and what previous experience you can draw from to showcase your talents. The best way to demonstrate relevant skills concisely is to use the STAR technique. STAR stands for:
- Situation
- Task
- Action
- Result
STAR key concepts
Applying this concept to your interview responses will help you give a comprehensive, concise, and relevant answer. When you first hear the question, take the time to listen and digest it. Don’t be afraid to ask qualifying questions to make sure you’ve properly understood, then think of a relevant event that you can draw on. Let’s go over each step in more detail.
Situation
Describe the context of the situation you were in. Were you studying, volunteering, or working at the time? Who for? Were you part of a team? Set the scene so the interviewers understand what the situation was and how it relates to the question.
Task
Next, describe your responsibility in this situation. It should relate directly to the question. For example, you could talk about a sales target you were set, a conflict with a coworker, a complex task you wished to complete, or a goal you had to achieve as part of a team.
Action
Talk about the action or steps you took towards completing the goal or task. Make sure you talk about yourself, using ‘I’ instead of ‘we’ when describing your own actions.
Result
Finally, talk about what you achieved. What was the outcome of completing the task? Highlight what you accomplished and what you learnt.
How do I prepare for my Immersive Labs interview?
Thoroughly read the job advert
We mentioned earlier how important it is to thoroughly read the job advert before your interview. When reading through it, make a list of the skills and competencies we’ve listed – you can find these under the ‘To be successful’ section. Then match your skills and competencies to that list. If we’ve mentioned any behaviours such as team work or strong communication, make a note of these and match your behaviours to them too.
Think of examples
For each skill, competency, and behaviour, think of a specific example from your professional or personal background that best illustrates how you demonstrated them. Then apply the STAR technique to each example.
Stay relevant
Make sure your examples are relevant to the role you’ve applied for. It’s important that your answers allow the interviewers to understand how you would perform in the advertised role.
You can also google commonly asked competency questions, then come up with answers to them using the STAR technique.
Be yourself
We try to make our interviews as painless as possible so you can bring your true self to the interview. We want to see your personality and passion, ultimately this is somewhere you come to belong and not fit in.
Chat to your Talent Acquisition Partner
Our Talent Acquisition team is here for you during the interview process. If you have any concerns or need any support in the build up to your interview, please give us a call, text, or email and we’ll do our best to make sure you’re set up for success. We understand how nerve wracking interviews are, so we want to make it as pain-free as possible.
