About freestyle, SAR triangle questions, and short stories
Great! You have a face-to-face meeting with the customer. Now you can show what you can do. But what questions are asked? I can reassure you: an interview is NOT a black box and usually follows a classic scheme. So prepare yourself well!
I assume that you have the classic topics such as clothing, jewelry, make-up, hairstyle, punctuality, writing utensils, politeness, goodbye, etc. under control.
Here is the classic 6-phase process of the on-site interview:
- Warming up: At the beginning of the interview, the relationship with the candidate is established and the ice is broken.
- Freestyle: The applicant then has the opportunity to talk about himself and his motivation and to present his career.
- SAR triangular questions: The applicant’s experiences, behavioral preferences, and personality are examined more closely.
- Info and questions: The applicant receives information about the vacancy and the company.
- Feedback: The applicant is asked about his impressions and open points.
- Warming down: At the end, there is a friendly farewell
The tricky phases of freestyle and SAR triangles require maximum concentration! Sensitive topics are approached here quite casually. Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all solution, because a job interview differs from others depending on the company, position, and applicant background.
Sometimes the process is adjusted and the information about the company comes right after the warm-up. Be careful: you weigh yourself in safety and become careless, start chatting and slip away from the content of the questions
Freestyle
Classic freestyle questions are harmless from the interviewer and are very open W questions: How, why, when … You can answer them very openly. Typically, it’s not just about getting to know each other. The first impression of how do you speak, what do you emphasize, how quickly do you get the job done, how focused you are, how well you could fit into the company and the team, how sensitive are you to the intentions of the interviewer.
Question: Take me through your résumé.
Correct: summarize your career briefly and clearly. Briefly justify a change of occupation. Sometimes you wait to see if there are any questions.
Preparation at home: Summarize your résumé orally in front of the mirror at home in 1-2 minutes.
Wrong: Start with Adam and Eve or ask a counter-question: “Where should I start?” It is also dangerous to stray from the goal with interim questions and gets involved in irrelevant matters, become emotional, and talk about life.
Question: What are you interested in at this point?
Correct answer: respond to the advertisement, briefly tell what you have already researched about the company, and derive a stringent motivation. Don’t ask any questions just yet, just give the ball back to the interviewee.
Preparation at home: carefully study the job advertisement, research the company background, read news about the company, and include this in your justification.
Wrong: Flat platitudes like: I want to get ahead, I want to develop, I find your company totally exciting, I want more responsibility, etc.
Question: Why are you looking for a job?
Correct answer: Briefly describe your current situation and how it feels for you. Here you can get a little personal. It is important that the other person can understand your motivation. That can also be emotional: commute to work, private circumstances, internal opportunities, unemployment, etc.
Preparation: You can also practice that at home in front of the mirror! 2-3 minutes.
Wrong: A classic mistake that happens again and again: Not complaining about your current company, the boss, the team, or anything else. Even if you think you haven’t said much. All intermediate tones are precisely registered, you are already checked and you are already saying a lot more than you ever wanted.
SAR TRIANGLE QUESTIONS (also known as STAR questions): Counter with short stories
After the interviewer has got a general impression of you, he goes into the details. These questions are well prepared on his part. The questions are flat again, but have been carefully chosen and are evaluated on different levels. The questions are typically based on past situations in professional life. The interviewer will then extrapolate and compare your behavior and skills with the tasks and situations in the current company. It is therefore essential to prepare short stories!
You should have 4-5 short stories in stock that you pull out of your sleeve like playing cards. Special characteristics or abilities of you should become visible. I keep hearing very impressive stories that demonstrate a whole range of properties at different levels. But please always short and moderate!
SAR triangle principle: The opportunity for your meaningful short stories
It is best to adhere to the following triangle scheme for all short stories. SAR (situation, action, reaction). The story describes a situation that you have dealt with in the past (action) and thus achieved a result (reaction). Triangular questions examine the soft factors such as personal, social, and leadership skills. The trick behind the triangular questions: It is difficult to invent your own services. Contradicting statements are easily noticed and make the interviewer suspicious.
In the case of action, you describe very specifically which steps were taken and what
was the special own contribution to the success. It does not describe what the team or group did, but what you personally contributed. Use the word “I”, not “we”, to describe actions.
The short stories in the SAR principle can also be weaknesses that you have worked on and thus demonstrate self-competence. Or strengths in dealing with others, decision-making, cross-departmental collaboration, team behavior, behavior in dealing with angry customers, difficult bosses, etc. You have more control over here than you think.
There is a great danger of getting lost in descriptions of the initial situation or your own commitment. Make sure you get to the conclusion in a reasonable two to three minutes without the interviewee having to advance the story with their questions. You don’t want to wait for probing questions, do you?
Your advantage of the SAR triangle preparation with short stories
The stories should be adapted to the future working environment. It would be unfortunate to demonstrate leadership skills with great stories when it comes to a specialist role. The prepared stories give you security. People who are more reserved in particular thrive when they can report on everyday working life and the challenges they have mastered. You can demonstrate competence without getting embarrassed by the classic strengths and weaknesses questions. Therefore, if you don’t know exactly what to answer, use a short story that most closely matches the topic of the question. In this way, you can also control the conversation in a targeted manner before it gallops in a direction that is unfavorable for you.
Practice is fun, and the next interview is even more fun!