How to Be a STAR Candidate and Reduce Interview Stress

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Interview nerves giving you sweaty palms and a blank mind? Unsure of how to phrase your answers for fear of looking stupid?

Don’t worry, this is a normal response to the pressure of interviews. And there is a brilliantly simple technique you can harness to ensure you remain calm, answer questions articulately and never run out of examples while under pressure.

Being well-prepared is a good way to reduce interview stress. Go through your CV or application and remind yourself of your selling points such as your key strengths.

Now you need examples to support what you say. This is where being a STAR candidate will give you the edge over the competition, position you strongly in the interviewer’s mind and help reduce your anxiety.

The STAR method is a great tool for mining and refining your examples. It’s also colombia phone number library perfect for competency-based interview questions, often used to objectively assess candidates against set criteria.



The STAR method is a mnemonic for:

Situation, Task (or target), Action and Results

It’s a great way to tease out the specifics of what you did or achieved and can be used to answer the dreaded question ‘tell me about a time when…’ Under pressure, you’re likely to forget what you did, or jumble it up and your answer becomes a rambling mess, missing the key points. Easily done.

Here’s why the STAR technique makes your life easier

Shows how you approach and handle real situations and how you solve problems
Helps you determine specific actions, behaviours and results that demonstrate why you’re a strong candidate
Helps you remember concrete examples when under pressure in interviews
Positions you as a good candidate in the interviewer’s mind. You’re helping them to picture you in a challenging situation and showing how you use skills to overcome difficulties
Provides solid evidence and is a good way to show, not just tell


How can you use the STAR method for interviews and make yourself look great?

Using the STAR method is straightforward:

Situation: set the scene of the issue or challenge. Keep it concise to avoid a rambling response. This helps keep you focused too.

Task or Target: What needed to be done or had to be achieved.

Action: What you did and the skills or knowledge you used to overcome the challenge. You could say something like ‘because of Y, I decided to Z,’ which also shows your reasoning and problem-solving skills to maximise your answer.

Result: The outcome. End on a positive note and make the answer quantifiable if you can as this strengthens your answer, e.g. your actions saved a client account worth £1.5 million, or you saved the company £10k.