Give me an example of a time when you have been required to work closely with your colleagues to keep them motivated. Why was this important, and was it successful?
Employers are typically interested in assessing how well co-workers and clients would respond to you if you were hired, and how you would interact with them. This is a situational interview question, and there is no wrong or right answer. One strategy for your response is to share an anecdote to demonstrate the motivational techniques you have used in the past.
"While at my previous company we had redundancies in the middle of an already understaffed project. The 5-person team I was in was demoralized and also needed to absorb the additional work from the departed staff. I took everyone on the team out for coffee individually. These one-on-one meetings were an opportunity to vent, but also created space for employees to share pain points. I shared all the potential roadblocks in a follow-up team meeting, and we brainstormed solutions together, including adjusting the timeline slightly.
Because the team felt that their frustrations were acknowledged, there was no simmering resentment holding people back. Instead, the team felt enthusiastic and unified in a common goal. "
Community answers are written by other candidates practicing this set. Reading how others frame the same question is one of the fastest ways to sharpen your own.
Anonymous Answer
Working on holidays at a store as popular as Sephora is extremely difficult. You can barely move in the shop and customers are not always the most pleasant of people. I felt that I wanted to support my colleagues and try and motivate them to continue working their hardest so that at the end of the day they were proud of the work that they had put in.
Rachelle's Feedback
Try to be specific on what you did to motivate your team, rather than how you felt.
"Working on Boxing Day, in a shop as popular as LUSH, has its difficulties. As retail associates, we could barely move, and many of the customers were pushy. I wanted to support my colleagues and motivate them so I promised to buy everyone Starbucks at the end of the day if we could all get through with smiles on our faces. The day went by fast, and we ended on a high note. It felt great!"
Anonymous Answer
Genetics was a tough class in undergrad. Each exam was very difficult, and I knew that to even perform averagely on the exam, I had to put in many hours of studying. I had a study group for this class, and we studied together before each exam. Before we met up the night before the exam, I would create study plans and practice tests for us to do as a group. I acted as the team leader and kept us on pace as we studied. When we lost momentum, I would lay out achievable goals. It was successful in that I felt prepared for my exams. There was another time where I took new members of my sorority to coffee mid-semester so that we could talk out how their semester was playing out, and I did this to keep them motivated and give advice if needed.
Rachelle's Feedback
It seems that you take on a leadership role often, and very naturally so. Excellent examples of working hard, being detailed, and keeping focused to reach your goals. It's awesome that you work so hard to help others along the way!
Anonymous Answer
As I was the captain of the regional senior team, I had an important job of motivating and encouraging the team during training and competitions. During a game day, our teams' morale was decreasing as we faced tough competition and struggled to play to our best ability. I led by example, giving vocal encouragement and working harder to gain possession of the ball. The team followed suit, and our performance improved. We went on to win the game.
Rachelle's Feedback
You sound like a true leader! Using examples from competitive sports is always a great angle to take in a student interview. Nice work!
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