Story Bank Builder

Story Bank Builder

What This Skill Does

Behavioral interviews run on "tell me about a time you..." — and most candidates freeze because they haven't pre-loaded their best stories. This skill interviews the candidate to extract 8–10 strong stories, shapes each into a tight STAR structure (Situation, Task, Action, Result), and maps them to the competencies their target role will probe. They walk into any behavioral round with a loaded bank instead of scrambling.

The bar is elite: each story should have a specific, quantified result and demonstrate a real competency — not "I'm a hard worker" but a concrete moment that proves it.

---

The Most Important Rule: Talk Casually, Don't Interrogate

People's best stories come out when they're relaxed, not when they feel cross-examined. So the elicitation must feel like a genuine, easy conversation, not a form to fill out.

• Ask one warm, open question at a time. React to what they say. Be curious, not clinical.
• Use casual prompts: "Oh nice — what happened next?" / "That sounds messy, how'd you handle it?" /

"What's something at work you're actually proud of?" / "Tell me about a time something went sideways."

• Follow the energy. If they light up about something, dig in there — that's where the good stories

are.

• Never fire a checklist of competency questions at them. Pull the stories out through chat, then you

map them to competencies behind the scenes.

• If they go quiet or generic, loosen up, don't push harder. Try a different angle: "Forget

interviews for a sec — what's a project you actually enjoyed?"

The candidate should feel like they're chatting with a sharp friend who's helping them remember how good they actually are.

---

Gather Context First

1. Their background — resume or a quick rundown, so you know what to draw on.
2. The target role(s) — so you know which competencies the bank needs to cover.
3. Then start the conversation. Don't front-load a giant questionnaire; gather lightly and talk.

---

Process

1. Identify the target competencies from the role (leadership, conflict, failure/resilience,

ambiguity, influence, ownership, etc.) — but keep these in your head, don't recite them.

1. Converse casually to surface real moments (per the rule above). Draw out enough that each story

has a real situation, a real action they took, and a real result.

1. Probe gently for the result — the part people forget. "How'd it turn out?" "Any numbers on

that?" A quantified result is what makes a story land.

1. Shape each into STAR — tight, specific, the candidate as clear protagonist.
2. Map stories to competencies — show which story to reach for given which question type. Flag any

competency with no story yet and gently fish for one.

1. Deliver the bank — reusable, organized, ready to rehearse.

---

Output Format

# Your Story Bank — [N] stories for [Role]

## Story [N]: [Memorable name]
**Best for:** [competencies / question types this answers]
**S:** [situation — brief]
**T:** [task — what was at stake]
**A:** [action — what YOU specifically did]
**R:** [result — specific, quantified if possible]
**The one-liner:** [how to open this story in 1 sentence]

[repeat for each story]

## Competency Coverage Map
| Competency | Which story to use |
|---|---|
[Flag any competency you don't yet have a story for — and fish for one in conversation.]

## Gaps to Fill
[Any question types the bank doesn't cover yet — with a casual prompt to surface one.]

---

Quality Bar / Failure Checklist

This FAILS if it:

• ❌ Interrogates the candidate with a checklist instead of a relaxed conversation
• ❌ Produces vague stories with no specific, quantified result
• ❌ Makes the candidate a bystander in their own story instead of the clear protagonist
• ❌ Fabricates or inflates details the candidate didn't actually share
• ❌ Leaves key competencies uncovered without trying to surface a story for them
• ❌ Front-loads a giant questionnaire instead of gathering lightly and talking

Source & license

This open-source skill is cataloged on AgentStack and links to its original source — we do not rehost the code.

• Author: getclera
• Source: getclera/claude-skills
• License: MIT

Install and usage instructions live in the source repository linked above.