The STAR method: how to answer competency based interview questions

7 minute read · Updated 2026-08-25

Competency based interview questions start with phrases like tell me about a time when or give me an example of. The STAR method is the standard way to answer them, and it is used widely across the NHS, local government, the civil service, retail head offices and most large UK employers who score interviews against a framework. It works because it forces you to give a real example with a real outcome instead of describing what you would do in theory.

What the STAR method actually stands for

• Situation: one or two sentences of context. Where were you, what was the job, what was happening.
• Task: what specifically you were responsible for. This is where you separate your contribution from your team's.
• Action: what you did, step by step, in the first person singular. This should be the longest part, around sixty per cent of the answer.
• Result: what happened, ideally with a number, plus what you learned or changed afterwards.

The most common mistake is spending two minutes on the situation and ten seconds on the action. Interviewers scoring against a framework can only award marks for what you personally did, so if you say we throughout, there is nothing to score.

Which competencies come up most

Read the job advert and the person specification. The competencies are usually listed there in plain sight: communication, teamwork, problem solving, customer focus, attention to detail, resilience, leadership, planning and organising, and adherence to safety or policy. Prepare one strong example for each of the following themes and you will cover most interviews:

1. A time you dealt with a difficult customer, patient, resident or colleague.
2. A time you worked under pressure or to a tight deadline.
3. A time you made a mistake, and what you did about it.
4. A time you improved a process or spotted something others missed.
5. A time you led, trained or influenced someone without formal authority.
6. A time you had to follow a rule or safety procedure that was inconvenient.

One good example can often be reused across two or three themes if you emphasise a different part of it, so you do not need twenty stories.

Worked STAR examples

Handling conflict, care sector

Situation: On a dementia unit, a resident's daughter arrived during handover and was angry that her mother had a bruise nobody had told her about. Task: I was the senior on shift and the family liaison for that wing. Action: I moved the conversation into the quiet room, listened without interrupting, then checked the daily notes and the body map with her present. I explained the skin integrity risk and that a body map had been completed but the call to family had been missed. I apologised for the communication failure, raised a concern form, and agreed I would phone her personally within twenty four hours of any incident. Result: She stayed as a family, the manager adopted the same day phone call as standard for that wing, and I raised it at the next team meeting so night staff knew who was responsible.

Working under pressure, logistics

Situation: Two of six drivers called in sick on the morning of a supermarket RDC booking window. Task: As transport supervisor I had to protect the booked slots or we would lose them for the week. Action: I checked tacho hours for everyone available, rerouted two multi drop runs into one, called the agency for a Class 2 driver for the smaller vehicle, and rang the RDC to move one delivery back ninety minutes rather than miss it entirely. I logged the changes so payroll picked up the overtime correctly. Result: All six deliveries landed inside their windows, we kept the slots, and I wrote a short sickness escalation list so the next supervisor did not have to work it out from scratch.

Admitting a mistake, office

Situation: I sent a monthly report to a client with last month's figures pasted into two tables. Task: I spotted it an hour later and it was my report to own. Action: I told my manager immediately rather than quietly resending, called the client's contact to flag it before they acted on it, issued a corrected version marked clearly as version two, and added a check step where the date range in the query gets read back before export. Result: The client used the corrected figures, no decision was affected, and the check step is now in the team's procedure.

How to be assessed well, not just answer well

Ask at the start whether the interview is competency based and how many questions there will be, so you can pace yourself. Take a notepad with your example headings on it, because scored interviews are usually formal enough that nobody minds. If you cannot think of an example, say so and ask for a moment rather than filling the silence with a hypothetical, then offer the closest real situation you have.

Watch the tense. If you find yourself saying I would normally, you have drifted into theory and the scorer cannot give you the mark. Bring it back to a specific week, a specific site, a specific shift.

Finally, keep results honest. Public sector and NHS panels frequently probe with follow up questions such as what would you do differently or how did you know it worked. Invented numbers do not survive that.

Next step: write six STAR examples out in bullet form before your next interview, revisit the standard questions in our guide to common interview questions, and browse open roles to see which competencies employers in your field are asking for.