Every time you interview a job candidate you’re looking for way more than a checklist of skills. You’re looking for strong team players who will fit right in with your best people and strengthen your company culture.

In this post I’ll give you eight job interview questions that will help you identify a job candidate’s approach team work. I’ll suggest how to interpret the answers to predict how the person will handle challenging situations. Plus I’ll give you some red flags to look for to avoid hiring people that may disrupt your team.

So you can continue building an awesome team like the one in this Culture Map by Dave Gray:

Culture Map by Dave Gray - http://www.davegrayinfo.com/culturemap/

Visual thinking guru Dave Gray created this Culture Map – http://www.davegrayinfo.com/culturemap/

Interview questions to identify strong team players

Tell me about a team project you worked on. What was the biggest problem faced by the team? What was your role in this? What stressed you most? How did you grow as a person by being part of this team?
How do you keep your skills up to date?
Who inspires you? Who do you admire least? Why?
Tell me about your biggest accomplishment. What did you learn?
What was your most challenging job? Why?
Tell me about a time that you failed? Why did you fail? What did you learn?
Ask how they would approach a future challenge that your company may face (real or hypothetical).
Describe the last major change you made. Why did you do it? How did it work out? What did you learn?

Interpreting candidate responses: Red flags to watch for

This PDF gives you the kind of answers you can expect from strong team players, plus the answers that are red flags indicating people who may not have the best communication style for team work.

http://blog.stafflink.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/8-interview-questions-hire-team-players.pdf

Tim Collins, Founder and Chief IT Recruiter, Stafflink Solutions

Tim Collins, Stafflink Founder and Chief IT Recruiter

Hope this helps you hire more of those employees that you want to clone 🙂

We’re here to help you hire mobile developers, software engineers and other IT staff.

I’m Tim Collins and I’m here to connect you with the technology specialists you’re looking for. You can reach me at 416-364-2300 or email timc@stafflink.ca

Download the PDF: 8 Interview Questions to Hire Strong Team Players

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2 Comments

Tim Collins on July 22, 2014 at 4:45 pm

Thanks for the comment Paul. The process of screening candidates should be more of a science than it is. Companies spend millions on their R&D but very little in screening candidates. Some consistent processes can result in more retention and lower higher costs.
paul barron on July 22, 2014 at 3:43 pm

Excellent questions !..- these questions especially well-suited to those on Project teams.. IT , or otherwise these roles that are typically hard to staff, and when hired wrongly can really compromise the progress of a project.