David thought he was doing everything right in preparing for job interviews. He had carefully crafted his “Tell Me About Yourself” answer to align with the leadership roles he was targeting. He had practiced countless CAR stories to demonstrate the value he would bring. He had even planned where to inject humor to build rapport. And in many ways, it was working. He was consistently making it to final rounds. He just couldn’t land the offer.

After almost a year of rejections, his was flummoxed.  His desperate question for me was “How I can improve my answers?”  We started with a short diagnostic mock interview, to see where I could spot opportunities for improvement. Within the first few minutes, I clocked a giant red flag. 

David wasn’t in a conversation with me. He was performing for me.

He told every story the exact same way, word for word, beat for beat. The energy was high, almost theatrical. He used big, choreographed gestures, like pretending to put on an “educator cap” when he said he shifted into teaching mode. He built in dramatic pauses and emphasized certain lines like he was delivering a keynote. He was so polished that, during one virtual interview,  an interviewer actually stopped him and asked if he was human or AI. His solution was to go back into his script and insert a few moments where he would intentionally stumble over his words so he would sound less perfect.

His stories were entertaining, but they were far too long and packed with unnecessary detail. In one example, he compared himself to a smokejumper, then paused to explain what a smokejumper was before continuing the story. He would even announce his structure out loud, saying, “I’m going to answer this in the CAR format. C for challenge, A for action, R for results,” and then proceed through it exactly as practiced. The delivery was so animated and so over-explained that it started to feel less like a professional conversation and more like he was presenting to someone he assumed needed everything spelled out.

What struck me immediately was not just that it was rehearsed. It was that it was unresponsive. He would hear a question and immediately launch into a preloaded answer without adjusting to the nuance of what was actually being asked. In several cases, his answers technically related to the question, but they missed the opportunity that the question was creating in that moment.

The clearest example was when I asked him to tell me about a mistake or failure. David talked constantly about having a growth mindset. It was one of his core messages, and as an older candidate, it was an important one. But instead of sharing a real mistake he had made and how he learned from the experience, he delivered a polished story about someone else’s error and how he stepped in to fix it. He said the words “growth mindset” repeatedly, but when he had the chance to demonstrate taking accountability, learning from mistakes, and creating change, he missed the moment entirely.

Of course, there were other opportunities for improvement, too. His stories needed tightening. He could have used more quantifiable metrics for results. Those things always matter. But by the time a candidate reaches final interviews, every candidate has proven their value. Everyone has shown that they can do the job.  Final rounds are often about trust and judgment.  Can we trust your judgment? Can we trust how you will show up on a team? If a candidate cannot show up in the interview in a way that feels authentic and responsive, tighter stories and metrics will not carry them to the offer.

We often label this piece as “likability,” but that word can make it sound vague or personality-driven. In practice, it is much more concrete. It’s whether a candidate responds to the question in front of them or recites something they prepared in advance. Did they adjust appropriately to the nuance of the question or an interviewer’s reaction  – or push through to the end of their script? When a candidate delivers a perfectly structured answer that does not quite fit the question, it breaks connection in the conversation.

Failing to promote what Jay Block calls “the likability factor” is not just a candidate problem. It is also often a coaching blind spot. We spend a significant amount of time helping clients build strong value propositions, and rightly so. Without offering clear value, they will not advance. But if we focus only on the stories and the metrics, we are only preparing them to get through the early rounds and leaving them underprepared for the final round that determines the offer.

A coach’s diagnostic judgment needs to assess much more than the strength of the value signals in an interview response. If coaches are only listening for value, a breakdown in connection is easy to miss. We need to notice how the answer is delivered, how the candidate is reading the room, and whether they are adjusting in real time.  This kind of diagnostic judgment is not learned intellectually.  Diagnostic judgement is developed by experience: observing real interactions and learning to recognize the red flags that erode interviewer trust.

That is exactly why in every session of the live Certified interview Coach program, we work with real mock interview clips of actual candidates. We look closely at the moments where something feels off, even when the answer sounds strong on the surface. We ask, “What other signals could that response be sending?” and “Why didn’t that land well?”.  Coaches start to see and recognize the behaviors and patterns that create unintended red flags and decrease likability. Diagnostic judgment grows through experience. 

David’s over-reliance on scripts for interview preparation is not unusual. Many candidates trust their ability to write more than their ability to communicate naturally under pressure. Writing feels controlled and safe. Our job is to help clients move from safe to authentic. From reciting what they prepared to responding effectively to that moment in the room.

That shift was a challenge for David. It required him to let go of the performance he had rehearsed and trust himself to communicate without a script. He embraced the challenge with gusto. We worked on his strategic messaging skills. He practiced listening to the question, thinking about the context for that question (why is that interviewer asking that particular question? What are they assessing?) choosing his main message and delivering that message spontaneously within a structured framework. The difference was immediately apparent. He toned down the exaggerated energy and spoke more naturally.  His answers became shorter and more responsive to the specific subtleties of each question. Most importantly, I could see him, not the character he had been performing.

One of the core principles in the CIC program is that interviewing is a speaking skill, not a writing skill. If coaches focus only on the content of a response, they may completely miss the totality of the candidate’s impact on an interviewer.  And focusing exclusively on content also completely misses the fix. Our client’s improvement will come through teaching holistic communication skills – not giving them better scripts. 

After coaching, David sent me a lovely note, thanking me for the “skills and insights” he learned in coaching with me, and to let me know that he was getting great feedback on his recent interviews.  He began a new job a few weeks later.

