Category: Management Training

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How to Ace Every Interview with STAR

What is the STAR?

The STAR technique is a process that helps you to respond efficiently and effectively to those tricky interview questions that ask you to reflect on your experience. It will help you to ace every interview. These types of questions will often begin, “Tell me…?”, “Describe a situation…?” or “Give me an example of a time when…?”. Interviewers ask these kinds of questions to understand how you will perform in the role.

How to Ace Every Interview with STAR
How to Ace Every Interview with STAR
Using this technique, you can match your answer to the question and perform better at interviews by outlining the:
  • Situation
  • Task required to address the situation
  • Action you took to complete the task
  • Result of your actions
Explain the Situation

Start by describing a specific situation or problem rather than a general explanation of many situations because this will make sure it resonates. It could be your experience from a previous job; voluntary experience; or any relevant event.

Provide details because the interviewer must fully understand how your situation matches the question they have posed.
Introduce the Task

Make your interviewer understand the objective you were set or your realisation of what was required to turn the situation around. 

Describe YOUR Action

The spotlight is on you therefore describe the approach you took to address the situation.

  • Tip #1: Provide precise and methodical detail. What did you do and what were the specific steps you took?
  • Tip #2: Keep the focus entirely on you. People tend to use the collective “we” to describe contributions at work since we are often working with a team. When explaining actions in an interview, focus exclusively on what YOU did by using “I” not “we”. 
Own YOUR Result

The most important part of your response. To nail it like a pro, describe the positive outcomes of your actions and what you accomplished. Besides that, put these results into clear context by throwing in some metrics, numbers or percentages.

  • Tip #3: This is YOUR moment and YOUR accomplishments so keep the focus on yourself.
  • Tip #4: Delight the interviewer by ensuring they understand that the result outperformed expectations.
Modelling STAR 

Example Question:

Give me a specific example of a time when you used logic to solve a problem?  

 

Example Response:

S: Interest in our marketing services was declining with less clients renewing contracts and revenues down.

T: I was tasked with generating new ideas that would revive interest in our services, retain our most important contracts and increase revenues year on year by 10%.

A: I conducted research that revealed increasing competition in the market for traditional services. I decided to prioritise our design capability and overhaul our digital presence to promote this service. I also set-up a special training session for the sales team so they could promote this service in new business discussions.

R: As a consequence, the business won eight pitches for new business. Two previous clients returned to us, which increased sales revenue by 30 % over the same period in the previous year.

Conclusion

Your appearance, passion, values and likeability only gets you so far in interviews.

To ace it, the STAR technique delivers a structure that helps your message chime with the requirements of the job and most importantly ensures you go one better than the rest.
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Four Key Interpersonal Skills for Better Relationships

Four Key Interpersonal Skills for Better Relationships

The nicest people in our lives have interpersonal skills in abundance. They are attributes that make the toughest requests reasonable, the toughest situations bearable and the scary challenges that we face seem exciting. Below we look at four of the most powerful interpersonal skills for high performing teams and better working relationships that endure.

Four Key Interpersonal Skills for Better Relationships
Four Key Interpersonal Skills for Better Relationships – Assertiveness Skills
Show Respect

Think about the people you work with and their abilities, qualities and achievements. These things are worthy of admiration. When you respect someone, you convey that sense regardless of their position and experience, or yours. Most importantly perhaps, respect is a foundation from which other interpersonal skills flourish. 

Empathy 

Empathy is understanding your counterpart’s feelings by putting ourselves in their shoes. By demonstrating care and concern for the situations and emotions of others, we are better able to connect with them. Understanding others at more profound level helps, for example what makes them happy, helps us to lead and inspire them.

Besides that, in situations that cause stress or conflict, empathy helps us to be attentive to the emotions of others and acknowledge their feelings.

By really listening, giving them the satisfaction of being heard and showing we understand, we can defuse and de-escalate the toughest situations. 
Non-Verbal Skills

It’s not what you say, but the way that you say it or so the saying goes. Non-verbal cues are the way we say it. They help to layer our communication and provide plenty of additional information. Movement and body language indicate our levels of confidence or decisiveness. Facial expressions convey our feelings.

Gestures help us to deliver our message and emphasise key information. While eyes are the window to the soul and making eye contact holds attention and strengthens the rapport we have with others.

Conversely, crossed arms, a slouched posture and no eye contact can leave us with negative impressions.
Assertive (Not Aggressive)

Assertive behaviour differs from aggressive behaviour as it is collaborative rather than domineering. When we speak assertively, we strike a balance between promoting our own needs without making the person we are speaking to feel like they are wrong. By doing so, we are more able to build trusting relationships in the workplace.

If we become offensive or insult others, it drives others away because such behaviour is aggressive.
Conclusion

Respect, Empathy, Non-verbal Skills and Assertiveness are key interpersonal skills that help us to perform and play nice.

These skills promote trust, and support strong relationships that make the good times better and help us to weather the bad times together. Check out our range of soft skill training to help your development.