Team and Interview Experience, Essay Example

1). I interviewed one of my best friends, Alan for this assignment who has taken an International Business course. Alan chose the course’s final project to describe his experiences as a team member. The course had many international students and the instructor created the teams himself to make sure students do not only choose friends as team members. There were three other students in Alan’s team two of which were international students, Yu from China and Elle from France. The final project required several team meetings to share ideas as well as discuss work progress. Alan calls this project experience one of the most challenging yet also one of the most productive in terms of developing teamwork skills.

The team members noticed early on that Yu rarely contributed ideas and mostly agreed with other students. In contrast, Elle would always take the initiative to express herself and argue with Alan and the fourth team member Jenny. Elle and Jenny felt Yu was not engaged with the project so one day, Alan took Yu aside after team meeting and told him about the team members’ mutual concerns. Yu explained that in China, people only talk when they have something worthwhile to say otherwise it is better to remain silent and listen to others. Alan also felt that some of Yu’s hesitation was also due to his weak English language skills and he might not have been speaking due to self-consciousness. Alan told his observations to other team members and from then onwards, all three team members would specifically ask Yu for his opinion and encourage him to speak. Yu suddenly became more confident in expressing himself and contributed some valuable ideas to the project. Alan says he learnt several things from the final project that he didn’t learnt in other projects even though he had completed many team projects before.

The first thing Alan learnt was the importance of learning about each other’s background and it is even more important when working with strangers. When we know about others’ background, our working relationship improves because we have better idea of others’ potential communication style, values, and working style. Being aware of cultural differences also helps avoid misunderstandings and promote respect. Everyone thought Yu was not committed to the project but Yu was merely following his cultural norms. In addition, Yu’s hesitation at times was more due to his weak language skills rather than non-commitment to the project.

Alan also learnt that teams made of members with diverse backgrounds benefit from wide variety of ideas and also minimize the prospect of groupthink. Yu and Elle provided perspectives from their respective cultures and helped the team adopt more global point-of-view. As a result, the final paper turned out to be a better product. Another education from the experience was that teams result in better ideas because members help each other see point-of-views they might not have considered otherwise. Thus, each member gains better understanding into the strengths and weaknesses of various arguments.

Alan also learnt that self-managed teams do not only manage themselves but also have to take on other roles such as leadership and facilitator. When Elle and Jenny had complaints from Yu, Alan didn’t ignore the problem but instead took the leader’s role and sorted out the issue successfully.

2). Last summer, I gave an interview at Best Buy for summer associate position. I didn’t prepare at all for the interview because I had seen summer associates at work and thought minimum-wage jobs didn’t involve tough interviews due to minimum qualification requirements. But as the interview started, I quickly realized how ill-prepared I had been. The interviewer asked numerous questions about myself, company, my interests, and my worldviews and I could not even answer apparently simple questions confidently. My interview performance was poor by all means. Though I luckily got the internship, the interview helped me learn a great deal about the purpose of interview and how to approach it.

First of all, the interviewer and job applicants are often meeting for the first time and the sheer number of candidates for each position means there is only so much time available to the interviewer to get to know each candidate. Thus, interviewer asks question that help him/her learn as much about the candidate as possible in a given period of time. This is why an applicant should prepare by anticipating the questions that may be asked so that he can give an effective response in a given period of time instead of wasting some of the time in thinking up the response.

The interview also taught me that interviewers expect candidates to be enthusiastic about the job, no matter what the pay or responsibilities may be because candidate’s performance also reflects his/her attitude towards the company. I also learnt that a candidate should prepare well for an interview instead of taking it lightly because interviewers are interesting in gauging applicant’s knowledge about the company. I was able to give some good answers only because I am such a regular visitor to Best Buy and this may not be the case at every company I will be interviewing at in the future. I also noticed that the interviewer ask many behavioral questions. This may be because he wanted to predict my future performance through real-life world examples. When I would not have work examples, he would ask me to give examples from school or how I may react if I find myself in a particular situation.

It was apparent that the interviewer didn’t only want to learn about my skills but also my personality, soft skills, and compatibility with the company’s culture. Thus, one cannot ignore soft skills in today’s work environment, especially communication, leadership, and teamwork. The interviewer is not only interested in whether the candidate can work alone but also whether he/she can work with others.

If I were to give an interview at Best Buy again, I will approach interview preparation in the same manner as one approaches a course test. I will try to anticipate questions that may be asked and would try to prepare responses in advance. I will also talk to other people who may have worked at Best Buy and ask them about potential questions that could be asked, company’s culture, and candidate characteristics the interviewer looks for. I will also do a comprehensive research on Best Buy on the internet and will also try to find information on other people who may have applied to or worked at Best Buy to benefit from their insights. In addition to preparing responses to potential questions, I may also prepare questions for the interviewer in order to demonstrate my interest in the company. I will also learn more about the position I am interviewing for so that I have realistic expectations and the interviewer knows I understand my responsibilities.