Was there a time when you had to be very strategic in order to meet a goal?

This STAR interview question is a variation of the career coach's very popular competency-based questions.

Forget about answering this question by talking about yourself! Instead, demonstrate your problem-solving skills by including tangible results in your story. Here are sample answers to the STAR interview questions.

We were trying to get more sales for our product

S - I was working in an [position] at [company name], and I had to be very strategic in order to meet one of our goals. The situation was that we were trying to get more sales for our product, but we weren't getting enough interest from customers.

T - I was tasked with creating a marketing campaign that would increase awareness and drive sales.

A - My actions included creating the campaign and implementing it across social media channels, email marketing campaigns, and traditional advertising channels like newspapers, magazines, and TV commercials.

R - The result was that we increased revenue by 20% over the previous year by just using these strategies.

I require to find new ways to market our services

S - The situation was that my company was having a hard time getting new clients and we were losing a lot of money.

T - The task was for me to find new ways to market our services and increase our client base.

A - My action was to take advantage of some social media platforms and try them out on different groups of people. I found that Instagram worked best for us because it's more visual than Facebook, which is more text-based.

R - The result was that we increased our client base by 20% in just 2 months!

Our task was to find new clients

S - I was working for a small start-up company in the field of financial services. The company had just received funding from a large investor and was looking to expand its operations beyond what it had initially started with.

T - Our task was to find new clients, which we did by reaching out to groups who were interested in our products and services. We also had to service our current clients better by providing them with more advanced options and giving them more time to make decisions.

A - We came up with an action plan that involved finding more clients through online marketing, setting up interviews with current clients so we could learn more about them and what they needed, and improving the quality of our product while still keeping costs low enough that they wouldn't be prohibitively expensive for our customers.

R - The result was that we were able to grow our business significantly within a short period of time after implementing these strategies.

We were tasked with setting up a new system

S - There was a time when I was working at [company name]. We were tasked with setting up a new system for the company, and we were given a deadline of two months.

T - We had to make sure that everything was in place by then so that we could begin using the new system as soon as possible.

A - I was in charge of creating new accounts for all employees, so I made sure to start early on so that I could have time to do it right. In the first week, I created about 20 accounts per day, and by the end of the second week, I had completed almost all of them.

R - The result was that we were able to start using the new system right on time, which allowed us to meet our goal of having everything ready before the deadline!

I had to design a new software for our company and it was required it had to be ready in two weeks.

S - There was a time when I had to be very strategic in order to meet a goal. The situation was that I had to design a new software for our company and it was required by the CEO that it had to be ready in two weeks.

T - My role was that of an engineer and software designer, so I had to focus on designing the software rather than writing it from scratch.

A - I carried out my task by researching how similar apps were made, as well as studying existing code samples online. This gave me an idea of what kind of architecture would work best for our app and allowed me to start designing its structure.

R - The result of this action was that we were able to launch the app on time, which helped us keep up with our competitors.

Some people on the team were able to meet their deadlines, but others weren't.

S - I was working on a project with a team of people, and we had all been given different deadlines to meet. Some people were able to meet their deadlines, but others weren't. We knew that if we didn't get our work done in time, the entire project would be delayed.

T - The task was complete the project on time.

A - In order to solve this problem, I went over the schedule with everyone and worked out what they could do to help make up for a lost time. We made sure that everyone had a clear understanding of what they needed to do and by when it needed to be done.

Then, I created an action plan for them based on their availability and skill sets so that we could effectively utilize everyone's time without compromising quality or value.

R - After this task was completed successfully, we were able to meet our deadline without any problems!

We were tasked with creating an advertising campaign when taking an introductory statistics class

S - I was in my first year of college, and I was taking an introductory statistics class. In that class, we were taught how to conduct a regression analysis on a dataset of data. The goal of this exercise was to predict the costs of running an advertisement campaign for a client based on certain factors such as their location, number of employees, and annual revenue.

T - As part of this exercise, we were tasked with creating an advertising campaign for our client using their budget as well as some other information about them that we had collected from them such as their location (country), number of employees, and annual revenue. We were then given a week to get these advertisements ready before presenting them during our next class session.

A - For my presentation, I decided to do something different from what everyone else did: instead of using just one factor as an input into my model (such as country or employee count), I used all three factors together in order to get more accurate results from my model.

R - This allowed me to create more targeted ads at lower costs while still keeping within budget constraints set by our clients' budgets.