Exclusive Framework For Behavioral Interview - Landing The Plane

Most of you guys are familiar with Amazon’s STAR framework for behavioral interview questions - Situation, Task, Action, Result. 

STAR is a classic and effective framework, you should continue to practice with it if you have already mastered it.

However, over the years, I’ve witnessed too many cases where candidates struggle with it, especially with “situation” and “task”. 

If you spend 3 minutes just trying to explain the project context, team structure, your meetings with the clients, and instructions from your manager… I’m sorry; you’ve already lost the interviewer. 

So today, I want to share an alternative framework to help many of you nail the storytelling for any behavioral question! 

Have you ever looked out from the window when your flight is descending? The view gets smaller but clearer with altitude changing, and eventually, you get to the final point. Applying that exact approach to your response, here’s how you land a plane - 

50K: Company/team and its mission (1 sentence)

25K: Your exact role title and your core mandate (1-2 sentence)

15k: Business problem, root causes and baseline metrics (3-4 sentence)

5K: Your actions (3-4 sentence)

0: Results (updated metric) + 1 key learning (1-2 sentence)

Regardless of what frameworks you use. The key to excel in behavioral interview questions is practice, practice, practice. Write down your responses. You can practice with yourself in front of a mirror or camera, with peers, or with a coach like me. I’m happy to be your copilot to help you land your plane perfectly! 😉

Example: 

50K: Company/team and its mission At XYZ Corp, our mission is to help job seekers find their dream jobs by creating intuitive and seamless job search and application experiences.

25K: Your exact role title and your core mandate As a Senior UX Designer, my primary responsibility was to improve the user journey across our flagship product, focusing on optimizing navigation to reduce friction and enhance overall engagement.

15K: Biz problem, root causes, and baseline metrics We noticed a significant drop-off rate on key pages, particularly during user onboarding and the discovery phases. After conducting user interviews and analyzing heatmaps, we identified that the navigation structure was cluttered and non-intuitive, causing user frustration. The baseline metric showed a 30% drop-off rate during these critical stages.

5K: Your actions I led a cross-functional team to redesign the navigation experience. We conducted a card sort, translated the information architecture insights into a simplified, streamlined navigation system, and introduced consistent labeling to improve clarity. We also integrated breadcrumbs and a search function to help users find content more easily.

0: Results (updated metric) + 1 key learning As a result, the drop-off rate decreased by 15%, significantly improving the user experience during onboarding and discovery. One key learning was the importance of continuous user feedback; working closely with UXR and PMs to ensure alignment on the overall project goals. 

Book a session start practicing with me!

Intro Consultation

15

Book Now