Learning to strategically and authentically show up in a conversation – instead of performatively recite – is a critical edge candidates need to win that competitive final round. When we move beyond improving answers and start teaching communication skills, our clients feel the difference and see better results.  

The next Certified Interview Coach live cohort starts July 9th.  Register now to supercharge your diagnostic judgment: https://parwcc.com/certified-interview-coach-cic-live/

I wince any time I see an online career services influencer declare definitively that their way to frame an interview answer is THE way. Our clients are not homogeneous, their target industries are all different, and everyone has a unique voice and learning style. Our job is to match our clients with the right tool. 

When I started teaching interview skills ten years ago, I taught all my clients to use the STAR (Situation – Task – Action – Result) model when telling success stories. The STAR framework has been the most widely taught interview narrative technique since it was developed in 1974 by industrial organizational psychologists William C. Byham and Douglas Bray. And for many candidates, it works. It gives structure, keeps answers organized, and helps clients avoid rambling.

But I soon noticed that a few of my clients found the concept of “Situation” too ambiguous. So I changed my framework to CAR (Challenge – Action – Result), which seemed to clarify it for some. Then I added an “O” for Obstacles because I saw that clients were getting lost in too much detail in the beginning of their story. For some clients, COAR became STOAR, while others still needed the simplicity of CAR.

Every interview coach has their favorite iteration of STAR: PAR, CART, CARL, RSTAR, etc. Which is the best narrative framework for a success story in an interview?  That depends on the industry, the role, the interviewer, and where the candidate is in the interview process. None of the STAR-derivatives may be the best choice for our senior level clients. None of the STAR doppelgangers are a perfect narrative vehicle for jobseekers in tech.

To best serve our clients, we need to build and use a whole toolbox of narrative structures. 

Here’s the limitation with STAR: When we teach the “Actions” in STAR, we encourage clients to “say what you did”,  highlighting the specific actions they executed to create the result. Demonstrating successful execution is important for most career roles, especially in the beginning of the hiring assessment when the primary question is whether someone has the competencies to do the job.

But at the senior executive level, particularly in the final rounds, that question has already been asked and answered. Every candidate left standing by then is qualified to get the job done. Final round executive candidates are often evaluated on their judgment: how they think, how they make decisions, and whether their judgment can be trusted in complex, high-stakes situations. Strong executive candidates must make their thinking visible. If they just talk about what they executed instead of what they decided, they risk sounding like a manager instead of a leader. Managers execute strategy. Leaders set strategy.

This is where STAR-based frameworks start to break down. For a senior executive in a final round interview, STAR does not promote the articulation of decision-making and judgment. With its emphasis on “Action”, STAR stories focus on the “what” instead of on the “why”.

So – what framework might be more effective at senior levels to demonstrate judgment? Again, that depends on the client, the role, and your style as a coach. Success stories that highlight judgment and decision-making will answer these questions:

• What was the pain point you identified?
• What were the risk factors that made addressing that pain point complex?
• What was your reasoning/thinking?
• What decision did you make?
• What impact did that decision have, and why did it matter to the company?

And if you must have a pithy acronym, you might try DRIVE: Define – Risks – Insights – Verdict – Effect.

“Tell me about yourself” is another framework that could use alternatives that reflect what different industries truly value. The commonly-used framework of PRESENT (what I’m doing now) – PAST (what I’ve done before) – FUTURE (what I would bring to the role and/or why this is the right next step for my career) is functional. It serves well enough in most instances, but it doesn’t help our clients make a strong, memorable entrance at the top of the conversation. That structure may not promote the highlights that matter to that interviewer.  What does?  Once more, that depends on the industry, the interviewer, your client, and your willingness as a coach to think creatively. There is only one nonnegotiable with a “tell me about yourself” answer: it must address how the candidate’s professional background relates to the role.

Let’s use senior executives again as an example. For their “tell me about yourself” answer, I want my executive clients to highlight the signature problems they solve for a company, the initiatives that they own end-to-end, the strategic decisions they’ve made, and the impact of those decisions. I want their introduction to say very clearly what they offer as a leader and what they can do for the company. A PRESENT-PAST-FUTURE framework is just not specific or targeted enough as a guide.

I challenged January’s CIC live cohort to design their own “tell me about yourself” narrative framework to use with their clients. Their creativity was truly inspiring. The variety of structures and styles they developed was reflective of the variety of industries and clients they coach. An introduction during a technical interview requires a framework that highlights problem-solving and depth of expertise. A new grad’s story may lean more heavily on potential, learning mindset, and translating academic and early experiences into clear value for the employer.

Different roles require different narrative emphasis. And different stories need to be told differently in different interview contexts. When we default to one structure for every client and every role, we limit our client’s ability to communicate effectively in that interview for that role. The narrative structure we teach should serve the specific role-aligned signals our client needs to communicate to a particular interviewer at a given stage of the interview process.

Defaulting to one narrative framework limits our coaching. Our role is not to give clients one “right” way to tell a story. Our job is to equip our clients with the best structure for the signals they need to communicate in each unique interview.

I still teach STAR. I probably always will. It’s earned its place in our profession for good reason. But after coaching enough clients across enough industries, I’ve become a little suspicious of any framework I’m tempted to use too automatically. The moment a framework becomes my default instead of my deliberate choice, it’s usually a sign that I’m leaning on habit instead of judgment. And judgment – not acronyms – is what great coaching is built on.