I’m here to show you a student example answering a behavioral interview question using the star method the student you’re about to see is answering the following question tell me about a time you felt under pressure to meet a deadline this is the student’s first attempt at answering this question let’s take a look so basically last semester i got this internship and what had happened was my supervisor gave me thousand case files to do in two days and i just couldn’t do it but at the end of the day i got it done so it’s fine the student’s first attempt at answering this question is too vague all around if we look at the four components of the star method we’ll see that while she did mention the situation her internship and the task 1000 case files both were rather vague in lacking detail she then failed to provide any detail about her actions or the results leaving it up to the interviewer to draw their own conclusions to make matters worse she said um a lot and her eyes spent more time looking around the room than at the person interviewing her this is not a good response let’s take a look at her second attempt pay attention to how her response improves and how she presents herself more professionally last semester i got this internship at the law school and what happened was my supervisor gave me a thousand case entries to do in 48 hours. I was really discouraged at first but after a while and some hard work I got it done and turned in early this response is better but still not ideal and looking around the room have been corrected we can also see that she began adding more detail about the situation the internship was last semester and in the law school the task is still lacking detail while her specific actions are still missing we do begin to get a sense of the results in that she says she was able to turn in her work early so while the response is better it is still not a good response let’s give her one more try at answering this question so last semester i received an internship at the law school here at the university of Arizona and my supervisor gave me a thousand case entries to sort through analyze and code however i actually had bronchitis at the time so it was really hard for me to stay awake and focused what i did was i set an alarm system that woke me up every 30 minutes from my nap to do 50 cases at a time
in areas when i was more awake I could do 200 entries and before i knew it I was able to submit all my case files in two days and actually i turned them in early my supervisor was very impressed and commended me for my hard work this response while brief is a good response because it hits on all four star method components and is delivered in a professional way she sets the stage by telling us the story she is about to tell us took place while she was interning at the u of a law school she clearly states the tasks and even provides details about the skills required the sorting analyzing and coding of 1000 case entries she then provides detailed information about her actions about how she was so she was sick so she created a schedule for herself that allowed her to balance her work with resting then she arrived at the result not only did she finish the project early but her supervisor commended her for her work this is a good response while this example response was brief your response can be between one and two minutes long any longer and you run the risk of the interviewer not being able to follow what you’re saying if you need more information about
behavioral interview questions or about the star method visit our website at career.arizona.edu
