Today, I’d like to take a look at the STARR technique and share a few thoughts on how you can put it to good use as a recruiter.

The first thing to say is that I can’t take the credit for creating the STARR technique. In fact, it’s been around for a while and it’s quite widely known, which also means that there’s plenty more information out there if you search for it.

With that said, as well as explaining what the STARR technique is and sharing an example or two, I have a few additional thoughts of my own that I’d like to share.

And so with that in mind, let’s get started.

What is the STARR Technique?

The STARR Technique is a popular framework that’s used by recruiters to better understand how well a potential candidate fits the vacancy that they’re trying to fill. It consists of five key steps:

• S: Situation: What was the situation in question?
• T: Task: What task were you trying to accomplish?
• A: Action: What actions did you take to accomplish the task?
• R: Results: What were the results of those actions?
• R: Reflection: What would you do differently next time?

The STARR Technique in Practice

Let’s take a look at an example in which you were trying to hire a director of accounting. The conversation might go something like this:

Recruiter: Can you tell me about a challenging situation you faced in your previous role and how you handled it?

Interviewee: Sure! Our company was going through a major audit by a big four accounting firm and we discovered a significant discrepancy in our financial records just a couple of weeks before the audit report was due.

Recruiter: What was your specific task in that situation?

Interviewee: My task was to identify the source of that discrepancy, to correct it and to make sure that our financial records were accurate and compliant. And I only had two weeks to do it.

Recruiter: What actions did you take to accomplish the task?

Interviewee: I started by assembling a team of senior accountants and data analysts. We put in a huge amount of overtime to cross-reference all entries with their supporting documents. While this was happening, I also had to maintain constant communication with the auditing company to make sure that they knew what was happening.

Recruiter: What were the results of those actions?

Interviewee: We were able to identify and correct all discrepancies within nine days, which was five days ahead of our deadline. The audit was completed on time and no further issues were identified. This meant that we were found to be in full compliance and were able to avoid any fines that might have been levied.

Recruiter: What would you do differently next time?

Interviewee: I’ve led the charge for new financial controls to be put in place, which should stop us from finding ourselves in a similar situation again. However, if it did happen again, we’d look to bring in some additional resources rather than running our internal team ragged with hours and hours of overtime.

The STARR Technique for Jobseekers

Now that we’ve taken a look at how recruiters can use the STARR Technique, let’s go ahead and take a look at how jobseekers can use it to prepare for interviews.

Start with your most recent employer and work backwards, focussing on the issues that relate to the position you’re applying for. Start with the task and the results and then work backwards from there, filling out each section of the STARR Technique. Here’s a reminder of those sections for you:

• S: Situation: What was the situation in question?
• T: Task: What task were you trying to accomplish?
• A: Action: What actions did you take to accomplish the task?
• R: Results: What were the results of those actions?
• R: Reflection: What would you do differently next time?

Once you’ve committed those reflections to paper, you can start to practice your delivery. Try to focus on one STARR at a time and to keep your answers to between one and three minutes. Any shorter than that and you’ll miss details and people won’t believe you; any longer and you’ll be considered boring.

Perhaps most importantly, make a conscious effort to use the words “I” and “we” in your examples. If you only use “I”, you’ll come across as arrogant and not a team player. If you only use “we”, you’ll come across as a follower who doesn’t have any initiative of their own.

One final thing to bear in mind is that the STARR Technique will only work for you if you’ve done something relevant to the role that the interviewer is looking to fill. It’ll backfire if you try to fake it with something you didn’t personally work on.

Wrapping Things Up

This has just been a brief introduction to the STARR Technique, but the hope is that you’ll find it useful whether you’re a recruiter or a jobseeker. And of course, feel free to do some more research of your own. There’s plenty of information out there!

In the meantime, that’s it for today and I’ll see you soon for another article. Be sure to share your thoughts on the STARR Technique in the comments so that we can keep the discussion going!