Successful and Unsuccessful Coordination in a Group

Group CoordinationCoordination within a group is important. When team players coordinate effectively, a specific project will be easily achieved and it will most likely be successful. Even if you have a specific job function or you belong to a specific department, you will be asked to unite and coordinate with other members of the organization so that you can come up with a meaningful contribution to the company’s overall success.

 

Interviewers often ask about team coordination during job interviews. They would like to know how good you are at being a team player so that they can assess your ability to work with other people in your department or from other departments. Why are they interested in this?

  • Interviewers want to know if you are capable of working with other people;
  • Interviewers are looking for examples of your experiences that can clearly illustrate your attitude when working with others; and,
  • Interviewers want to know how you are going to contribute to the success of the organization.

The interviewer might ask you to share an experience in which you have successfully coordinated with others, and/or ask you to share an experience wherein the coordination was not successful. How are you going to answer these questions?

If the coordination was successful:

  1. Choose a successful coordination in which you were able to demonstrate your skills and talents. You can prepare for this question beforehand by listing all of the experiences you’ve had with a team. Choose the best event that showed your talents and skills so that you can impress the interviewer.
  2. Explain briefly, but don’t forget the important details. Talk about how you managed to be a great help to the team. Use words that could perfectly describe the scenario and let the interviewer picture the situation. However, don’t make it sound like you are bragging.

If the coordination wasn’t successful:

  1. Choose a group work coordination wherein you were able to show your skills and talents even if it wasn’t really a success. You can also prepare for this question beforehand by listing all of the experiences that you’ve had with a team but which didn’t work out the way you expected them to. Choose the one with the least number of mistakes but where you were still able to demonstrate your abilities.
  2. Explain briefly and don’t forget to tell the reason why it didn’t become a successful coordination attempt. Talk about how you worked as a team, and use appropriate words to describe the incident. Do not include unnecessary information, but emphasize your skills that helped in reviving the situation. Likewise, do not forget to mention that you have learned a lot from that experience and that you are certain to never repeat the same mistakes again.
  3. While you’re describing why it wasn’t a success, make sure to do it in a positive way. Don’t let anything negative come from your mouth. Even if the event or the project was not successful, mention the positive things about it.

There will be times when an event or a project wouldn’t be successful even if the team were well coordinated. Don’t be afraid to share your experiences, but remember to always be positive in your answers.

Practice answering these questions with a friend or in front of the mirror. Time yourself and see if you explanation is too long or too short. Record yourself while talking so you can determine your mistakes and work on them.

Read 15922 times Last modified on Monday, 07 March 2016 20:29
Alan Carniol

Alan is the creator of Interview Success Formula, a training program that has helped more than 80,000 job seekers to ace their interviews and land the jobs they deserve. Interviewers love asking curveball questions to weed out job seekers. But the truth is, most of these questions are asking about a few key areas. Learn more about how to outsmart tough interviewers by watching this video.