How To Answer Those Teamwork Interview Questions You’re Sure To Be Asked

Every job requires some measure of collaboration with another employee. Even in technical industries such as engineering and science, colleagues are interdependent and need to communicate to accomplish a goal. As a result, teamwork interview questions gauge a candidate’s ability to work in a team environment.

According to Salesforce, 97% of employees and executives believe that a lack of team alignment directly impacts the outcome of a task or project. Moreover, 49% of Millenials support social tools for workplace collaboration. Therefore, hiring managers will definitely ask behavioral interview questions about teamwork in your next interview. Here is how to answer this type of job interview question.

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Step 1: Read the job description

Whether this is an entry-level position or a management position, you will need to work as a team. However, as the leader of the group, you will need to stress different skills than as a member of the team.

Customize your answers to best fit the role you are applying for.

Step 2: Identify a few qualities of a team player

Effective Communicator

Effective communicators can clearly express their ideas in a direct but respectful way. You can take complex thoughts and strategies and convey them in simple but memorable terms to colleagues and teammates. Forbes describes this as you “say what you mean in as few words as possible.”

Reliable

A real team player is reliable. The other team players can count on you to fulfill your assignment, meet deadlines, and provide consistent quality work. When others can rely on you, you build positive work relationships with team members and keep the group on track.

Adaptable

Besides as just part of a team, adaptability is crucial to keep the company competitive in today’s changing economy. Great leaders and team players don’t passively wait for change to happen. Instead, they remain flexible and adapt to a difficult situation.

Step 3: Prepare teamwork interview questions

Now that you know what qualities you have, you will need to show how you have demonstrated it in the past. These questions require the STAR method response : Situation, Task, Actions, and Results.

This method uses a specific anecdote or a real-life experience to support your answer. For example, you should use specific details to show how your teamwork skills helped solve a problem and contribute to a positive team experience.

Be sure to explicitly state how working as part of a team achieved results. Remember, the best answers to behavioral interview questions demonstrate that you have “soft” skills and prove that you are the right candidate for the job.

Step 4: Practice your response

Always practice your answers and examples before the interview. It is difficult to convince the interviewer that you are an effective communicator if you stumble over your own words during the meeting.

Instead, try a service like Interview School that can give you multiple chances to rehearse your answer using authentic interview questions from real interviews around the world. Afterward, our AI technology will provide you with a score on your response.

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Practice Mock-Interviews With Teamwork Questions

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Sample Teamwork Interview Questions and Answers

1. Do you feel more energized when you are working alone or when you are working as part of a team?

Here is a sample way to plan your answer using the STAR method.

Situation: In my last job, every few months we had a product brainstorming session.

Task: Our task was to come up with 20 new features of our existing product.

Action: Instead of coming up with five ideas from each teammate, we met as a group. This collaboration session allowed us to bounce ideas off one another and foster an environment of open discussion and creativity.

Result: We were able to eliminate the risk of duplicate ideas from working independently. Alternatively, we came up with 20 new, exciting, and original product features that our clients could really use.

2. Have you had the opportunity to work with a virtual team? If so, what special team dynamics and activities did working virtually require? How did you create team cohesiveness in a virtual setting?

With widespread Internet availability, we had teammates all around the world working on our last group project. We used an online collaboration tool to keep track of the team project phases and assignments. The elimination of email really helped contribute to a fast pace team dynamic. These tools even made collaboration faster than a phone call or an in-person conversation.

One invaluable feature of a virtual setting is the nervousness of being in a room full of people. With our virtual collaboration tool, my most introverted team member was able to contribute to brilliant ideas comfortably and more confidently. I was able to see my team’s productivity increase by 20% and comfortably meet our deadlines.

3. Have you ever struggled to communicate with colleagues while working together on a project?

To resolve conflicts and misunderstands, it’s essential to first, take a step back and listen to one another. By listening to your colleague, you may possibly gain a different perspective on the situation. On one occasion, my teammate and I disagreed on the best design for a new product. This put our entire team on hold because we could not proceed with one set of plans.

First, I listened to my colleague’s perspective. I learned that he felt that his design for the new product was better suited for a particular kind of consumer. Now that I knew the reasons behind his design, we were able to compromise on a new model that combined features of both plans. We were able to create a more competitive product through collaboration and communication.