You may not think that storytelling has a role to play in job interviews, but Camosun’s new CamSTAR utility suggests otherwise. This free online tool allows students to reflect on their professional experience in a way that is useful and valuable to employers.
The best interview answers are those which take the form of a cause-and-effect story, highlighting any of the 10 fundamental skills identified in the CamSTAR program. Interviews usually include behavioural questions that can be overwhelming, and the CamSTAR tool breaks the response process into smaller, bite-sized pieces that can be tackled methodically. The STAR acronym stands for “situation, task, action, result,” and by sticking to this formula, students can be confident they’ve answered questions comprehensively.
Camosun College applied learning coordinator Corrine Michel, who helped design and develop the CamSTAR tool, says that applicants often skip everything except the action part, leaving employers hanging without context or resolution.
“Some [employers] are like, ‘It’s like watching a great movie, but you don’t get to see what happens in the end,’” says Michel.
Michel says that Camosun designs courses around skills students need in the industry, but there’s a communication gap: when students can’t succinctly demonstrate their competencies, employers are often left feeling unfulfilled.
“Employers are the ones that have the data out that have said, ‘We are not actually getting graduates with the skills that we need,’” says Michel.
Michel was initially baffled by this, because Camosun explicitly queries employers about the skills they require then designs programs around those specific learning outcomes. But she says the problem isn’t with the course content—it’s the student’s inability to communicate their knowledge to prospective employers.
“Often, they’re skills that we have students learn at the college, but they come out not necessarily being able to talk about them in a way that helps them answer those questions,” Michel says. “So that’s what CamSTAR was designed to do, to help them see what they’re learning in their courses, see a time when they’ve demonstrated one or all of those skills, and be able to talk about it.”
Michel says that students leaving their programs often don’t feel confident in their abilities, and she believes that integrating CamSTAR into programs and courses from the beginning would enable students to focus on developing the necessary skills and creating STAR stories as they move through their program, rather than only using the tool retrospectively.
“Wouldn’t it be great if they could make those connections before they were heading out into job interviews and getting ready to graduate, and actually feel like they were ready?” she says.
Michel encourages students to work actively with their instructors to target each of the 10 skills. She thinks that working intently on these ahead of time will encourage students to believe in themselves and the skills they are developing.
“It’s really designed to help students do a great job in interviews and increase their confidence in themselves and what they’re learning,” she says. “It helps students see that what they’re learning here is really preparing them for when they go out into the field in whatever profession they’ve chosen. That’s the whole purpose of CamSTAR—it absolutely fills in a communication gap between what employers need to hear and what students are able to say.”
The CamSTAR tool is available at camstar.opened.ca.