CARL > STAR
February 28, 2021•244 words
Most people have heard of the STAR method of answering behavioral interview questions. This easy to remember acronym stands for Situation, Task, Action and Result. It helps to keep an otherwise unstructured answer from getting side tracked with irrelevant details and emphasizes the impact of the actual task that you did.
However I recently came across the CARL method from watching Jeff Su on YouTube and think that it may be even better. CARL stands for Context, Action, Result and Learnings. CARL is a slight rewording of STAR with the addition of the Learning section that emphasizes more personal thoughts.
At work you'll never hear me use the word 'situation' to ask for a debrief. I feel like 99% of the time I've asked people to provide 'context'. Even within code bases, the object that gets passed around containing all the data needed for a task to be completed is commonly called the context. Context is a much more natural word than Situation and Task and at least for me is easier to understand.
In addition, the majority of today's companies have embraced a growth mindset. It's important for companies to know that you'd be effective at learning on the job. The thing that sets out two different candidates it the ability for them to adapt to tough situations. So including what you learned from the experience helps to show that you're able to analyze your past experiences and learn and grow from them.