How to Use the STAR Method in an Interview

If you’re on the hunt for your next (or first) charity job but dread the interview process, you’re not alone. No matter how well you prepare beforehand, it seems inevitable that you’ll get stuck on what feels like a trick question, panic, and blow the whole interview. Sound familiar? To make it easier to thoroughly answer questions, we recommend using the STAR method in an interview.

The STAR method offers an easy-to-follow structure for responding to interview questions, without stumbling, rambling, or fluffing your way through your answer. But what is the STAR method, and how does it work? Here’s how to use the STAR method in an interview.

What is the STAR method?

The STAR method is a way of answering your interview questions in line with the following structure:

S– Situation

T– Task

A– Action

R– Results

You explain the situation, you detail the task at hand to rectify the situation, you explain the actions you took, and you round it off by demonstrating how your actions got results. Simple!

Using the STAR method in an interview, 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 strange 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 adhering to 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 ethics 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 you found yourself in should be resolved, and what you knew you needed 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 to go into 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.”

Simple! So, next time you’re stumbling, practise using the STAR method in an interview and give winning answers, every time.