How to Effectively Use the STAR Technique in Job Interviews

On the hunt for your next (or first) charity job? Dread the interview process? You’re not alone. No matter how well you prepare beforehand, it’s usual to worry that you’ll get stuck on a question, panic and blow the whole interview. Don’t worry, there’s a better way to structure your answers! We explain what the STAR technique interview method is, and how to use it in job interviews.

What is the STAR method in interviews?

The STAR technique interview method offers an easy-to-follow structure for responding to questions, without stumbling or rambling your way through your answer. Simply answer your interview questions in line with the following structure:

S – Situation

T – Task

A – Action

R – Results

First, you explain the situation. Then you detail the task you were required to complete in order to rectify the situation. Next, you explain the actions you took to achieve your goals. And finally, you round off your answer by detailing the results you achieved. Simple!

How to use the STAR technique interview method, step by step

So, let’s imagine that the hiring manager has asked you a typical interview question. You know the answer to the question, but you want to explain your response thoroughly, giving the interviewer all the necessary information while doing so. This is how to use the STAR method in an interview to give a winning response:

Situation

You’ll start off by explaining the situation to your interviewer. It’s best to keep this part of your explanation as concise and precise as possible, without going off on a tangent and adding unnecessary details. Keep it simple and to the point.

Your aim here is to make your interviewer aware of the situation you found yourself in, so they can better understand your response.

For example, let’s imagine that an interviewer gives you the following prompt: “Tell me about a time when you had to take on extra responsibilities outside your typical role.”

In the unpredictable world of charities, it isn’t unusual to find yourself carrying out duties that don’t typically fall under your job title, so it’s fair to expect this kind of question. To lay out the situation clearly, you could use the following structure, filling in the gaps as necessary:

“When I was working in my former role as a compliance coordinator, I realised that some of our advertising partners weren’t meeting our organisation’s code of conduct when it came to member contributions. Typically, I wasn’t in charge of coordinating with our partners, but I knew it would create legal problems and ethical issues with our member base if it wasn’t rectified quickly.”

Task

To explain the ‘task’ portion of your response, you’ll need to describe how you felt the situation should be resolved, and what you decided to do. Not only does this show off your knowledge, but it also demonstrates that you’re proactive in the face of a problem.

If we continue the example from above, you could say:

“From my experience, I knew that we’d need to contact our partners and ask them to file a financial overview and send it to us. This would allow us to ensure that the problems were rectifiable and that we could continue working with these partners.”

You don’t need in-depth detail here, that’s where your ‘action’ section comes in.

Action

Once you’ve set the scene and described the task at hand, you can go into slightly more detail about the actions you took to rectify the problem. During a job interview, it’s a good idea to avoid vague phrasing, such as “we got to work on it” or “I started fixing it” or “I got that done”, etc. You want to show off your knowledge while demonstrating your skills and capabilities, so be as specific and direct as possible.

For example, you could lead with:

“I started contacting relevant advertising partners and spoke directly with the coordinating managers, asking them to transfer their details over to our admin office. Once they arrived, I performed a compliance analysis and sent the results back to our financial department.”

Results

Now’s the time to discuss how your actions lead to tangible results for your organisation, and how you positively contributed to the resolution of a problem or the completion of a task. It’s great if you’re able to lead with figures, such as an increase in engagement, donations or membership.

To round off the example we’ve been working with, you could say:

“As a result of this compliance check, we managed to obtain around £100,000 in missing donation funds, 100% of which was invested directly back into our organisation.”

Improve your chances

The STAR technique interview method is a lot simpler than it sounds, so practice using it with some common interview questions. You can find some suggestions of skills-based interview questions here, so take a look and imagine how you’d use your own experiences to tackle them.

You can also be the first to find out about new jobs that match your skills and interests by setting up job alerts. You can do this from the job search page of CharityJob by clicking on ‘Create Alert’. Simply select ‘Daily’ or ‘Weekly’ according to how often you want us to contact you.

Want to hear about even more opportunities? Then log into your CharityJob account (or create it), go to your profile and set your ‘Contact preferences’ to be directly contacted by recruiters or receive updates about roles that we think you might be suitable for.

This article was published in 2024, and has since been updated by CharityJob staff to reflect the current candidate experience.