In fact, I remember that in an interview in one of those multinationals with endless hallways, they asked me “Can you give me an example of a conflict with a colleague?”. I froze, I ended up telling a half story that made no sense. When I left I thought… I wish I had had a mental map, something very simple that told me: start here, continue there, close with this. Well: that’s STAR.

If you want the textbook definition, I recommend this article from The Muse, where they explain it step by step in detail. But here I’ll tell you as if I were explaining it to a friend saying: “man, I have no idea how to answer when asked a situational question at work”.

What STAR means (without academic confusion)

It’s four letters that work like a compass:

• S for Situation: the context. Think of the opening photo of your story: where you were, what was happening.
• T for Task: what your role was in that mess. Not the team’s, yours. Because interviewers want to hear about you.
• A for Action: what you actually did. Concrete actions, not vague phrases like “we collaborated in synergy”.
• R for Result: what came from all that? It can be success, failure but accompanied by what you learned.

Once you understand it, it’s almost obvious. At Indeed they explain that they even created it as a model because in interviews people got lost telling things without getting to the point.

Why improvising in interviews is (almost always) suicide

Many people tell me: “yeah, but I like to be natural.” I thought that too. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: telling it “randomly” usually goes badly. Nerves, pauses, topic jumps, all that works against you. Sometimes it comes out fine, but most of the time it seems like you’re disorganized or don’t know what to highlight.

I’ll tell you straight: not using structure means you risk focusing too much on the irrelevant. It happened to me a couple of times that I started talking five minutes about context, the boss, the dates, and I ran out of time to tell what I did. In the end, the interviewer looked at me like: “yeah, but what did you contribute?”. That emptiness is obvious from the outside.

The same is emphasized in this LinkedIn guide: improvising can sound fresh, but almost always ends in chaos. STAR is not there to constrain you, but to make what you say understood.

Common mistakes (I’ve made almost all of them)

Honestly, one of my favorite blunders was when I made up an experience. Nothing serious, but I exaggerated a situation. The problem? The interviewer was sharp, asked for more details and I sank. Rookie mistake. This also happens:

• Giving too much context for the “S” and then forgetting the result. Fact: 5 minutes talking and no metrics.
• Talking only about “we in the team” and not about “I”. You get lost in anonymity.
• Not ending with what you learned. Even if things went badly, the close should be “I learned this and applied it later”.

There’s a pretty good list in this Forbes blog where they show practical examples of mistakes and how to turn them around.

How to use STAR without sounding like a robot

There’s one problem with STAR: if you memorize it word by word, you sound like a badly rehearsed script. That happened to me in an interview, it was obvious I was “reciting”. You know what saved me? Practicing with friends at dinners. I’d say: “throw me any interview question, even made-up, and I’ll answer using STAR format”. That’s how I learned to deliver it naturally, with filler words, with pauses… like a real conversation.

Tricks that work:

1. Have 3-4 stories ready. You don’t need 10. A big achievement, a solved problem, a team mess and a personal conflict are enough.
2. Adapt details. It’s different if the interviewer is in a hurry or has all afternoon.
3. Don’t use textbook words. “Implementing synergy strategies” sounds like PowerPoint. Say what you did in simple words.

This last point is well explained in Big Interview, with examples of more human answers.

The value of STAR for multinationals

Something not often said: big companies love STAR because it makes interviews more fair. They put you, your colleague and other candidates in the same situation. That way they can compare more objectively. Not perfect, but better than “I just liked this one”.

When I worked with recruiters abroad, they told me: “without STAR, interviews are a mess; each candidate responds their own way and nothing can be measured”. With STAR, HR always takes notes in the same scheme. That explains the enthusiasm you see on sites like BetterUp, where they have even compiled common STAR interview questions you’ll likely face.

Final reflection

The STAR method is not rocket science. It’s not a secret trap nor does it guarantee the job. It’s simply a map so your story makes sense. And that makes the difference: not being the smartest, but the one who best knows how to tell it.

If you take one idea from all this it’s this: prepare your stories, tell them as if chatting with a friend in a café, and let STAR be the invisible skeleton. Nothing more. And believe me: it works.