🙋🏻♀️ "Tell me about a time when you..."
How to ace situational interview questions
“Tell me about a time when you…”
You've probably been asked at least one of these questions in your last job interview. These are situational interview questions. Recruiters use them to assess how you would handle a specific task or real-life situation related to the job you’re applying for.
According to recruiters, being unprepared is one of the most common mistakes that people make in interviews. In this article, we'll walk through some answer formats that you can use to give strong, stand-out answers.
The “conventional” advice is to use STAR
STAR is an extremely common answer format recommended by interview advice blogs and websites. STAR stands for:
Situation - Describe what happened
Task - State what you needed to achieve in that situation
Action - Explain what you did to accomplish the task
Result - Summarise the outcomes
Example - Answer to 'Tell me about your greatest achievement'
“(S) When I was a manager of a beachfront restaurant, the summer months were much busier and we were frequently short of staff.
(T) So, I came up with a system to stop us from getting overwhelmed during the summer period.
(A) I planned the shift schedule and notified staff months in advance. I then used extra pay to reward staff who filled in for their colleagues when there were unexpected absences.
(R) As a result, our TripAdvisor rating increased from 3.8 to 4.5 compared to last summer, and the number of negative reviews we received for poor customer service dropped from 50 to 2.”
You may see slight variations of this acronym, such as SOAR (Situation, Obstacles, Action, Result), STARI (STAR + Impact you made), or STARL (STAR + Learnings you gained). Since STAR is so common, there are many resources on the Internet to help you nail this framework, such as this 6-part blog series.
But to ace situational interview questions, you're going to need more than STAR, because:
Not all scenarios or questions fit neatly into the STAR framework. In these cases, you could sound awkward or forced when trying to use STAR.
STAR is the most common framework, so many other interview candidates will be using it, and you'll risk sounding the same as them.
Think beyond STAR: What to use instead
Here are 5 STAR alternatives that you can add to your interview toolkit. Use these to give varied (but still well-structured) answers.
1. PAR
How to use it:
Problem - Describe the issue you faced (use the 5 W's - who, what, when, where, why).
Action - Outline what you did to address the issue.
Result - Summarise the outcomes, using specific numbers and metrics as much as possible.
Similar acronyms: CAR (Challenge, Action, Result); OAR (Opportunity, Action, Result)
When to use it: The main benefit of this structure is its brevity - you can cover it in 3 sentences. This feature makes it ideal for giving short answers, for example
If the recruiter expects a short answer - like a warm-up question or a question at the end of the interview
If the scenario you're describing is simple and easy to summarise in one sentence (use the longer structures like PARADE - listed below - to cover more complex scenarios).
Example - Answer to “Tell us about a time when you solved a problem.”
“(P) My previous company had a newsletter that had lower-than-expected signups.
(A) To encourage newsletter signups, I formed a team with colleagues from marketing, sales, and the IT division and we designed a social media campaign.
(R) My approach led to a 40% increase in newsletter signups over a 3-month period, and my marketing campaign was adopted by other branches, including overseas subsidiaries.”
2. CARL
How to use it:
Context - Describe the situation you faced.
Action - Outline what you did to address the issue.
Results - Summarise and quantify the outcomes.
Learning - Explain how you would handle the situation differently now.
When to use it: The key difference between CARL and the other acronyms is the “Learning” aspect. This feature makes it ideal for answering questions about “negative” situations, such as
A time you made a mistake, didn't meet expectations, or failed to achieve a goal
A time when you dealt with conflicts with/between coworkers
Example - Answer to “Tell us about a time you made a mistake.”
“(C) In my last job, I was responsible for redesigning the e-commerce website for a new client. It originally seemed very similar to another website I'd designed, so I told them it would be ready in 2 months. But, 2 weeks into the project, I realized that the website actually needed more coding from scratch than I initially thought, and it would take me an extra month to prepare these custom features.
(A) I scheduled a meeting with the client to inform them about the issue and discuss how they preferred to handle the situation, such as moving the deadline or hiring additional manpower for this project. With the client's agreement, I assembled a team of web developers to help me work on the website full-time and outsourced as many tasks as we could to save time.
(R) We finished the website before the original deadline, and the client was so pleased with the result that they continued to hire us for their major projects.
(L) I learned a valuable lesson on managing expectations. I realized that it’s better to under-promise and over-deliver, and learned how to better set and manage deadlines for my team.”
3. DIGS
How to use it:
Dramatise the situation - Craft a narrative about what happened, including details to make the story engaging.
Indicate the alternatives - Discuss 2-4 options you considered, outlining their pros and cons.
Go through what you did - Explain what option you chose and how you implemented it.
