What Does Working Together (Teamwork) Mean?

The working together competency is about efficient partnerships and relationships with people both internally and externally, from a range of diverse backgrounds, sharing information and resources.

When you work well together much more can be achieved both individually and as a group, goals and tasks can be completed faster and more effectively.

Good examples of working together include supporting, collaborating, and offering help to colleagues, sharing your thoughts, and giving advice to get tasks completed. 

How Can I Show this competency?

Usually, for most roles even when you mainly work alone there is teamwork involved with stakeholders, colleagues, teamwork, or even just sharing ideas and advice to get tasks done. 

Good example ideas to show this competency can be when you:

• Leading a team or project which involved working with external stakeholders. 

• Sharing ideas and knowledge with colleagues or in a team and also listening to ideas. 

• Helping a colleague during times of stress or returning to work after illness to boost their morale.

• Support your colleagues with their workload when necessary. 

• Taking part in social activities to boost morale, form effective working relations, and get to know your colleagues.

• Forming contacts outside your immediate workplace such as networking to share ideas and form good external working relationships. 

Questions to Expect in Your Interview

The written application and interview both give you an opportunity to demonstrate your skills in this competency area and you will be asked to give an example of where you have used them effectively. The questions will most likely be competency based requiring an example of a past situation where you have demonstrated the required behaviours.

Here are some sample questions – plan ahead and think about how you would answer these:

Describe a time when your team working skills made a difference.

Tell me about a time when you worked successfully as a member of a team.

Tell me a situation in which you were successful in getting people to work together effectively.

What approach did you take when your were a member of a team and conflict arose?

Describe a situation where others you were working on a project disagreed with your ideas.  What did you do?

Tell me about a time when you successfully built and led a diverse team.

Give us an example of a particular challenge you encountered in a team situation

and describe how you resolved the issue.

How to Answer Successfully

Answering successfully will be based on a combination of relevant examples structured in the right way. Here are our top guidelines for giving a winning answer.

Answer Guideline

Use the STAR Formulas: Study the module on using STAR if you haven’t done so yet.

Choose the right example: Talk about a decision which is recent and sufficiently complex.

Be ready for probing questions: They may ask about obstacles and challenges or about what you learned from the process.

Real-life examples. Your interviewer will want to know about some real-life situations you have been in where you used your team working skills. Be precise in your examples and give them a positive example of working in a group.

Don’t be vague. Try to give specific examples that are relevant to the position you are applying for and give as many details as possible. Don’t give vague answers that are not related to the interview.

Be enthusiastic. Even if you prefer to work alone, show that you are enthusiastic about working together. Think about all the things you enjoy about working within a team and avoid the negatives.