By Ed Aboufadel, @aboufade

I have been interested in leadership and related ideas since I was a teenager, particularly leadership concepts built upon classifications. Perhaps it is due to my love of mathematics, which is full of classifications, like function types in precalculus. Over the past year, I have been learning about behavioral questions that can be asked in interview settings and the advice to prepare for these questions which is called the “STAR” method. I think these types of questions have pitfalls for the mathematically-inclined, especially those who teach, and the following can apply to non-interview situations, too. The STAR method may help avoid communication potholes.

Behavioral interviews are made up of concrete questions that focus on past experiences, often asking for an example of an action. For instance, “Give me an example of a time when you used your fact-finding skills to solve a problem.” Asked a question like this one, the math teacher in me feels like I am standing in front of the whiteboard and a student has a query about using the chain rule to solve problem #12. What would I do in the classroom? After writing the problem on the board, I would conduct a short dialogue with the students, working through the steps of the problem and arriving at a solution together.

However, in an interview (or, say, deliberations in a faculty meeting about the draft of a new policy), questions like these are seeking more than how you used your skills to solve a problem. The interviewers are also interested in why you were solving the problem. They are seeking context, which sheds light on your motivation, and in some cases, your underlying passion. We want our students to learn and discuss context, too, such as understanding differentiation well enough to be able to determine why they would apply it in certain situations. But practice questions can be narrow – only about how to solve a specific problem – and to answer behavioral questions as if leading a study session for an exam can come across as underwhelming to some listeners.

The STAR method of response is a structured way to respond to questions that can keep you away from this trap. STAR classifies your response into four parts:  Situation, Task, Action, and Result. Answering differentiation problem #12 is a task, applying the chain rule is the action, and the new function that is derived from the original function is the result. In the classroom, you wouldn’t spend a few minutes with each differentiation problem noting to students why we would want to compute a derivative – in other words, what the situation is. But for six strangers asking you about an example of when you had to communicate an unpopular decision, it’s important to know why this decision was important and see the deep thinking that informed the work. It would not be very intriguing to them if you just state that you recorded a three-minute video to explain that unpopular change in personnel policy so that your colleagues could hear the decision and the tone of your voice. Why was the change important, and what made you decide that a video would be effective?

Here is a full STAR response from my own world, in response to the question,“What is an example of work you have done to promote belonging on your campus?”

Situation: I believe that students will be much more successful if they feel respected and supported on our campus. As one of my responsibilities in the provost’s office deals with academic facilities, from early on I’ve looked for ways to promote belonging through facilities work. Several years ago, it became clear to me that many of our classroom buildings did not have a single-user bathroom. Such bathrooms are important for students of all genders and for people who very much prefer to be alone when using the facilities.

Task: Working with our facilities planning team and our LGBTQ center, we defined a goal of having at least one single-user bathroom in every classroom and public building.

Action: Starting with a dated list that was posted on a website, I walked the campus, confirmed what we had, and identified which buildings to focus on. Then, over a three-year period, we executed plans to convert extra storage or janitorial closets to single-user bathrooms, or in a few situations, to change the signage on existing bathrooms for this purpose. These conversions were not a trivial cost, but they were worth it.

Result: Today, every classroom building on our campus has at least one single-user bathroom, and we also have an up-to-date webpage with this information, useful to all students, faculty, and staff. This is a concrete outcome that cannot be easily erased by future leaders.

A critique of the “behavioral interview” is that it asks candidates to discuss what they have done in the past, but it doesn’t explicitly explore what might come next. However, as part of the “result”, you can also take the opportunity to point to the future, as in the example above.

Utilizing the STAR method requires practice, and lists of behavioral questions are not hard to find. When writing out sample responses, a good way to check your work is to make sure the TAR part of your answer is interesting (but maybe uninspiring), while the STAR answer is … stellar!

Ed Aboufadel is the Senior Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs, and a Professor of Mathematics, at Grand Valley State University, in western Michigan.  Throughout his life, he has pursued his twin passions for mathematics and leadership.