Spark A Conversation: How to Spot a Team Player

Here at Spark Hire, we want to help companies utilize the power of online video to find the best candidates. We get a lot of questions from readers about best practices for using online video in the hiring process. These posts will address those questions about how to find your next superstar employee.

Question: How can you tell if a candidate will be a team player in a video interview? -Brad from Salt Lake City

Thanks for your question, Brad! Making sure you have team players on your staff is really important- especially if the position works very closely with other departments and managers. The best way to decipher whether your candidate is a team player or not is by the interview questions you choose to ask. In this case, behavioral based interview questions are the best. Interview questions in a behavioral interview force the candidate to explain their skills and how they used them in a work setting in the past. In the case of being a team player, you can ask the candidate interview questions such as, “Tell me about a time you had to work with a group and found that you disagreed with a team member. How did you resolve the issue?” You can also go with, “Tell me about a time you had to work as a team in a work setting. Did you succeed or fail? Why?”

Interview questions like this have the candidate think about whether or not they are a team player and how they worked as one in the past. If their answer is great and it’s easy for them to respond, then you probably have a great team player on your hands. If they stumble to find the words to answer, you may want to think again.

Another great way you can see if a candidate is a team player is to inquire about their preferred working style. Do they prefer to work alone or with a team? You can come right out with interview questions like that and get your answer right away. “Do you work better alone, or with a team? Which do you prefer?” Even if they are not a seasoned worker yet, they will certainly have a pretty good idea what kind of working style they have. This can also help you out with finding a good corporate culture fit.

If you have already asked these interview questions in the video interview and want to be sure that your candidates are team players, then perhaps you should consider a group interview. With a group interview, you can bring in a handful of candidates to interview together. The candidates that are great team players will make it a point to interact with the other candidates to show you their teamwork skills. They will actively listen to other candidate’s answers and help them out if need be. This is another great and easy way to see if your top candidates are team players. So start asking these questions in the video interview and get some great team players on your staff.

Do you have a question you need answered? Spark a conversation with the Spark Hire team by submitting your question to blog(at)sparkhire.com or in the comments below.