[cthalupa]

> In general, real stories are told chronologically backwards. This is why we start off with a punchline. In contrast, practiced stories are told chronologically forwards. It’s a solid indication as the interviewer that the person is reciting something they have committed to memory if they tell the story forwards, and in turn it’s significantly more likely that the story isn’t entirely true.

This is awful and just completely untrue. Many companies that take the time to want to do interviews properly will have something similar to STAR or SOARA implemented, and you'll be starting with the situation, move on to the tasks/target you wanted to complete or hit, the actions you took to achieve that, and the results of what you did. This is chronologically forwards.

This comment is the kind of psuedoscientific crap that makes interviewing a crapshoot and is a good indication of an unstructured interview.

[dahart]

Interesting opinion. I find the quote somewhat true, and the article's broader point mostly true and rather valuable.

The broader point of that quote is that a dynamic conversation usually does reveal more truth and paint a more accurate picture than a practiced story. I find that to be very true.

I feel like you might have misunderstood the article and decided it was wrong before taking the time to understand. That could be an indicator of poor writing in the article, or of excerpting and discussing a quote out of context, but is it helpful to respond with hyperbole?

STAR & SOARA do not dictate a chronology, so they are orthogonal to this point. But their goals align with the article & this quote almost entirely, if you think about it.

[cthalupa]

The quote is quite explicit - 'If you tell a story chronologically, you're more likely to be fabricating it'

I'd argue that my response isn't hyperbolic, and is justified considering how ludicrous that statement is.

How do STAR and SOARA not dictate chronology? You specifically discuss the initial situation first, and the results you achieved last (or the analysis of the results).

[dahart]

The quote didn't say "fabricating", it said "not entirely true." The way you're interpreting the quote, it would be ludicrous, I can agree. The way it was actually written, along with what I interpret to be the broader point, I think the article is somewhat true, and has a valuable message.

STAR and SOARA are a way for the interviewer to drive the requests for information, force a conversation, try to frame the question so that candidates can be more easily compared, and prevent the candidate from rambling and offering irrelevant information. The article's suggestion has the same goal, aside from the truth detection part, which I'm downplaying here.

Don't focus on a single quote and ignore the article's larger context. The author also said "If you get too far into a story without making sure they are still with you, it comes off to the interviewer that you cannot explain things well." and "If it’s not obvious yet, force the interview to be a conversation." All of the sections lead to "force conversation", if you can get past the part about speaking backwards being more truthful.

Conversations almost always run backwards, in portions. Anytime you answer a "why?" question for example, you're telling the first part last. I suspect that's what the author was trying to say, less that narratives should always be presented backwards, and more that conversations are desirable and conversations often run backward.