Do you have an interview coming up? How prepared do you feel about it? Not sure how to express all your ideas to answer scenario questions?
How would you answer this question, “Have you ever lead a team before?” in an interview?
One way to approach the question is organizing your ideas using the STARR method. 
STARR stands for Situation, Task, Action, Result, Relate.
You could have answered “yes” or “no” and move quickly onto the next question, but that does not tell the interviewers anything about your leadership skills.
Let’s build a STARR story answer.
(Situation) “Yes; a relevant example being at my last company, where I was initially a software developer in a team of 6 developing a new finance module for our core accounting product.”
(Task) “The project was critical as launch dates had been set with a lot of sales and marketing investment riding on the product being ready. However, the project was behind schedule, when our team leader unfortunately became ill, and had to leave the position.”
(Action) “I had been a sports team captain at school, where I loved the challenge and responsibility of leadership. So I volunteered to stand in, and by using my technical analysis skills, I spotted a few small mistakes made in the initial coding that were causing the sporadic errors and slowing us down. I led the team to work out the kinks and resolved the problems.”
(Result) “At the end, the software was delivered on time with a better than target fault tolerance. The project was seen as a great success by the company and I was officially promoted to the team leader afterward.”
(Relate) “I am sure I can utilize my leadership skills gained from that experience and apply it to this position as a manager and lead the team to great successes in your company.”
Want some more tips on interview preparation? Eager to try it out and practice in person? Student Life Centre is now offering mock interviews on Mondays and Thursdays. Drop by the Hive or the Student Life Centre to book one. Hurry as spots are filling up fast!