The work you have done is only half of an interview. The other half is being able to explain it clearly, with evidence, in the time you are given. This guide sets out a preparation method you can work through before any interview, whether it is for a local Ghanaian NGO, an INGO regional office, or an online interview with a team based elsewhere.
The steps below are general interview practice. Adapt them to the specific role, and only claim experience you actually have.
Preparation checklist
Work through this list before you accept the interview slot. Anything you cannot tick yet is your preparation task.
- Read the full job advert again and note the three duties that matter most.
- Re-read your own CV. Every example you plan to use must already be in it.
- Find out who the organisation works with, where it operates, and what it is currently trying to achieve.
- Choose two or three real examples from your work and write them out as STAR answers.
- Prepare questions to ask the interviewer.
- Test your camera, microphone, lighting and connection if the interview is online.
- Have your CV open on the screen you will share if it is an online interview.
- Decide what you will wear, and lay it out the night before.
- Check the time in the interviewer’s time zone if the interview is online or cross-border.
Research the organisation and the role
Research also lets you describe the organisation in terms it recognises, rather than in general terms it has heard many times. Work through four questions.
What does the organisation do, and who benefits?
Start with the organisation’s own website and its most recent annual or programme report. Note its mission in your own words, the communities or populations it works with, and the countries it operates in. If the organisation works in Ghana, be ready to show you understand the local context rather than only quoting its global website.
What problem is this vacancy solving?
Read the job description as a list of problems rather than a list of duties. Each duty usually exists because something is not yet working. If you can identify what the team is stuck on, you can show directly how your experience addresses it.
How does the role fit into the team?
Establish whether the position reports to a country office, a regional office or a headquarters, and who you would work alongside. For development-sector roles, knowing whether the organisation works through partners or direct implementation often matters as much as knowing the sector.
Who is interviewing you?
Look up the interviewer’s role and their public work. If they have written or spoken about a particular approach, you will know what kind of answer they are listening for. This does not require you to agree with them; it simply helps you answer in their language.
Answering with evidence: the STAR method
A vague answer gives an interview panel nothing to work with. Saying you “managed a team” or “improved reporting” describes effort rather than evidence. The STAR method is a widely used framework for structuring a behavioural answer so the evidence is easy to follow.
| Stage | What you are establishing | Keep it to |
|---|---|---|
| S — Situation | The setting: who, where, when, and why the work mattered | Two or three sentences |
| T — Task | Your specific responsibility in that situation | One or two sentences |
| A — Action | What you personally did, and the decisions you made | The longest part of the answer |
| R — Result | What changed, ideally with a number or a named outcome | One or two sentences |
Two points are worth holding on to. First, spend most of the answer on the Action stage. Career services guidance commonly places around 60% of a STAR answer there, and it is the stage that shows your own contribution, so use “I” and name what you did. Second, you do not need a dramatic result. A process you improved, a record you cleaned up, a deadline you met are all legitimate results.
If you cannot produce a STAR answer for a question, say so plainly and describe the closest thing you have done. An honest limit is easier to build on than an example that falls apart under a follow-up question.
Illustrative example: an NGO programme interview
The example below is constructed to show the structure. It is not a real candidate and the organisation is not a real one; replace every detail with your own verified experience before you use an answer like this.
Question: “Tell us about a time you had to deliver a report to a tight deadline.”
Situation: I worked as a programme assistant at a national NGO delivering a livelihoods programme across three districts. We were due to submit a quarterly donor report, and two of the three field officers were unavailable for three weeks.
Task: I was responsible for gathering and consolidating the activity data from the three districts and drafting the narrative sections of the report.
Action: I set a five-day collection deadline with each district officer rather than waiting for the full three weeks, and I built a simple spreadsheet template so the data arrived in a consistent format. When one district’s figures did not add up, I called the officer directly to check the source records rather than adjusting the number. I drafted the narrative sections and sent them to my supervisor a day early so there was time to review before submission.
Result: The report was submitted two days ahead of the deadline. The following quarter the same officer submitted their data without a follow-up call, because the template and deadline had become the normal way of working. My supervisor later reused that template for another donor report.
Note what this answer does. It uses “I” throughout the Action stage, it names the constraint it was working around, and it gives a result that is verifiable and modest. Nothing in it needed to be exaggerated to be convincing.
