Make Work Experience Work

Work experience, internships and placements are essential for securing a graduate career. They are the must-have CV item for every graduate application.

But just having them listed on your CV isn’t quite good enough. Now you must prove to your prospective employers that you’re not simply just ‘good on paper’, but that you’ve actually gained something from these experiences.

You know you’ve learned a lot, you have had some great hands-on experience – but how do you get across in an interview all the good stuff that’s rushing round your head? Don’t just blurt it out in a muddled heap, that’s not impressive. Firstly it will not say much about your communication skills and secondly you will probably miss out something crucial. You need to adopt a structure which will help you to get across the key points and, more importantly, make sure the interviewer is left in do doubt about your skills.

Try being a STAR!


Situation: What was the background? Where were you and what were you doing?

Task: What was the job, task, problem or challenge?What goal did you set yourself?

Action: What did you actually do? Be explicit about your role. Speak in the first person – “I did xyz, I made abc happen.”

Result: What was the outcome? Make it positive if possible. What would you do differently another time?

Using this very simple mnemonic, your interview answers will have a logical shape and are therefore likely to be easily understood by your interviewers. Once you have answered the first question immaculately moving on to the next becomes easier and your confidence will grow.

These interviews are known as Competency Based Interviews (CBI) and answers can also be structured in CBI format:
Circumstances - combination of Situation and Task above
Behaviour - same as Action
Impact - same as Result

So whether you want to remember STAR or CBI it's up to you, the positive result should be just the same!