STAR Story Bank: [Your name]
A reusable bank of interview stories, each written in STAR form
(Situation, Task, Action, Result) or the shorter CAR form (Context,
Action, Result), indexed by the competencies it can prove, with a
coverage matrix that shows which competencies still lack a story.
Based on common structured and behavioural interviewing practice.
Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example.
Document control
| Field | Value |
|---|
| Owner | [Your name] |
| Target role family | [Product analytics, engineering, operations, sales] |
| Competency list used | [Your own list / employer's published values / role posting] |
| Number of stories | [N] |
| Classification | Personal; remove confidential client and employer details |
| Last updated | YYYY-MM-DD |
Revision history
| Version | Date | Change |
|---|
| 1.0 | YYYY-MM-DD | First eight stories |
| 1.1 | YYYY-MM-DD | Example: Added STR-06 after a failure question went badly |
1. Competency list
| Code | Competency | What interviewers look for |
|---|
| [CMP-NN] | [Competency] | [Observable behaviour] |
| CMP-01 (Example) | Ownership | Takes responsibility past the job description, follows through |
| CMP-02 (Example) | Analysis and judgement | Frames the problem, uses evidence, knows the limits of the data |
| CMP-03 (Example) | Influence without authority | Changes decisions of people who do not report to you |
| CMP-04 (Example) | Conflict | Handles disagreement directly and fairly |
| CMP-05 (Example) | Failure and learning | Names own mistakes, shows what changed afterwards |
| CMP-06 (Example) | Ambiguity | Makes progress when the goal or data is unclear |
| CMP-07 (Example) | Customer focus | Starts from the user's problem |
| CMP-08 (Example) | Delivery under pressure | Prioritises and ships to a deadline |
2. Story index
| ID | Title | When | Competencies | Strength | Last used |
|---|
| [STR-NN] | [Short memorable title] | [YYYY] | [CMP codes] | [High / Medium / Low] | [APP-NNN, date] |
| STR-01 (Example) | Pricing test rescue | 2025 | CMP-01, CMP-02 | High | APP-022, 2026-10-02 |
| STR-02 (Example) | Disagreement on metrics | 2025 | CMP-03, CMP-04 | High | APP-022, 2026-10-02 |
| STR-03 (Example) | Missed forecast | 2024 | CMP-05, CMP-02 | Medium | APP-021, 2026-10-09 |
| STR-04 (Example) | Onboarding drop-off | 2026 | CMP-07, CMP-06 | High | none |
| STR-05 (Example) | Board pack in four days | 2025 | CMP-08, CMP-01 | Medium | none |
3. Stories
STR-NN: [Title]
| Part | Content |
|---|
| Situation | [Where, when, what was at stake, in two sentences] |
| Task | [Your specific responsibility] |
| Action | [Three to five steps you took, with the reasoning] |
| Result | [Measured outcome, with a number and a date] |
| Learning | [What you would do differently, what you now do as habit] |
| Competencies | [CMP codes] |
| Evidence | [Link or document in your brag file] |
STR-01 (Example): Pricing test rescue
| Part | Content |
|---|
| Situation | In 2025 a pricing A/B test for a subscription app ran for three weeks before I found that a tracking bug counted some trial users twice. Leadership expected a decision that month. |
| Task | As the analyst on the test, I had to decide whether the data could be trusted and recommend what to do. |
| Action | I traced the duplicate events to one release, measured how many users were affected, and showed that the bias favoured the new price. I proposed re-running with a clean holdout and a pre-agreed stopping rule, and explained the cost of a two-week delay against the cost of a wrong price. |
| Result | The decision came two weeks late but was correct: the re-run showed no lift, so the old price stayed, avoiding a change the flawed data had favoured. |
| Learning | I now run a tracking check on day one of every test. |
| Competencies | CMP-01, CMP-02 |
| Evidence | Test write-up and postmortem in the 2025 brag document |
STR-03 (Example): Missed forecast (CAR form)
| Part | Content |
|---|
| Context | My third-quarter 2024 demand forecast was 18% too high, and operations had staffed to it. |
| Action | I owned the miss in the weekly review, found that seasonality was missing from the model, added seasonal features, back-tested on two years of data and wrote a postmortem. |
| Result | Forecast error stayed under 6% in the next two quarters, and the postmortem format became the team standard. |
| Competencies | CMP-05, CMP-02 |
4. Coverage matrix
| Story | CMP-01 | CMP-02 | CMP-03 | CMP-04 | CMP-05 | CMP-06 | CMP-07 | CMP-08 |
|---|
| STR-01 (Example) | P | S | | | | | | |
| STR-02 (Example) | | | P | S | | | | |
| STR-03 (Example) | | S | | | P | | | |
| STR-04 (Example) | | | | | | S | P | |
| STR-05 (Example) | S | | | | | | | P |
| Primary count | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
Example gaps: CMP-02, CMP-04 and CMP-06 have no primary story. STR-02
could become primary for CMP-04 with a clearer account of the
disagreement; a new story is needed for CMP-06.
5. Question map
| Question | Competency | First choice | Backup |
|---|
| Tell me about a time you took ownership of a problem nobody owned. | CMP-01 | [STR-NN] | [STR-NN] |
| Describe a decision you made with incomplete data. | CMP-06 | [STR-NN] | [STR-NN] |
| Tell me about a time you changed someone's mind. | CMP-03 | STR-02 (Example) | STR-01 (Example) |
| Tell me about a mistake you made. | CMP-05 | STR-03 (Example) | STR-01 (Example) |
| Describe a tight deadline and how you met it. | CMP-08 | STR-05 (Example) | STR-01 (Example) |
6. Practice and feedback log
| Date | Story | Setting | Time | Feedback | Change made |
|---|
| YYYY-MM-DD | [STR-NN] | [Mock / real, APP-NNN] | [mm:ss] | [What worked, what did not] | [Edit] |
| 2026-09-30 (Example) | STR-02 | Mock with a friend | 3:40 | Too long on context | Cut Situation to two sentences |
7. Writing checklist
Standard and licence note
Based on common behavioural and structured interviewing practice (the
STAR and CAR answer formats). Original text written for this
collection; people, organisations and figures are fictional. Template
licence: MIT.