Behavioral Interview STAR Method Prompt Overlay

WHAT IT DOES

This script automatically detects behavioral interview questions on any webpage and overlays a structured STAR method practice panel. For each question, you get four expandable input fields for Situation, Task, Action, and Result—the core components of the STAR framework—with placeholder prompts and toggleable examples to guide your responses. A built-in practice timer (configurable from 30s to 180s) helps you rehearse your answers under realistic time constraints. All STAR drafts are auto-saved per question and persist across sessions. Mark questions as practiced to track your progress, view your overall completion percentage, and export all STAR drafts to CSV for offline review or sharing with interview coaches.

WHERE IT RUNS

Works on any website containing behavioral interview questions—career prep platforms, company interview guides, technical interview banks, university career center pages, or any site with Q&A content. The script uses adaptive pattern matching to identify behavioral prompts without site-specific rules.

HOW TO USE

The panel appears automatically when you visit a page. Click "Detect Questions" to scan the page for behavioral prompts (questions containing phrases like "tell me about a time," "describe a situation," or "give an example"). Each detected question appears in the practice interface. For the current question, fill in the Situation (context/background), Task (your responsibility/goal), Action (specific steps you took), and Result (quantified outcome). Click "Show Example" on any field to see sample content. Start the practice timer to rehearse your response—the timer counts down with color-coded alerts (white >15s, orange ≤15s, red ≤5s) and notifies you when time is up. Use "Stop" to end early or "Reset" to restart. Mark questions as "Practiced" when you're confident, and track your overall progress with the visual progress bar. Navigate between questions with "Next Question." Export all completed STAR drafts as CSV for review or sharing.

TECHNICAL MECHANISM: THREE-PASS BEHAVIORAL QUESTION DETECTION WITH STAR STRUCTURE

The script uses a TreeWalker to traverse all visible text nodes, filtering out script, style, and meta tags. On the first pass, it identifies text containing behavioral keywords (tell me about a time, describe a situation, give an example, share an example, walk me through a time, tell me about an instance, give me an example, describe an experience, tell me about a project, how did you handle, what did you do when, describe a challenge, tell me about a conflict, give an example of a time, describe a scenario). On the second pass, it extracts complete question text by analyzing parent elements—checking if the parent is a heading (h1-h6), list item (li), paragraph (p), or strong/b tag, then using the full text of that element to capture multi-word questions. On the third pass, it queries elements with question-related class names (question, behavioral, interview) and iterates through child elements (li, div, p, headings) to extract additional questions. All detected questions are de-duplicated by the first 60 characters to avoid duplicates, then stored with unique IDs and empty STAR fields. Each question tracks situation, task, action, and result as separate text fields with auto-save on input and blur events. The timer uses setInterval with 1-second ticks, color-coded urgency alerts, and auto-notification on completion. All data persists via GM_setValue with ISO date serialization.

THE PANEL

The STAR practice overlay appears in a draggable, resizable panel that remembers its position per site. Drag by the header to reposition, collapse to a compact icon with a click, and resize using the bottom-right corner. The panel snaps to screen edges for tidy placement and closes with the Escape key. All settings—timer duration, auto-save preference, show examples toggle, and panel position—persist per website using GM_setValue, so your view returns exactly as you left it.

PLEASE NOTE

This script requires the free BotGentz extension to run. Websites frequently change their question layout; while the script is designed to adapt, occasional updates may be needed. The script reads only visible text content on the current page—it does not send data anywhere, store personal information, or access other tabs. All STAR drafts and practice data remains local in your browser via GM_setValue and is never transmitted. The timer uses the browser's setInterval; performance may vary on heavily loaded pages. STAR drafts are auto-saved on input, but we recommend manually saving via the "Save" behavior (auto-save is enabled by default).