Nail behavioral interviews by setting the stakes—early.

We talk about setting the stakes a lot around here. When it comes to answering behavioral interview questions, nothing proves that you’re an impressive PM than communicating that you have handled super important projects with massive payouts or incalculable downsides.

The standard STAR approach tends to leave these details for the end of your response. The initial part of the response (the situation) is usually packed with information about the product at the center of the story and the instigating event that made the story a story. Then, after having explained what you did to resolve the situation, you get to take credit for whatever positive outcome resulted. Usually, this includes some detailed information on details about what customers, KPIs, or products were affected. You might reasonably talk about the specific amount of new revenue was generated, for example.

Usually this part sounds like a resume bullet point. What measurable impact did you have?

This is all good! You should definitely quantify your impact, and tie it to specific things that you did. It definitely makes you seem like a super impressive PM. But why stop there?

Your story is just that: a story. if we want to make our story even better, we can do what Hollywood movies do all the time: upping the stakes. A plot line is always more engaging when the characters involved are facing impossible odds (Mission Impossible), imminent threats (The Bourne Series), or amazing potential payoffs (Ocean’s 11). All of these circumstances generate a sense that the people involved need to be exceptional in order to achieve the objective. Without high stakes, these stories would be ordinary and less engaging.

So, we can make our story more effective by framing the entire narrative with details about the situation that demonstrate that this was more than the average task. Supplying this information early will cause your interviewer to interpret any subsequent details as being all the more impressive, since they are viewing it through the lens of high pressure, high risk, or high reward. This shifts their mindset from evaluating what you did to appreciating how well you navigated a truly consequential challenge. Instead of just thinking “nice launch,” they’ll be thinking “wow, they pulled that off under those conditions?”

That’s the power of setting the stakes early: it primes the listener to see your actions as more strategic, your leadership as more courageous, and your results as more meaningful. It turns your story from a timeline into a triumph.