The four question types
- Competency — 'Describe a time when you led a team.' Tests behaviour under known conditions.
- Motivation — 'Why this firm?' Tests whether you'll accept and stay.
- Strengths — 'What energises you at work?' Tests self-awareness and fit.
- Commercial — 'What's a recent news story affecting our sector?' Tests curiosity.
STAR without sounding robotic
Situation, Task, Action, Result. It works — but recruiters read a thousand of these. The trick is to spend 60% of your word count on Action, and to make the Result quantifiable.
"We had to organise an event and we all worked together and it went well."
"Our society had six weeks to plan a 200-person careers night with no venue booked (S+T). I split the team by workstream, negotiated a free room from the Business School and secured three sponsor firms by cold-emailing alumni (A). We sold out in nine days and raised £450 in sponsorship — the format is now used by the incoming committee (R)."
Why this works — The Action is concrete and specific; the Result is quantified and lasting.
STAR answers without a genuine Result feel weightless. If you can't measure the outcome, tell me what changed for someone else because of you.
"Why us" without being generic
Every applicant will mention culture, opportunities and training. Say something they can't get from the About Us page.
- Reference one deal, product, team or piece of thought leadership from the past 6 months.
- Link it to a specific choice you've made — a module, a society, a previous internship.
- Say what you want to learn there that you couldn't learn elsewhere.
Common mistakes
- Reusing the same paragraph across five firms with the name swapped.
- STAR answers that spend three lines on 'Situation' and one on 'Action'.
- Vague results: 'It was successful.'
- Answering the question you wish they'd asked, not the one on the form.