From the course: Expert Tips for Answering Common Interview Questions

How to approach past experience questions

From the course: Expert Tips for Answering Common Interview Questions

How to approach past experience questions

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- I'm Linda Raynier. I'm a career strategist and coach and I've helped hundreds of job candidates land their dream job offers. So when it comes to answering the past experience or the tell me about a time interview question the key is to tell a compelling story. And that's because as humans we are naturally drawn to listening to really good stories. So, if you can tell a good story in your interview that's definitely going to increase the employers interest in you. So, to start your story, just like in any good movie you want to describe the situation, the initial events that occurred, what were the problems that you were experiencing. This is a really key part of the story, so it should be about three to four sentences long. And from there you want to get into the action steps. So talk about the key milestones that you went through. Don't go into too much detail. It should only be about two to three sentences. But try to use active verbs, things like I implemented, or I persuaded, things like that. And then from there you want to get into the results. Try to include a clincher at the end talking about dollars saved, or improved profitability. That will help to really solidify your results and that you did a great thing. So, if you want to remember how to answer this past experience type of interview question you just have to remember the framework SAR. And that stands for situation, action, and results. And if you use this framework you'll be able to answer any type of interview question. (energetic music)

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