“I just love the interviewing process!” said no one ever 😅

Let’s face it. You find interviews uncomfortable because you’ve never been trained to prepare for an interview properly. While you may be able to fake your way through the standard questions like “Tell me about yourself.” and “What is your greatest strength?” There’s no faking your way through behavioral questions, and a lack of proper framing will have the interviewer tuning out 5 seconds into your response.

So how should you frame your responses to behavioral questions? Meet CARL - Context, Action, Result, Learnings. I know you’re probably thinking, “Hey, what about the STAR method?” The key difference is that CARL reminds you to share your learnings.

Let’s take a look at CARL in action.

Tell me about a time your work got off track.

Context – What were you working on? How did it get off track?
Action – What steps did you take to get it back on track?
Result – What ultimately happened?
Lesson Learned – What lesson did you learn? How will you attempt to prevent this in the future?

Sample Response:

Earlier this year, I was assigned as the lead Product Manager to deliver 3 new features for our mobile application. We had a very tight timeline, but everyone agreed to “do what it takes” to get the features shipped. During that time frame, one of our key engineers got sick and had to take a two-week leave. I immediately recognized that there was no way we would be able to get out all 3 features by the established deadline without compromising quality. With that, I prioritized the 2 highest impact features, making the 3rd feature a fast follow. This experience highlighted the importance of having clear prioritization and calling out all risks early.

Tell me about a time you and your boss disagreed.

Context – What were you and your boss working to address? Why did you two disagree?
Action – What steps did you take to come to an agreement?
Result – What ultimately happened?
Lesson Learned – What lesson did you learn? How will you attempt to prevent this in the future?

Sample Response:

Recently our Senior Leadership Team called out the need for visibility into the current risks for our open projects. My boss immediately implemented a mandatory weekly meeting where all Project Leads update a slide deck outlining the status of each of their projects and present it in front of the Senior Leadership Team. When she announced her solution to our team, I voiced my concern about the overhead with her solution especially considering we were already updating our internal system with the same information, so the duplicate documentation and mandatory meeting didn’t seem to align with our push for efficiency. My boss then requested suggestions for ensuring the Leadership Team is able to access the information they need easily. Together we agreed to build a simple dashboard within our internal system to provide the high-level overview the Leadership Team needed and to require attendance at the meeting only when the project risks require Leadership attention. I’m glad I spoke up because my boss and the Leadership team recognized my drive for efficiency in our next All Hands.

Next Steps

Interested in learning more? Check out The Ultimate Interview Prep Course. During this course, I'll be debunking common myths about interviews, teaching you how to organize your thoughts and nail your responses properly, and equipping you with thought-provoking questions to ask your interviewer.

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