As companies increasingly move to remote or hybrid work models, building a cohesive remote team has become more challenging. Among the essential skills for remote work, the ability to work well within a team is crucial.
However, evaluating teamwork capabilities during the remote selection process poses unique challenges that many employers and HR professionals grapple with.
We ask ourselves: What are teamwork skills? How can we assess them? We know all organizations want team players, but what are the roles people play in teams? And aren’t teamwork skills overlapping other soft skills we need to test?
By equipping yourselves with practical tips and innovative strategies, we can transform this daunting task into a manageable part of your hiring process.
Hi, everyone! :) My name is Katarina Stojković, and I am a People Manager at FatCat Coders with over four years of experience in this industry. My responsibilities include detailed teamwork assessments, various HR procedures, and ensuring candidate and employee satisfaction. Additionally, I am a Psychotherapy Counselor under supervision.
Here, I have highlighted some of the most important aspects of teamwork assessment (easy to use) to help you choose the right candidate. So, here you will find:
Why are teamwork skills important at all?
What are teamwork skills?
How to assess them (behavioral, situational test, role-playing scenarios, references…)
And a short bonus tip on how to notice red flags ;)
And if you want to speed up the process, check out our vetted developers who can join your team within 24 hours.
Why Are Teamwork Skills Important in the Workplace?
Let’s get straightforward! Research shows that teamwork skills not only foster a harmonious work environment but also boost productivity and job satisfaction. And this is of the utmost importance, isn’t it?
When team members work well together, they can accomplish tasks more quickly and effectively than if they were working solo. Moreover, strong teamwork skills contribute to a positive culture that encourages mutual respect, support, and collaboration.
This not only leads to higher job satisfaction and employee retention but also drives innovation and success by merging diverse talents and perspectives to achieve common objectives.
At FatCat Coders, where I come from, strong teamwork skills are of utmost importance. As we provide team extensions of work-proven developers to our international clients, our developers must excel in collaboration to work effectively with international teams and deliver outstanding performance and success.
On the other hand, having a non-team player on your team can lead to issues. Keep in mind that even one non-team player can influence the whole team and productivity!
Toxic work environment
Team conflicts and workplace hostility
Gossipping
Talking down to and about others
Emotional and physical discomfort
Oversharing and bringing personal issues to work
Complaints without solutions
What Are Teamwork Skills?
It is a good thing to stress the importance of teamwork from the first steps of the selection process (including headhunting). Yet, the next step is to define "teamwork"—a term often left vague.
Simply put: Teamwork is a set of interpersonal and social skills that allow individuals to work effectively as part of a team. These skills extend beyond soft skills of effective communication to include active listening, empathy towards others, the ability to resolve conflicts, receptiveness to feedback, and collaboration towards a common goal.
However, viewing teamwork as a collection of specific skills makes hiring remote employees somewhat more challenging. Nonetheless, it's important to note that good teamwork skills can be developed and honed over time.
There are some quite easy-to-recognize behavioral indicators that can make you easily spot whether your candidate is potentially a good teamwork mate. Let’s go through them!
Builds and maintains positive relationships
Collaborates effectively
Supports team members
Shared information and resources
Contributes to a positive team dynamic
, read this article, and make the best out of your selection process. :)
Methods to Assess Teamwork
Now the real question is: How to assess those skills effectively?
When it comes to hiring remote employees, we often rely solely on interviews to assess teamwork skills. However, utilizing a blend of competency-based and behavioral interview questions, scenario-based assessments, and reference checks can offer a more holistic view of a candidate's teamwork capabilities.
These approaches extend beyond the scope of traditional interviews, enabling recruiters to directly observe candidates' teamwork skills in practical scenarios. They can be crucial when it comes to hiring a perfect fit that is versatile in teamwork and collaboration in different challenges, for example: when it comes to working in different time zones.
Here are the 5 most useful assessment methods that I will be going through with you in this article, and that can help you maximize your teamwork skill evaluation of candidates.
Behavioral interview questions
Situational judgement tests
Role-playing scenarios
References
Personality tests
Behavioral Interview Questions
One of the most common methods for evaluating teamwork is through behavioral interview questions.
The behavioral-based interview is used to collect information about the past behavior of remote staff. It is done on the assumption that past performance is a predictor of future behavior.
During this interview, the open-ended questions related to the situation, task, action, and results together abbreviated as STAR.
What was the situation in which you were involved?
What was the task you needed to accomplish?
What action (s) did you take?
What results did you achieve?
How to use this? For example, asking a candidate to describe a time when they had to work closely with others to complete a project can provide insight into their ability to collaborate.
Top 9 Questions To Test ‘Teamwork’ In An Interview
The shift to remote interviews has certainly put constraints on our ability to capture non-verbal cues during the assessment process.
That’s why I will present to you the previously mentioned compilation of the top 9 questions that can aid in the evaluation of teamwork capabilities in the context of the remote hiring process.
Here is what you will find in this downloadable document with questions:
Question Formulation: How can we frame questions to elicit the most informative responses from candidates?
What We Assess: What specific information are we aiming to discover about the candidate, particularly regarding their teamwork skills?
Identifying Negative Indicators: How can we effectively identify and recognize the most significant negative indicators in each candidate's responses?
