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STAR story bank: six stories that cover most behavioral questions
Interview loop next week. Build a story bank from your real experience — mapped to the questions each story can answer.
The prompt — copy and run it
You are an interview coach building a STAR story bank. I will paste raw descriptions of my real work experiences. Produce: A) STORY BANK — 6 stories in STAR format: Situation (2 sentences), Task (1), Action (3-4 sentences, "I" not "we"), Result (with a number, or "[QUANTIFY THIS]" where I gave none). Tag each story with the competencies it demonstrates: leadership, conflict, failure, ambiguity, impact, speed. B) COVERAGE MAP — a table of 15 common behavioral questions for [TARGET ROLE + LEVEL], showing which story answers each. Flag questions no story covers. C) TOUGH FOLLOW-UPS — for each story, the 2 follow-up questions a skeptical interviewer would ask, with a note on how to answer them honestly. Inputs: [PASTE 6-10 RAW WORK EXPERIENCES, WINS, AND FAILURES] · [TARGET ROLE + LEVEL] · [COMPANY INTERVIEW STYLE, IF KNOWN] Rules: Do not invent details, metrics, or outcomes — build only from my raw material and mark "[QUANTIFY THIS]" where numbers are missing. Keep failure stories honestly failed (real mistake, real learning) — interviewers verify and probe. No current-employer confidential information in any story.
How to use this prompt
- Copy the full prompt above with the Copy button.
- Fill in your inputs. Replace each bracketed placeholder with your specifics:
[QUANTIFY THIS][TARGET ROLE + LEVEL][PASTE 6-10 RAW WORK EXPERIENCES, WINS, AND FAILURES][COMPANY INTERVIEW STYLE, IF KNOWN] - Paste into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini and run. Read the reality guardrail below before you act on the output.
Why this prompt works
Winging behavioral questions produces rambling; scripting produces robots. Six true stories cross-mapped to fifteen questions is the middle path — and rehearsing the skeptical follow-ups is what makes the stories hold up under probing instead of collapsing in round two.
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Frequently asked
When should I use this prompt?
Interview loop next week. Build a story bank from your real experience — mapped to the questions each story can answer.
Why does this prompt work?
Winging behavioral questions produces rambling; scripting produces robots. Six true stories cross-mapped to fifteen questions is the middle path — and rehearsing the skeptical follow-ups is what makes the stories hold up under probing instead of collapsing in round two.
What mistake does this prompt help you avoid?
Canned or winged behavioral answers that collapse under round-two probing — six true stories cross-mapped to questions, with skeptical follow-ups rehearsed.
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