Does anybody have a good story I can use to get past the incredibly “Can you name a time when you’ve worked well in a group?” question in an interview. I’ve worked in call cenres, data entry, admin, warehouses, several other places. In each case I’d listen to the training then do my job quietly and competently. I’d interact with others but I’d never need to ‘work in a team’ Unfortunatly pretty much every interview has this question, whether it’s relevant to the job or not, and I’ve never come up with a very good answer. (Mainly I go back to University, 9 years ago!) So anybody got a story that I can steal, something that sounds plausible, doesn’t invite many followup questions and says ‘good teamwork’?
One time, I was working for this (small/medium-sized/large) company with [x-number of] exployees. I came in every day, on time, and did my job. Every two weeks, I got paid until I left.
Seems like I worked pretty well with a group.
Seems li
You actually want to get the job you’re interviewing for, don’t you? Then don’t tell someone else’s story. It is, always, incredibly obvious when someone is making shit up in an interview. No one is ever fooled by it.
And then we sit around afterwards, mocking and laughing at them. Don’t be that guy.
Besides, you have worked in a team – it’s just that no one ever told you it was a team environment that you were in. When the question comes up, simply re-cast one of your jobs so that your function was part of the “team’s” function.
E.g., “Well, my warehouse job was a very team-oriented environment. Efficiency was very important for everything to work, so we all did our part to work well together. I was responsible for re-stocking items, so I had to work with the people filling orders to know what needed to be restocked, and then work with the logistics people to get that delivered in a timely manner.”
Then pause, and wait for them to ask you a question. That question will be some form of “Did you work well with other team-members?” or “Can you describe a situation where you had difficulty working with a team-member, and what you did about it?” (always. there’s always a follow-up question like that.)
At that point, you tell them how your team was so efficient, and you were so good at working a part of the team, that you were able to avoid that type of workplace friction.
E.g., “Well, everyone’s job was well-defined, and we all knew what needed to be done. If someone was having a bad day, I was able to give them some space for a while and still get our jobs done.”
Extra credit if you can throw in an anecdote like “I had a friend once who had [personal problem] that was causing [problem], but after talking to [him/her] at [lunch/other place] we were able to work it out.”
If they get more specific than the above examples – for example, asking about “cross-functional team experience” or somesuch – it’s best to turn the question around on them: “That sounds interesting, but I’ve only worked in a more traditional team environment; what can you tell me about how your cross-functional teams work here?”
But really, really don’t use someone else’s story. It’s just never going to work.
Sorry, guy. You needed serious feedback and, not only was I being a smartass,* looks like a totally botched it with spelling errors and such.
*I’m just in a weird place at the moment. At work.
The thing I do with stock questions is duck them entirely. I’ll say “Is that a problem for you here? People should always work as a team.”
Then immediately, before they can answer, ask something specific about the company. Anything that wasn’t mentioned yet. Are all the founders still around? Has this been a growth year? . . .
I hate stock questions. One time I was interviewing for a senior management position and has to pass by all the people who would be working under me. One woman started to ask me the same questions she would ask a new grad. I said “That sounds like a question for a new grad candidate. What can you tell me about how this department’s importance to the company.” So I was interviewing her. I got that job.
Ever been on a (sports) team? Been part of a theatrical production? Been in a band? Worked with other people to plan a party or get-together? Any of these could be a source of a “worked well in a group” story.
Being a “team player” doesn’t mean you’re necessarily working on group projects or are in and out of meetings all the time. To me “listen[ing] to the training and [doing your] job quietly and compentantly” is being a team player. Really, the question isn’t asking “what are you like as part of a committee?” or “will you hold the beam while the other guy hammers in the nail?”; what they’re asking is “Will you constantly annoy your team leader, weasel out of assigned tasks, and cause dissent among your colleagues?” If they actually asked it that way, it would be too easy to spot. Answers to the “team player” question are often more revealing and relevant than you might think.
As for something you can use in an interview, you listed “call center”, so I’m sure you’ve had to ask and answer questions of colleagues, and perhaps do callbacks for “special” customers for your team leader. Use that. No matter how small and “everyday” it seems to you, it’s usually exactly what they’re looking for. Showing them evidence that you’re not too afraid to ask questions if your stuck, and not too much of an asshole to answer questions of your colleagues once you’ve been there for a while, is important. Saying “I work alooooone” behind dark shades shows you have neither of these qualities.
“Great things are not accomplished by teams, no matter what you have heard. They are accomplished by individuals who take untraveled roads.” – Charles Kuralt, speaking at a commencement ceremony at Skidmore College, in a quote I keep taped in view of my desk
. . . What?
Doing your job quietly and competently may be the most important element of teamwork you can demonstrate. You do your own work; you don’t expect others to do it for you. I’m sure you’ve picked up the slack when you’ve had coworkers unable to do all of theirs, for one reason or another; and perhaps there’s an area where you were better at something than other people so they’d come to you for answers (and you can point out others’ areas of specialty too to emphasize the parts of the whole fitting together most efficiently). That kind of give-and-take is teamwork at its best.
For example, one office I worked in, although we had IT people available to answer software questions, I became the go-to person for my immediate coworkers because I knew how to cope with most of the everyday problems they’d run into, and they often couldn’t wait the several hours for IT to get back to them. That helped the team effort because I helped keep my coworkers functioning more effectively while also helping IT to focus on only the more difficult problems that I didn’t have the specialized knowledge to deal with. And of course I solved the vast majority of my own problems, so that when I called IT, I’d get a much faster response than a lot of other people because they knew I wouldn’t take a question to them unless it was a more challenging one.
You can take almost any job and demonstrate things like that so as to turn sitting peacefully at your own desk minding your own business into being an outstanding team player.
“Once, when I found myself at a loss for an answer to this very question, I turned to my colleagues at the Straight Dope Message Board. They were kind of helpful, except for the snarky TimeWinder one. But mostly I learned that I work better alone.”
You mean things like landing on the moon? Raising the flag on Iwo Jima? Winning the Superbowl? No one acomplishes anything by themselves.
“As a ‘senior manager’ here, how do plan to create an environment that encourages people to work as team”?
“I’m curious…did you not have a chance to read our financials or about our history on the web site?”
“back to my original question…how do you work in a group?”
People who duck questions have something to hide and don’t get hired.
Actually, I like to ask “tell me a time when you didn’t work well in a group”. I want to know how people deal with difficulty and conflict.
If anyone tried to divert me from getting an answer to that question they wouldn’t be coming back for a second interview. I’d ask the question a second time, if they tried that again the interview wouldn’t be much fun after that.