Have you ever found it challenging to tell a story during an interview and wondered which skillset to highlight first? Are you unsure of what hiring managers are really interested in knowing, and how to deliver your story so it truly shines?
<aside> 🔥 Remember, recruiters and hiring managers always prefer to hear about your hard skills first and foremost. However, it is also important to provide a few examples that showcase your soft skills.
Here is a job description for a software engineering role. Let's prepare for an interview for this job together!
First, let's look at it and identify critical hard and soft competencies.
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💻 Job Description: Frontend Developer, Global Healthcare Company
Now that we have identified important competencies, let's take a closer look at each one, including the questions that recruiters might ask to verify them and examples of answers.
<aside> 💡 It's important to note that these examples are brief and should be considered as a starting point. These should not be used as your complete answer. We will provide complete STAR examples in the next section below.
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The STAR technique helps you to give structured information to an interviewer with examples that highlight your unique skills, showcase your experience, and demonstrate that you've taken risks. It also allows you to show where you have succeeded, failed, and grown during those successes and failures.
<aside> ⭐ Situation: First, describe the situation or context within which you performed the job. Task: Describe the task you had to complete or your responsibilities in solving the problem.
Action: Talk about the actions you took to complete the task. Focus on your own actions and why you did them in that way.
Result: Finally, explain the result or outcome of your actions. Emphasize what you achieved.
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📌 **Example: Externship**
| Situation | As a software engineer, I have worked on several projects that involved developing responsive websites using JavaScript. One example that comes to mind is a project I worked on for a client in the e-commerce industry. |
|---|---|
| Task | The client wanted a website allowing customers to browse and purchase products on a desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. The website needed to be fast, easy to use, and visually appealing, with a responsive layout that adapted to different screen sizes and orientations. |
| Actions | To achieve this, I worked closely with the UX design team to develop a responsive design that would provide a seamless user experience across different devices. |
| 1️⃣ | I used a combination of JavaScript frameworks such as React and CSS frameworks such as Bootstrap to create a fluid grid system, flexible images, and media queries to optimize the website for different screen sizes and resolutions. |
| 2️⃣ | Throughout the development process, I conducted extensive testing and debugging to ensure the website worked seamlessly across different browsers and devices. |
| 3️⃣ | I also collaborated with the back-end development team to ensure that the website's performance was optimized for different devices and connection speeds |
| Results | The result was a fast, visually appealing, and user-friendly website that provided a seamless user experience across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. This project gave me valuable experience in developing responsive websites using JavaScript and working collaboratively with designers and other developers to create high-quality web applications. |
📌 Example: Code Jam Project