If an interviewer asks you a question like, “Tell me about a time when you evaluated a new technology to solve an old problem,” be sure to use the STAR Model to help yourself give a satisfying answer.<\/p>\n
STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. It’s great for answering all sorts of questions about your past performance. (Google “STAR answer”.)<\/p>\n
For example, an answer to that, “evaluating new technology,” question might sound like this:<\/p>\n
Situation: “I was a junior developer at company X last year. We had a site for selling a product with a lot of options that could all be toggled on and off. This updated the product preview.”<\/p>\n
Task: “We had to add some more options and I noticed that several relevant frameworks had become popular since we first wrote it. I thought one might be a better fit than our entirely custom code.”<\/p>\n
Action: “Over a few days I used spare time to pick\u00a0three frameworks. I implemented dummy options in all three. I\u00a0took notes on which ones were easiest to use. I\u00a0did simple performance tests\u00a0of my examples and collected some\u00a0online benchmark data. I picked the one I thought balanced performance and ease of use and presented a recommendation and my notes to my supervisor.”<\/p>\n
Result: “My supervisor agreed with my pick but said it was a bad time to add a framework. \u00a0We wrote a story about adding the framework and prioritized it in the backlog. \u00a0After a couple of weeks we played the story and added the framework. It took some getting used to for a couple of team mates. \u00a0After a couple more weeks we agreed it had been a good move.”<\/p>\n
I just timed myself giving that answer in a normal, unhurried tone. It takes less than a minute.<\/p>\n
Don’t get into the weeds in your initial answer. Giving a STAR answer first and letting the interviewer probe for details allows you to focus on a complete and brief answer.<\/p>\n
By the way, that kind of interview question is from a “behavioral interview.” The premise of behavioral interviewing is that, while imperfect, past performance is the best indicator of future performance. (Google “behavioral interview”)<\/p>\n
Rather than ask a brain teaser, or hypothetical question about what you\u00a0might<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>do in a situation, behavioral interviews ask you what you\u00a0did<\/em> do in a certain kind of situation.<\/p>\n If you are just getting into a certain job market (like web development) then still\u00a0answer\u00a0behavioral interview questions using\u00a0your past experiences. \u00a0You may be asked, “How did you evaluate a new technology for an old problem?” and your answer doesn’t have to be about web development.<\/p>\n Remember that the interviewer is going to hire you<\/em> and not your team. So make sure it is clear what your contribution was.<\/p>\n Also remember that you are being hired to work on<\/em> a team. So don’t sound like a glory hound.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If an interviewer asks you a question like, “Tell me about a time when you evaluated a new technology to solve an old problem,” be sure to use the STAR Model to help yourself give a satisfying answer. STAR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result. It’s great for answering all sorts of questions about your… Continue reading STAR Interview Tip<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[138,18,139],"class_list":["post-396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-applying","tag-behavioral-interview","tag-being-interviewed","tag-star-model","wow fadeInUp","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396\/revisions\/403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.managerjs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Bonus Tip: Put the “I” in Team<\/h2>\n