STAR Interview

Introduction

As managers, leaders, and collaborators we are going, at some time, to have to make an interview to hire the best candidate possible for one job that has something to do with us. But, regularly we have not been trained about how an interview should be done. What to ask, and how to follow that answer? So? What can we do?

Regular interviews with regular questions like: tell me something about you, What are your 3 strengths and weaknesses? Why do you want to change? Tell me your most important achievements, Why do you think we should hire you for the job?; and so on; but this is it is the best way to know a candidate for real? What are the chances to know a candidate in a 30 minutes interview?, and what are the chances that we (after those 30 minutes) have all the information we need to make a good decision? 

 Maybe we only going to have 30 minutes, so we have to take advantage of that time, and bring a strategy so that 30 minutes may be as much productive and efficient as we can.

How important is an interview?

Let me tell you, it is. If we hire a not adequate candidate may generate a bad climate, frustration, and bad performance by the teams; and in the end, the business may lose time and money.

STAR Behavioral Interview Questions

I earned the Effective Selection Interviewer certification by DDI | Development Dimensions International in 2009. This certification is about Competency interviews. This certification and STAR Interview are almost the same with a different name.

STAR Behavioral Interview Questions is a practice that consists in getting relevant information about a candidate to fill a position in a team/company with questions; is about focusing on the previous experience of the candidate and the know-how they acted in different situations or challenges they have lived.

That is going to give us a clear vision about how they will act in the future, if they are prepared enough, or not, to do the job, activities and to achieve the objectives that we are thinking that job should do.

It is about asking the person to tell you different "stories" about their experience, how they had solved some situations and problems, and what they have learned about some experiences, focusing those questions on the competencies you think that position will need.

Step by step:

Before the session:

1. Analyze what competencies the candidate needs for the position.
2. If you are not an expert on what competencies are needed you should ask an expert for the competencies that role should have.
3. Read the resume. Analyze what are the competencies that are aligned with past job experience in your candidate, and think of the questions you want to ask.

(The interviews always may go in different ways, but thinking about the questions, the competencies always help you to do better interviews, that does not mean that you have to stick with your questions, the interview could go another way and you have to be ready to improvise.)

During the session:

1. I recommend double-checking the personal information, telling the candidate something about you: maybe how many years and why you are in that company (as an icebreaker), regularly people get nervous during job interviews, and if people are nervous maybe will have a bad performance in the interview.
2. Ask the candidate to describe to you something about one situation related to one competency for that position (e.g: “Could you tell me how do you solve a difficulty with a client that is asking for something that was not considered inside the contract?”).
3. Ideally, the candite will tell you the whole story, but if not, you should guide him/her to tell you what were the details and his/her role in that situation. 
4. If the candidate hasn’t told you yet what was exactly his/her moves, ask for details, and
5. Results (what was the outcome of this situation).

Why this practice?

This practice is very simple and also kind to candidates. It seems that you are leading a casual conversation because you are listening and showing you like being curious about him/her story. You should make questions (using the STAR practice) with genuine interest to know more. Also, it may create a better environment by excluding the rigid formality of an interview. You show interest in the story and real experience of the candidate. The candidates sometimes get so enthusiastic about their own stories (or not), and all of that gives you information.

The real gift about this practice is that you have a fabulous guide with questions, and receive all the information we (as interviewers) need to know if someone is adequate for a role, or not. And if one candidate is not the best option because he/she does not have the competencies to do the job, that it is kind to the candidate too, he/she will not get frustrated with the tasks and responsibilities he/she is going to have to do.

But first of all, you have to be clear on what are the competencies (and the challenges he/she will be faced with) that are needed for the position, so you can lead the interview to get the information you need and then, take a well-informed decision.

How did I use this practice?

A couple of years ago I was hired to find a strategic role in an IT company (being specific: the Operations Director). I make an assessment about what competencies were needed for the position, and then we start to receive resumes that were aligned with those competencies.

Because this was a strategic position, the competencies, skills, knowledge, and experienced had to be focused on: leading and inspiring people, “getting things done”, strategic oriented, negotiation, crisis management, communication, developing a team, and focusing on value-oriented.

In this particular case, I began checking the information included in his resume (as I said before, like an ice-breaker, but also to double-check the info in the bio). The one that I recommend hiring at the end of the process had a lot of experience leading teams, and on the resumé had plenty of achievements related, so that was the information that I used to start the STAR questions:

1. Tell me something about your experience in X company, something that you feel proud of, and something you feel ashamed of. (Extra-Tip: Because he was a leader, he was supposed to talk in the plural, which meant that he does not think that the whole achievement is because of him, but came from his team.)
2. He started to tell me about the great team he had the opportunity to lead, how the team was committed to the objectives, and he remembered one case where they have a problem because the client have not decided on an aspect of the development that may cause a delay of the delivery of that initiative.
3. I asked him what was his role in that particular situation. What did he do?
4. He tell me that he had to go to the client’s offices and explained the situation, and the consequences if they do not give them an answer, and later he went back with the information they needed to continue that initiative. The team was clearly supported by him.
5. I asked him what were the results, and what would have occurred if he did not take that action.
6. The candidate has a clear vision of the risks if that could not be solved on time, so he takes action, and everything has a great result.
7. And the interview continues, now with other examples, like: Tell me how do you inspire people?, and that works for everybody?, and what happened when you have a bad day? Or, tell me the biggest challenge you faced in X company, how do you solve it, and what was your specific role at that time?, tell me more about that. Or, how do you share the vision with your team members?, and then, how do you get inspired and inspired your team every day?, and what is your specific role when an objective is not achieved? And so on.

As you can see the answers should tell you a complete story, and you have to keep questioning so you at the end of the interview have the whole picture (or detect inconsistencies in the story, if that is the case).

This candidate showed a passion for his career; he gave me information about how he handled crises and how he tried to inspire and back up his team in all scenarios. That gave me the information I needed to give a well-informed recommendation that has to be the candidate to get hired for that position.

And I made a tricky question: "Tell me one bad experience in your career." That is a good one because you can always allow changing the story from the present adding some questions like What would you do differently? What did you have learned about this experience? In this case, the candidate showed his lessons learned about a particular experienced because we are humans and everybody has the chance to get wrong and to learn from the past.

Lessons learned

Since 2009 I have been using this type of interview and I am impressed with the results that a good formula may give you with an interview: It gives you a clear roadmap to get relevant information to make a well-informed decision about who will be the best candidate according to the role/business/culture needs. 

I use this practice very often. I recommend first of all taking a few minutes in building a climate of trust with the person in front of you (even if it is on the computer's screen) and use an ice breaker (as I said before: tell the candidate something about you, your life, the climate).

Commonly, the person does not give all the information on the first attempt, so you have to continue asking questions till you have all the information you needed.

Remember: There are no good/bad answers. There is just information.

My learnings about applying this practice are that it is always very effective. Even if a candidate cannot give the examples you are asking for, that is information you will use to make the right decision.

Maybe next time I will add, at the end of the interview the question: What else do you think is important that I need to know about you?

I am always get impressed by the effectiveness of this practice. The STAR interviews are gentle to people. It seems almost as if you were talking with a friend about a story, and you (as the interviewer) only wanted to know more.

 This is a great opportunity to know which candidate fulfills the role and team needs, and which candidate will be committed (or not) to the organization’s purpose. 

Extra tip:

During the interview ask the candidate which personal values they have and which ones of them are aligned with the organization. You will be surprised by the results of this question! ;)