Since I have been going through the process of interviewing for the last couple of months, I thought it was time to talk about STAR- based interviews. This was something I had vaguely heard of when I worked in patient care roles, but never experienced until I started interviewing outside of patient care.

You may or may not have heard of interviews being conducted in the STAR format. Today we’re going to talk about them so that you can learn to prepare (and shine!) for them.

What are STAR interviews?

STAR is actually an acronym. It stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result.

Employers like to ask questions to see how you have reacted to certain situations in the past,  whether you would be a good fit on their team and predict how you would respond in the future. 

The questions they ask are both specific and generic. What I mean by that is they are asking about specific situations and stressors you have encountered, but those situations can have taken place anywhere and at any time. Even now that I have been out of patient care for many years I still find that for some of the questions that I am asked, my best response is from a clinical situation.

I can’t give you a list of specific questions that every employer uses because not every potential employer uses the same questions. I am frequently asked some of the same basic questions; however it seems like every interview I get asked a new question that throws me for a loop. I will tell you about some of the more common questions that I am asked.

Remember your skills can be transferred between different industries. These questions are not designed to see how much you know about a specific industry, but more as to how you react to certain stressors. That does not mean that you will not be asked industry specific questions, but you can use your past experiences to answer them from your patient care perspective.

Here are some questions I have been asked in interviews

1. Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a coworker and how you resolved it. 

   -This one can clearly be from any job. It doesn’t even have to be from a healthcare position, just any conflict with a colleague.

2 . Tell me about a time where you changed somebody’s mind (this one is frequently used for sales and education positions)

   -I use a story about getting a patient to agree on a procedure that will improve their lives (ethically of course).

3. Tell me about a time you advocated for a patient and what was the result.

   -This question really stumped me the first time I heard it because that is my job as a nurse –  to advocate for patients. How on earth do you pick just one? After the first interview where I was asked this, I sat down and made a list of specific patient interactions that would be a good fit for this question.

4. Tell me about a time that you had a conflict with a customer and how you reacted.

   -We work in healthcare. We have all had those patients at some point. Your patients are your customers, and any would be appropriate for this question.

5. Tell me about a time you worked with other groups/departments on a project.

   -This is the time to pull out any experiences you have working with multidisciplinary teams, on committees, even small projects with another department, like collaborating with IT to improve your EMR workflow. Potential employers want to know if you can play well with others.

6. Tell me about a time you had to adapt to a sudden change.

   -This can be anything: new equipment, new EMR, new manager. Any changes that impact your workflow, and how you handled it, would be an acceptable answer.

7. Tell me about a mistake you made and how you handled it.

   -Everyone makes mistakes, and potential employers don’t expect you to be perfect. They want to know that you will own up to your mistakes, that you tried to fix them, and that you learned from them. Again, this can be anything: med errors, you broke a specimen tube/slide, you assumed a task was done by someone else instead of checking.

My recommendation is to spend a little bit of time remembering some of the bigger and complicated events in your past, making a few notes on a piece of paper that you can have readily available as a reference during interviews. Having 5-7 stories in your back pocket, that could potentially be used for a couple of different types of interview questions, can keep you from getting tripped up while on the spot during an interview.

How to Handle STAR- Based Interview Questions

The key to handling STAR questions in an interview is brevity. Some people will start to answer these questions by telling a story and they have a tendency to say too much when answering this type of question. So let’s break down how to answer a STAR based question with a made up scenario.

Question from the interviewer: Tell me about a mistake you made and how you handled it.

S- Situation. What was the context of this mistake? The interviewer does not need a deep-dive into the policies of the work space where this event happened unless they ask. 

• Your answer: I realized after a patient encounter that I forgot to enter a home health referral, delaying care the patient needed at home.

T- Task. What are your responsibilities now that the error has been placed? The Task is not what you should have done earlier, it’s your responsibility once the situation or error was identified.

• Your answer: I need to ensure continuity of care and prevent delays in follow-up.

A- Action. What did you actually do to rectify the error?

• Your answer: I notified the patient. I notified the doctor. I entered the referral into the EMR, and contacted home health personally to ensure that they received the order and had all of the correct information to contact the patient and establish visits. I also notified the patient and doctor of all of the actions I had taken to correct the mistake. I then made an incident report so that all other appropriate channels were notified.

R- Result. 

• Your answer: I called the patient the next day and verified that they had spoken with home health and a home visit was planned that day. I improved my workflow to reduce the risk of missed referrals by implementing a system to remind me of urgent tasks that need to be completed.

Notice that the explanation of the mistake itself is brief. Most of the answer focuses on the response and the outcome. This keeps the answer focused and respects the interviewer’s time.

This example shows that you recognize when errors are made, take responsibility for your involvement, take action to correct the error, and make a plan to prevent it from happening again in the future. You have proven yourself to be insightful, conscientious, and responsible, all good traits to a potential employer. 

Conclusion

STAR interviews aren’t about telling the perfect story; it’s about organizing your experience clearly. If you can identify the situation, your responsibility, your actions, and the outcome, you can answer almost any behavioral interview question.

The goal isn’t perfection, it’s clarity.  It’s a way for you to highlight what is great about you.

What kind of STAR-based questions have you been asked in interviews? Drop them in the comments so that we can all learn from them, please!