STAR refers to Setting a situation (S), Describing your task (T), detailing your involvement & action (A) and explaining the results (R). Whenever there is a situational or behavioural question asked in your interview, structuring your answer using the STAR approach will help you communicate your thoughts concretely. Now, let us look at a few examples of situational or behavioural & situational interview questions for better understanding.

1. Explain a situation where you made a mistake & how did you overcome the situation
2. Give an example where you had to manage a project
3. Explain a situation where you faced a failure & how did you overcome
4. What will you do to get things done from a colleague who is not very supportive
5. Explain a situation where you had to handle customer escalation

A possible response (STAR Approach) for the first question can be as below,

While I was working as a business analyst during my tenure at ABC company, it came to my attention that business understanding of a key metric was incorrectly captured by the development team. Since it was towards the end of the project, incorrect information would mean wrong results. After confronting the mistake, I further deep-dived on the metric & corrected the logic by taking support of the team. Furthermore, I had to take the support of management & appraise all the stakeholders about the project delay by 2 weeks. It was a good learning experience where I learned the importance of getting into the finer details & documenting the meeting discussions.

Here, in the above example, you can clearly see that the situation is explained & the response is provided in detail for the user to understand. Following your response, the panel might ask you (if required) to further understand your thought process & experience. During an interview, it is quite natural to start speaking immediately once a question is asked. However, do make sure you understand the question & if it is a situational/behavioural question, remember STAR to make your life easier.

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