Tell the world (especially the hiring manager) youre a team player

Being a team player is one of the most important attributes you can bring to a job. Team players are open-minded; they see other points of view and are willing to help others in their efforts to achieve goals. How do you get it across in the interview that you are a team player without it taking away from your value as an individual? In this article, Medzilla offers insight about how to strike that balance of letting potential employers know that you are valuable as an individual and a team player.

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Tell the world (especially the hiring manager) youre a team player

Marysville, WA September 24, 2004 -- Words have become important tools in the job candidates knowledge base. Some words on a resume and in an interview illustrate your experience and value as a person. Other words, which are becoming particularly important in todays job market, show that you are a team player.

I think that research tends to be a fairly lonely occupation and people who get into the sciences initially dont necessarily get into it because they want to belong to a group of peoplebut rather because they have a goal. The hard fact is, however, that if you want to get a good job nowadays, you have to show that you can collaborate as a team, says Frank Heasley, PhD, president and CEO of MedZilla.com, (www.medzilla.com) a leading Internet recruitment and professional community that serves biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, healthcare and science. The first step, before your interview or even before sending out your resume, is to understand what being a team player means. Then, you need to realize that being a team player is not just being a member of a group or departmenttoday, its working with the entire organization.

Employers focus on teamwork

Vicki Wadman, RN, director of recruitment, Memorial Healthcare System, a system of hospitals in South Broward County, Fla., says Memorial Healthcare System runs on a team concept.

Nurses and others from the allied health areas, such as respiratory, pharmacy, nutritional services and information technologyeverybody is part of the team when it comes to healthcare, Wadman says. You cant take one of those away from the team and have it function as well.

Wadman describes team players as people who are open-minded, see others points of views and are willing to jump in and help other people.

The HR staff at Memorial Healthcare System, which is hiring for a new high-tech hospital facility in Miramar, Fla., asks interviewees about being a team player during interviews. Wadman says that when they interview scholarship candidates and registered nurses, they ask the candidates to describe what they think are characteristics that team players demonstrate. Then, they ask candidates to describe situations in which they were team players.

The examples you would offer during the interview dont have to be industry-related. A student right out of nursing school might have to refer to something she or he did during college or even at a side job, while working through school.

You should mention cooperative efforts, such as committees or clubs that youve participated on, offices you heldanything that shows you work well with others.

One recent interviewee told Wadman about a time when she was working in a restaurant and was ready to clock out when patrons started streaming inoverwhelming the waiters and waitresses still working. She said that instead of leaving, she stayed to help the rest of the staff.

Debbie Mandel, author of Turn on Your Inner Light: Fitness for Body, Mind and Soul and a radio host, says that if youre lacking on-the-job experience, you can bring up sports team participation. Or, If you grew up in large family, emphasize how you all pitched in and what your specific role was, she says.

Strike a balance between your accomplishments and those of the team

Trudy Bourgeois, president and CEO, Center for Workforce Excellence, Dallas, Texas, says that you should first establish your value to the organization as an individual; then, talk about how you are able to relate your value to the benefit of the team.

Linda Finkle, a business consultant at the Incedo Group and a previous owner of an executive search firm, says that during an interview you have to be cautious that you dont come across as so much as a team player that the employer isnt able to see or recognize your value as an individual. Using works like we doesnt tell an employer youre a team player, Finkle says. It makes them think you didnt have a critical part if the process. One needs to discuss success from the perspective of the team did x and my contribution was y.

Words and terms like collaboration, cooperation, innovation, and building cross-functional relationships are great ways to express that you are a team player, committed to the sum of the total, according to Bourgeois.

When you talk about being a team player there are several important thoughts that need to come out, she says, including the concepts of getting things done through others, having great interpersonal skills and relationship management.

Francie Dalton, president and founder, Dalton Alliances, Inc., Columbia, Md., a business consulting firm with clients including Merck & Co Pharmaceuticals and Johns Hopkins University, says that when youre in an interview, consider referring to how your actions affected others, a concept she calls radial impact.

Express an awareness of how you considered the radial impact of your actions. That means how did it affect other relevant internal or external colleagues, Dalton says. If you are sensitive to, aware of or reference the radial impact of your actions, that evidences an awareness that youre not the only person on the planet--youre not the only person in the organization.

Be prepared to tell your story

Go into the interview expecting to have to define and bring up an instance or two illustrating teamwork, Dalton says.

You might even throw a few such phrases in your resume, describing your accomplishments and tacking on, where relevant, that you accomplished what you did being sensitive to colleagues or multiple audiences.

What's important about being a team player?

In my opinion, at the very core of any individual who is going to experience success, that person must be able to build effective relationships. In this day of flatter organizations, there are more teamsmany cultures, if you will. We need innovation, the only way that that is going to happen is if I am on a team where I am valued, and I value others. I am empowered and I empower others, Bourgeois says.

About MedZilla.com
Established in mid 1994, MedZilla is the original web site to serve career and hiring needs for professionals and employers in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medicine, science and healthcare. MedZilla databases contain about 10,000 open positions, 13,000 resumes from candidates actively seeking new positions and 121,000 archived resumes.

Medzilla is a Registered Trademark owned by Medzilla Inc. Copyright 2004, MedZilla, Inc. Permission is granted to reproduce and distribute this text in its entirety, and if electronically, with a link to the URL www.medzilla.com . For permission to quote from or reproduce any portion of this message, please contact Michele Groutage, Director of Marketing and Development, MedZilla, Inc. Email: e-mail protected from spam bots.