Identifying Positive Indicators: What details should we focus on to maximize the effectiveness of the selection process?
Tips: That will help you to optimize this process and make the best of it!
Teamwork Assessment Cheat Sheet
Formulate precise questions.
Identify positive & negative indicators.
Find out the Pro Tips,
Situational Judgement Tests
Another approach requires putting the candidate in different surroundings, giving them options, and monitoring their behavior.
A situational judgment test is an employee assessment tool that presents candidates with a series of hypothetical scenarios based on typical workplace challenges.
Through multiple-choice questions, candidates are asked to identify the most effective and least effective responses to these scenarios.
Using these tests early in the recruitment process enables you to observe candidates' behaviors in specific situations and determine which ones are likely to perform well in the position.
This approach allows for efficient screening of a large pool of candidates, helping to identify those with the highest potential and facilitating more informed and comparative hiring decisions.
Role-Playing Scenarios
Similarly, another technique to assess a candidate's teamwork skills involves engaging them in role-playing exercises that mimic realistic scenarios they might encounter in the position they're applying for.
These exercises allow the candidate to demonstrate how they would navigate various situations on the job. It’s particularly useful for roles that require intensive stakeholder interaction, conflict resolution, or collaborative teamwork.
For instance, candidates could be asked to role-play a team leader tasked with delegating assignments, motivating team members, or resolving a conflict.
Role-playing scenarios can help you observe how a candidate performs under pressure, how they communicate verbally and non-verbally, and how they adapt to different personalities and expectations.
Background Check (References)
Some methods are rather simple, yet effective.
One approach is requesting references from former colleagues and employers of remote staff. This can give insights into the candidate’s ability to work in a team.
Reference checks offer an opportunity to obtain objective insights about the candidate's past performance and behaviors in team settings, which can be also rather important for smooth onboarding.
While resumes and interviews provide self-reported achievements and qualities, references can validate these claims with real-world examples and observations.
Personality Tests
Using personality and psychometric tests can provide insights into a candidate's predisposition for teamwork by evaluating their preferences, traits, styles, and behaviors.
These tests can reveal traits like emotional intelligence, conflict management style, communication style, and preferred team roles, which are crucial for effective teamwork..
For remote hiring, these tests can be administered online. However, drawbacks include potential oversimplification of personalities, risk of bias, interpretation costs and time, and candidates tailoring responses to match perceived employer expectations.
Additionally, these tests may not fully capture the dynamic nature of real-world teamwork, limiting their predictive validity.
Employing a variety of assessments offers a more holistic evaluation, helping recruiters identify individuals who are both technically competent and possess essential interpersonal skills.
Practical assessments improve the remote hiring process by ensuring candidates selected for team roles can contribute effectively to the organization’s success.
Don't forget to
! Bonus: Red Flags
Now let’s talk about don’ts! During the remote interview, be on the lookout for following red flags as these behaviors may indicate poor teamwork skills.
Some of the most common red flags to look after are:
Complaining\Gossiping
Bragging
‘Victim Card’
Resigning Due to Disagreements
Lack of Ownership
Refusing the Background Check
Complaining or Gossiping
How a candidate discusses their former employer, coworkers or industry really matters.
Negative energy from a candidate should be disconcerting. Though candidates are clearly looking for a way out of their old company, their attitude toward leaving is sometimes indicative of their attitude toward work.
Bragging
‘Me, myself and I. Let’s talk only about me!’
This can be described rather simply: Candidates who spend their interview talking all about themselves or bragging are most likely not team players.
On the other hand, there are candidates who stress team success and team projects in their portfolios and examples.
Playing the Victim Card
For these candidates, everything is someone else's fault (but their own 😅)
Their previous boss hated them. Their old company was out to get them. They were ignored for promotions. The list goes on….
Look out for candidates that are leaving their previous company because there's "nothing left to learn". While there are occasions when this can be a legitimate complaint, it's usually a red flag.
Resigning Due to Disagreements
Job change is nothing to be ashamed of. However, candidates who have a history of leaving companies because they don’t agree with their managers or company directives tend to carry this behavior into future roles.
Lack of Ownership
Look out for candidates who blame all failures on colleagues or managers. The best candidates don't just take ownership of their own errors in judgment.
They'll leave their ego at the door, and tell you the part they played in team mistakes and how they could have performed better.
When candidates show extreme ownership you can be confident that they're the kind of person that learns from mistakes. When they blame others constantly, they should be avoided.
Refusing the Background Check
Got a candidate that's refusing to give you a reference? Major interview red flag.
It's worrying if a candidate refuses to provide references, waxes lyrical as to why their references aren’t a good judge of character or ability; or demands that the offer be granted before referencing checking.
Conclusion
Evaluating teamwork abilities is crucial in choosing the ideal candidates for your organization.
This process demands careful consideration and strategic planning to accurately gauge a candidate's capacity for collaboration and their potential to positively impact team objectives. It requires a thoughtful approach and well-planned strategies to discern the ability of candidates to work collaboratively and effectively contribute to team goals.
By using a holistic approach in the remote hiring process you can make well-informed hiring decisions that will foster a collaborative and productive work environment.
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