Questions that start with “Tell us about a time…” are called behavioural questions. The panel asks them because what you did last year is the best evidence of what you will do next year. They are not looking for opinions or promises; they are looking for a real event, told clearly, with your own part in it visible. At NGOs, UN agencies, banks and telecoms, half the panel's questions are usually this kind, and each one is scored against one competency from the advert.
- 1Situation: where and when. One or two sentences: the organisation, the place, the month, and what was happening. “In March 2025, at a nutrition NGO in Baidoa, two of our four screening teams were off sick.”
- 2Task: your job in it. One sentence: what you personally had to achieve, and by when. “I had to keep screening on schedule in twelve villages that week.”
- 3Action: what you did, step by step. This is the heart of the answer: four to six sentences, each starting with “I”, in the order things happened. Name the tools, the people you spoke to and the decisions you made.
- 4Result: what happened, with a number. One or two sentences: the outcome, a figure the panel can remember, and one thing you learned or would do again.
Three things break a STAR answer. Saying “we” all the way through, so the panel cannot tell what you did; say “I” for your actions and “we” only for the team's result. Choosing a story with no ending, so there is no result to score. And answering a different competency from the one asked: if the question is about teamwork, a story about working alone all night scores nothing, however impressive it is. Listen for the competency word in the question and pick the story that shows it.