How to determine whether a person is a good team member

When building a team of specialists to work on a project together, - it is crucial to know what qualities a person should have to be able to work in a team productively.

But first, let’s define what the team is. Team defined as a group of individuals with complementary skills and personalities that complement other team members', and united by same goal.

All team members must understand and complement each other, trust and give help when needed.
That is the reason why it is so important to determine early whether a candidate is a good team player or not.

There are many people who are experienced specialists; they have all required essential experience. But how to find out whether a candidate will be an effective fit for a team?

Here is simple checklist when hiring an employee:

1. A person should have skills to accomplish required tasks.
2. A person has to be a good team player.

Here is what makes a person a great team player.

Good team player is...

1. Team player is able to express himself clearly and coherently
2. Interested and highly motivated in common goal. He sees a team as a possibility to accomplish a goal, not a threat.
3. Committed to the team
4. Listening other team members carefully
5. Respectful. Person treats others with respect. Team members have to respect opinions of others and treat each other equally.
6. Helping. He makes an attempt to help others.
7. Sharing with others his or her ideas and knowledge. Good team players always share everything: information, knowledge, and experience.
8. Feeling responsibility both for personal contribution to the team and for team results.
9. Good team members can be count on. They will perform their best at all time not just sometime.
10. Flexible. They should be able to adjust to varying requirements and information.
11. Reasonable. Meaning that he or she give reasons for own ideas.
12. Participating in discussion enthusiastically.
13. Suggest fresh ideas
14. Motivates. Good team members influence a group for high performance.

This list will be also useful for anybody who expects to work in a team and wondering does he or she has all that is takes to be good team player.

Here is what questions you can ask during an interview to find out whether a candidate has all necessary qualities.

Questions to ask a candidate during an interview...
- What makes a team successful?
- Provide an example when you were working in a team?
- Did you do well?
- What role did you play in a team? What responsibilities?
- What problems you had working in a team?

When interviewing a candidate, you are paying attention and waiting to find out that person respect teamwork.

After you’ve made a decision to hire a candidate – there is still some work that has to be done. Now you have to pay close attention to the way new team member behaves in his/her new team. If new person is a good fit for team, you’ll notice how he/she is getting inspired in a team and works much more effectively as a team member then along.