Rating Interview Responses using the STAR method

Behavioral interviewing assumes that past performance is an indicator of future performance. We ask people about their previous experiences in order to see if we can align their responses with our expectations of the job and situations we know they’ll encounter. 

Using the STAR method to gain more insight into these areas, you’ll identify a Situation or Task, ask about what Actions were taken, and what the overall Result was. Here’s how it works.

Before the interview

Think of a situation or task that frequently occurs in the role and how you’d expect a top performer to handle it. You’ll need to discuss these with the interview team so everyone is aligned on what separates a top performer from an average performer for this role.

1. Review your candidate’s Behavioral Assessment results. 
2. Review the Job Fit to see the candidate’s naturally aligning and potentially misaligning characteristics. 
3. Use the Interview Builder, which gives you a list of questions tailored to this specific candidate for this specific job. 
4. Create additional questions using the STAR method to help you determine if the candidate has the potential to be a top performer.
5. Determine what answers would be satisfactory for you and the interview team to know this person would handle this situation or task adequately. That could look something like: (drag the slider to see the different response types)

During the interview

Let’s say you ask the candidate something like, “Name a time when you had to go outside of your job responsibility and roll up your sleeves to help another team member.” Ask the candidate to:

• (Situation or Task) Describe the specific situation or tasks they needed to accomplish. 
• (Action) Describe what they did, even if they’re discussing a group project. 
• (Result) What was accomplished? What did they learn? 

Rating the response

Be sure that everyone on the hiring team understands what good looks like and what rating scale they should use to determine how well a candidate responded. Using a clearly defined rating scale not only helps align the hiring team and the recruiter, but also acts as a method of reducing bias.

Additional resources

You can also use the Behavioral interview questions guide to dig deeper into how a candidate reacts in different situations to understand if they would be a good fit for the job.