{"id":92,"date":"2024-01-17T08:45:02","date_gmt":"2024-01-17T16:45:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leenewman.us\/posts\/?p=92"},"modified":"2026-04-17T07:13:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T14:13:52","slug":"behavioral-interview-strategies-7-9","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leenewman.us\/playbook\/behavioral-interview-strategies-7-9\/","title":{"rendered":"Telling Your Story with Impact: The STAR(L) Method"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote data-path-to-node=\"4\">\n<p data-path-to-node=\"4,0\"><i data-path-to-node=\"4,0\" data-index-in-node=\"20\">This is Part 7 of my 9-part series: <b data-path-to-node=\"4,0\" data-index-in-node=\"56\">The Behavioral Interview Game Plan<\/b>. <a href=\"https:\/\/leenewman.us\/library\/tech-behavioral-interview-roadmap\/\">[View the Full Series Roadmap]<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p data-path-to-node=\"5\">\n<p>When you&#8217;re in the middle of an interview, it&#8217;s easy for a story to wander. You might start with a great technical detail but forget to mention the outcome. To help you stay on track and feel confident, I recommend using the <strong>STAR(L) method<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a simple framework to ensure your stories are clear, concise, and impactful:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>S (Situation):<\/strong> Set the stage.<\/li>\n<li><strong>T (Task):<\/strong> What was the goal?<\/li>\n<li style=\"list-style-type: none;\"><\/li>\n<li><strong>A (Action):<\/strong> What specific steps did <i>you<\/i> take?<\/li>\n<li><strong>R (Result):<\/strong> What was the outcome?\u00a0 What metrics can you share?<\/li>\n<li><strong>L (Learning):<\/strong> What did you take away for the future?\u00a0 What would you do differently?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The &#8220;L&#8221; is my favorite part\u2014it\u2019s where you show your <strong>growth mindset<\/strong> and leadership potential. Let\u2019s look at two ways to build a story using our iOS developer examples.<\/p>\n<h2>Example 1: Demonstrating Ownership (App Maintenance)<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Scenario:<\/strong> <i>Preparing to build the Dynamic Island content<\/i><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>S:<\/strong> When Apple announced the Dynamic Island for the iPhone 14, our team wanted to be early adopters to drive user excitement and adoption.<\/li>\n<li><strong>T:<\/strong> I was responsible for image processing notifications, so I was tasked with replacing our standard &#8220;Upload Completed&#8221; alerts with a new Live Activity that showed a real-time progress indicator.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A:<\/strong> I built out the feature by closely following the new iOS guidelines and ensuring the implementation was robust.<\/li>\n<li><strong>R:<\/strong> We hit the launch date, and saw our Live Activity usage grow steadily as users embraced the new UI.<\/li>\n<li><strong>L:<\/strong> Because Apple updates iOS yearly, I realized we needed to be more proactive. We now prioritize WWDC content and developer betas earlier in the year to give us more time to innovate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Example 2: Demonstrating Partnership (Collaboration)<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Scenario:<\/strong> <i>Partnered with UX and product manager to build out the Dynamic Island content.<\/i><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>S:<\/strong> Our team prioritized updating our infrastructure to take advantage of the latest iOS features.<\/li>\n<li><strong>T:<\/strong> We needed to quickly align on product requirements and user experience goals.<\/li>\n<li><strong>A:<\/strong> I took the lead in partnering cross-functionally with our Product Manager and UX Designer.<\/li>\n<li><strong>R:<\/strong> By being a stakeholder early on, I was able to suggest minor UX tweaks that reduced our development time from 3 months to just 3 weeks. This allowed us to be live on day one of the iOS release.<\/li>\n<li>L: This experience showed me the value of shared long-term goals. My PM, UX lead, and I now meet regularly to stay strategically aligned so we\u2019re always moving in the same direction.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><strong>The EM Perspective:<\/strong> At companies like Google, a positive &#8220;Result&#8221; is often the baseline. The <strong>&#8220;Learning&#8221;<\/strong> is what demonstrates that you have the growth mindset and leadership qualities they are looking for.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>What\u2019s Next?<\/h2>\n<p>These are great individual stories, but remember how we talked about &#8220;Super-Stories&#8221;? In our next post, I\u2019ll show you how to blend these two examples into one <strong>high-impact narrative<\/strong> that shows off your technical skills and your collaboration skills at the same time.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to practice your own STAR(L) stories and get real-time feedback, <a href=\"https:\/\/calendly.com\/leedurmentor\/30-minute-coaching-intro-calls?utm_source=leenewman.us&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=posts&amp;utm_content=%22Telling%20Your%20Story%20with%20Impact%3A%20The%20STAR%28L%29%20Method%22\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">let\u2019s chat<\/a>. I offer <strong>behavioral interview coaching for tech<\/strong> to help you tell your story with total confidence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is Part 7 of my 9-part series: The Behavioral Interview Game Plan. [View the Full Series Roadmap] When you&#8217;re in the middle of an interview, it&#8217;s easy for a story to wander. You might start with a great technical detail but forget to mention the outcome. To help you stay on track and feel confident, I recommend using the STAR(L) method. It\u2019s a simple framework to ensure your stories are clear, concise, and impactful: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-behavioral-interviews","category-interviewing"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Master the STAR(L) Framework for Tech | Lee Newman Coaching<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Go beyond the standard STAR method. Learn why the &quot;L&quot; (Learning) is the secret to landing offers at top-tier companies like Google.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/leenewman.us\/playbook\/behavioral-interview-strategies-7-9\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Master the STAR(L) Framework for Tech | Lee Newman Coaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Go beyond the standard STAR method. 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