What are STAR Behavioral Interview Questions and Why Do You Need to Ask Them? 

Hiring great people should involve carefully assessing their expertise and work habits during the interview through behavioral interview questions. 

These questions are meant to have candidates give examples of past work. Behavioral questions aren’t hypothetical. Candidates are asked “What did you do?” as opposed to “What would you do?” 

Asking candidates to discuss earlier work ought to test their capacity to recall, summarize, analyze and demonstrate a working knowledge of key concepts methods. Ideal candidates can show off their knowledge, as well as show they can learn from experience. All of these are crucial attributes for just about any position. 

The STAR Approach 

To find out how a candidate might function in the role they are seeking, the STAR method of behavioral interviewing uses a process that focuses on Situation, Task, Action and Results (STAR) 

First, a candidate is asked about a specific situation from their past that is relevant to the open position. For instance, if the candidate is interviewing for a tech support joba good question might be asking about a time they had to provide support to a particularly difficult person 

Next, the candidate should be asked about what their task was in the given situation. So, if a tech support candidate is asked about a difficult person, the candidate should explain what they were trying to help this person achieve or fix. 

The candidate should then be asked to layout the specific action or actions that they took to resolve the situation. Perhaps someone in tech support had to contact their supervisor or crunched some numbers. The candidate should be asked to explain why they chose to do what they did and what other options were dismissed.  

Finally, the candidate should be asked to explain the results of their actions. They should be able to explain the outcomes using specificssuch as a high customer service rating. 

Why Use This Approach? 

There are a number of good reasons why you should use the STAR approach to asking behavioral interview questions. 

First of all, it can help you avoid a costly bad hiring decision. Bad hires aren’t just a waste of hiring and training resources, they can also hurt productivity and negatively impact employee morale. 

The STAR method also helps to assess both technical skills and soft skills. When a candidate has to explain their thought process, it can help you to see their creativity and analytical skills, in addition to any technical abilities they had to use in the situation.  

STAR-based interview questions can also help to predict future behavior. If you ask a candidate about a difficult situation that commonly happens when working the open position, their answer can be extremely enlightening. 

We Can Help Your Company Connect to Great Candidates 

At Superior Resource Group, we help our clients find best-fit talent for their open positions. Please contact us today to find out how we can do the same for your company. 

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