Situation, task, action, result
Fit & BehaviouralA structure for behavioural answers: set the context, state what was at stake, describe what you did, and give the outcome.
Also written: STAR, STAR method
STAR keeps a behavioural answer to about two minutes and stops the two common failures: rambling context with no action, and a claimed outcome with no evidence of what you actually did.
The time budget is the useful part. Roughly fifteen seconds of situation, fifteen of task, sixty of action, and twenty of result. Most candidates invert this, spending ninety seconds on background and ten on their own contribution.
The action section is what is being assessed, so it must be in the first person singular. We restructured the analysis tells the interviewer nothing about you; I rebuilt the model to separate the two revenue streams does.
A short reflection at the end, what you would do differently, converts a story into evidence of judgement, and is what separates a rehearsed answer from a considered one.
Worked example
Weak: we had a difficult client and we managed to turn the relationship around, and it taught me a lot about teamwork.
Strong: our largest client threatened to move after a reporting error (situation). I owned the recovery plan (task). I rebuilt the reconciliation, found the error was in our data feed rather than their figures, and presented the fix to their CFO within four days (action). They renewed for two years and referred us to a sister company (result).
The difference is that the second is falsifiable, is in the first person singular, and spends most of its time on what the speaker actually did.