Congratulations! You have made it to the oral interview. This is the stage where many candidates are eliminated as they do not respond to the questions correctly. In most interviews, you will have a section that is dedicated to theory ( questions about the department, questions on a previously provided document, etc.) the other section will most likely consist of behavioural type questions.
As similar to the private sector, the public sector uses the STAR approach. Before I go into detail on how the STAR approach is used in the Government of Canada, I cannot stress how important it is to be familiar with the competencies stated in the Statement of Merit Criteria. The examples that you choose to answer the behavioural questions should highlight the competencies that are being sought in the competition. Also, for each question, ensure that you provide a clear introduction, body, and ending so that the review board can follow your answer.
Here is how the STAR approach works:
S – Situation: Describe the overall situation that you were in when you showed the particular competency/competencies that you are being asked to illustrate. At this point, you are not going to provide a lot of details. You are just providing general background information so that the review board can note how you well you understood the question (e.g., It was a busy time in my unit, my team was responsible for working on a quarterly economic report for the Deputy Minister that was due in two days and several of my colleagues were busy working on another urgent request that came in with a tight deadline).
T- Task: Here you describe what was YOUR role in the situation that you just provided (e.g., I volunteered to take the role that one of my co-workers was responsible for and was tasked with producing the charts for the report that illustrated the changes in part-time employment over the past three years).
A-Action: In this section you describe what YOU did to fulfill the task that you were assigned. It is very important that you only talk about what you did. You may lose points if you speak about your team members (e.g., After doing my analysis, I presented my Director with three charts using different variables that could be used to present the information in the report).
R- Result: What was the final result of the work that was done? Ideally, you want to use an example that has a happy ending, but sometimes this is not the case, and it’s ok to say that a project or a venue was cancelled. I do advise that these situations should only be used if you cannot think about a better example that had a positive ending (e.g., The charts that I created were inserted in the report provided to the Deputy Minister and my Director complimented me on my ability to produce quality work in short time span).
Here are a few additional tips to answer STAR type questions:
- Remember the competencies that they are looking for. Do not hesitate to highlight two or three in each example.
- The interview is to determine how YOU are the best candidate for the job, do not spend your limited minutes talking about your co-workers and the roles that they played.
- Make your examples interesting, think of it as story telling. No one wants to sit in a room to hear someone with a monotone voice talk about their experiences with no sentiments.
- Practice, practice, practice. Although you will not know your questions beforehand, take the time to prepare some answers based on the information requested in your cover letter (if you were asked to do one) and information provided in the Statement of Merit Criteria. You should feel comfortable with these answers before going into the exam.