The STAR method: how to answer competency interview questions

"Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult stakeholder."

Competency-based questions like this are standard in UK interviews, especially in the public sector, the NHS, the Civil Service, graduate schemes and larger employers. Interviewers often score each answer against set criteria, so a well-structured answer earns marks that a rambling one doesn't, even when the underlying experience is the same.

The STAR method is the simplest way to give them what they're scoring.

What STAR stands for

• Situation. Set the scene briefly: where you were, what was going on.
• Task. What you specifically needed to achieve, or the problem you had to solve.
• Action. What you did, step by step. This is the heart of the answer.
• Result. What happened in the end, ideally with something measurable, and what you learned.

A worked example

Question: "Tell me about a time you improved a process."

Situation: "In my last role as a team leader in a council benefits office, new claims were taking around six weeks to process, and complaints were rising."

Task: "My manager asked me to find out why and reduce the backlog without extra staff."

Action: "I spent a week tracking where claims were waiting and found most delays came from missing documents being requested one at a time. I designed a single checklist letter that asked for everything up front, trained the team of eight to use it, and set up a weekly report so we could see which claims were stuck."

Result: "Within three months, average processing time dropped to under four weeks and complaints about delays fell noticeably. The checklist was later adopted by two other teams."

Notice the balance: the situation and task take two sentences, the action takes the most space, and the result has numbers.

The mistakes that cost marks

Saying "we" all the way through

Interviewers are assessing you. "We redesigned the process" tells them nothing about your part. Use "I" for what you did, and be clear about what the team did around you.

Spending too long on the situation

A common pattern is a two-minute backstory and a ten-second action. Keep the set-up short; the interviewer needs just enough context to understand the problem.

Forgetting the result

Many answers simply stop after the action. Always land the outcome, even if it's modest or wasn't a complete success. If it went badly, say what you learned and what you'd do differently. That's still a strong answer.

Answering a different question

If you're asked about a difficult stakeholder, an example about a tight deadline won't score, however good it is. Listen for the competency being tested and pick an example that fits it.

Using hypotheticals

"I would..." answers don't show evidence. Competency questions want a real example of something you did.

How to prepare

1. List the competencies in the advert or person specification. Common ones: communication, teamwork, leadership, problem-solving, managing change, delivering under pressure.
2. Prepare one or two real examples for each, written out in STAR form. The same strong example can often cover several competencies.
3. Add numbers where you can: time saved, money, volumes, people, percentages.
4. Practise saying them out loud. Aim for about two minutes per answer.

Practise with an interviewer who knows the role

Reading about STAR is one thing; doing it under pressure is another. TailorVitae's mock interview reads the job advert and your CV, works out where an interviewer would probe, then interviews you question by question, following up on vague answers like a real panel would.

At the end, every answer is scored on whether it answered the question and how well it followed STAR, with specific notes on what to fix. Each job pack includes three mock interviews per job.