Summarise your impact - Describe how your actions made a difference, using evidence wherever you can.
When to use it: The key difference between DIGS and the other acronyms is the “Impact” aspect. This feature makes it ideal for answering questions about “positive” situations, such as
A time when you successfully led or managed a large project
A time when you successfully handled an unexpected problem
Example - Answer to “Tell us about a time when you had to deal with an unexpected situation.“
“(D) At my last company, I was the main organiser of a full-day conference on leadership, which was our largest annual event attended by people inside and outside our company. At 5am on the actual day, my manager called me in a panic. One of our guest speakers cancelled due to a medical emergency and I had to find a way to fill the 1-hour gap that created in the conference schedule.
(I) Given the short timeframe, I focused on finding alternative speakers among the company leaders, especially those who had been in leadership positions for several years.
(G) After a few unsuccessful phone calls, I managed to get the CFO to agree. I met him at the venue before the conference started, and we spent two hours preparing and rehearsing the presentation slides.
(S) The CFO spoke for 40 minutes and we took audience questions for the remaining 20 minutes. The presentation received a strong positive response, and in a post-conference survey, 68% of attendees rated it as the highlight of the day.”
4. GICF
How to use it:
Goal - Summarize the project's main aim.
Impact - Explain the benefits of the project's outcome(s) and final results.
Challenges - Discuss 1-3 obstacles the project encountered and how you solved them.
Findings - Share 1-3 interesting results.
When to use it: The key difference between DIGS and the other acronyms is the “Findings” aspect. This feature makes it ideal for answering questions about projects that you've worked on, such as
A recent project you worked on or led
A time you used data to influence a decision or solve a problem.
Example - Answer to “Tell us about a time you used data to influence a decision.”
“(G) At my last job, I was responsible for designing a social media campaign to promote a product that wasn't selling well.
(I) This product was my company's main source of revenue, so a successful campaign would make a huge impact on sales and build brand loyalty among new customers.
(C) I used a mix of qualitative and quantitative data to influence the campaign's design. One challenge I faced was finding data from past social media campaigns because this information was stored in various places. To solve this issue, I scheduled a meeting with our data manager, who helped me find everything I needed. Since this project happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, another challenge I faced was recruiting people with the required demographics for focus groups and questionnaires. To address this issue in a cost-effective way, I used a professional survey company.
(F) My data collection contributed to a successful campaign, with a 30% increase in the number of followers across my company's social media accounts and a 10% increase in sales in the 3 months following the campaign. I also used this data to identify reasons why the product's sales had flagged recently, which played a crucial role in the management's ultimate decision to redesign its packaging and labelling.”
5. PARADE
How to use it:
Problem - Outline the issue you faced.
Anticipated consequence - Describe what would happen if the issue was not addressed.
Role - Define the role you played in resolving the problem.
Action - Outline what you did to address the issue.
Decision-making rationale - Explain why you chose those actions.
End result - Summarise the outcome of your actions.
When to use it: This acronym is longer than the others, so is ideal for questions that require more detail, in-depth analysis, or explanations of your reasoning, such as
Case-study-type questions (where you are presented with a scenario and asked how you would react)
Complex situations that involve multiple parties (where your role and contributions need to be clearly identified)
Example - Answer to “Tell us about a time when you handled a difficult situation.”
“(P) Last summer, I was assigned into a team responsible for evaluating our company's recruitment practices. We were given one month to conduct the necessary research and submit a report of our findings and recommendations to the upper management. Unfortunately, the team was divided on how to interpret and present the information related to potentially sensitive topics like diversity and inclusion. Neither side wanted to back down, and the deadline was approaching.
(A) If these tensions weren't addressed promptly, we wouldn't have anything to present.
(R) I played a crucial role in resolving the disputes within the team.
(A) I suggested we invite an unbiased third party to help mediate, and gave the team a few names to choose from.
(D) I thought mediation would be suitable for this situation because only someone who wasn't part of our team would have the objective perspective we needed to make an authoritative decisions that the whole team would accept.
(E) Once we agreed on whom to invite, we then held a long meeting where we went through each data finding one by one with the mediator. The mediator helped keep the discussion focused on facts and even suggested new ways of looking at our research. The report that came out of this discussion persuaded the upper management to implement blind recruitment policies, which significantly improved our diversity metrics in the following recruitment round.“
Prepare for your next interview
Now it's time to put these frameworks into action:
Read the job description of the position you're applying for and note down all the personal qualities and skills mentioned.
For each personal quality or skill, write down as many examples from your work experience where you demonstrated it.
Use one of the 5 frameworks (or STAR) to turn each example into an interview answer.