Common questions and how to approach them
Most interview questions are predictable, and preparing the approach is usually more useful than memorising a script.
“Why do you want to work here?” Name something specific about the organisation’s current work, then connect it to your own experience. A generic answer about mission and values is the least convincing answer you can give.
“Why are you leaving your current role?” Keep it short and factual. State what you are looking for rather than criticising your employer, and do not speculate about your manager’s plans.
“What is your greatest weakness?” Name a real one, say what you are doing about it, and give an example of the change. Avoid the “I work too hard” answer: it describes effort rather than evidence, which is not what you were asked for.
“Where do you see yourself in five years?” Connect your answer to work you actually want to do in this sector. If you want to stay in the sector, say so; it reads as committed rather than impatient.
“How do you handle disagreement with a colleague?” Use a real example with a STAR structure. Show that you can disagree without damaging the work or the relationship.
“What questions do you have for us?” Ask at least two. Ask about the role’s priorities in the first six months, or about how the team measures success in this programme. Questions about benefits and leave are better saved until you know whether you want the role.
Nerves and online interviews
Nerves before an interview are normal and not something to eliminate. The useful goal is to lower them enough that you can still think. Speaking to someone who has just sat many interviews, as one candidate described it, tends to settle nerves faster than rehearsing silently.
Pace matters more than volume. Nerves tend to speed you up, and if the interviewer then has to ask you to repeat yourself, the pace increases further. Deliberately slow your first answer down, and let yourself pause before you answer a harder question. A deliberate pause reads as thoughtfulness.
For online interviews, treat the setup as part of your preparation:
- Test the platform and your camera and microphone the day before, not the morning of.
- Sit somewhere with stable internet, and know your backup number or device.
- Look at the camera rather than at the screen when you answer, so eye contact still reads.
- Have your CV open and readable, and close anything you would not want to be seen.
- Choose a quiet, well-lit room and tell people in your household not to interrupt.
- Join a few minutes early so you are not joining while the interviewer waits.
- Afterwards, send a short thank-you email restating your interest and one point from the interview.
Questions to ask the employer
Prepare these ahead of time. Pick two or three that suit the conversation rather than reading them out.
- What are the main priorities for this role in the first six months?
- How does the team measure success in this programme?
- What does a typical month look like for the person who fills this position?
- How does the organisation work with government and community partners in this location?
- What does the organisation offer for professional development or further study?
- Is there a second stage, and what will it involve?
- What is the process and timescale for a decision?
- Who would I be working with most closely?
Before, during and after
Use this as a final pass the day of the interview and afterwards.
| When | Do this |
|---|---|
| Day before | Re-read your three STAR answers, confirm the interview time in the correct time zone, and lay out what you will wear. |
| One hour before | Log in or arrive early, check audio and video, and close unrelated tabs and notifications. |
| During | Listen to the end of each question before answering. Answer the question that was asked. Use one or two concrete examples rather than listing skills. |
| Just after | Send a short thank-you email, restating your interest and one specific point from the conversation. |
| While waiting | Note what was asked and what you could not answer well. That list is your preparation for the next interview. |
If you want support before an interview
If you want to work through your answers with someone before the interview, Sobiaonline offers interview coaching as part of the Job Search Pro plan, alongside CV and cover letter upgrades, LinkedIn profile upgrades, custom job alerts and applications submitted on your behalf. You can see the current plans and what each one includes on the services page.
Preparing your answers is the part of interview preparation you can do entirely yourself, and it is the part that makes the largest difference. If you already have your STAR examples written and your research done, you arrive with most of the preparation behind you rather than still ahead of you.
Further reading
These are the sources behind the answering framework used above. Career services offices publish their own worksheets and practice material, which are useful for drilling your own examples.
- MIT Career Advising: Using the STAR method for your next behavioral interview — the time allocation used in the table above, plus a printable worksheet.
- Tertiary Education Commission (New Zealand): Behavioural interviews and the STAR method — a worked example and sample behavioural questions.
- UW–Madison SuccessWorks: The STAR method — emphasis on describing one specific event rather than generalising.
- Rice Business Career Development Office: STAR interview method — notes that SCARL is a common alternative and that neither framework is better.
If you are preparing an application and want your CV reviewed by a career coach before you interview, the services page lists the current packages, including CV and cover letter upgrades, career coaching, LinkedIn profile review and job alerts.
