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How to Answer “Describe Your Working Relationship” Interview Question

Humans are very sociable creatures by nature. We spend half of our life working, so it’s evident that having strong relationships among coworkers will make the working life much more pleasant.

Almost every organization around the globe prefers to function in a group or team. Their main aim is to build or establish a flawless worker structure, to maintain a good workflow.

Every person in a business must operate in coordination to maintain a smooth workflow. They should have a strong working relationship with both experienced and new workers.

Importance of this Question

When you appear for a job interview, the companies ask a common  question: “Describe your working relationship.” They want to know if you’re a team player or are you even credible enough to work with them. They could ask several inquiries to learn about your coworkers’ relationships. This question helps an employer gauge your ability to establish successful relationships.

An interviewer is curious about your working relationship with your coworkers. Maintaining positive connections with colleagues will be critical in the current job market. Valid and direct comments prove that you value your association and coworkers.

What Should Your Answer Be?

Your answer is your chance to prove that you might work well with others and generate meaningful results as part of a group. You should show in your answers that you can get along well with everyone and work well with others to build an efficient group. Depending on your response, they may tell what role you can play in group tasks if selected.

You have more flexibility when you have good working relationships. Instead of wasting your time and effort on unfavorable connections, you could create opportunities to host new businesses for self-improvement.

Why are Professional Relationships Meaningful?

Why are professional relationships meaningful
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People in business connections collaborate to achieve a common goal that benefits their firm or group. Character features and objectives of the individuals who are getting engaged to reach a common goal can impact these partnerships.

The working environment and professional expectations define how employees should treat each other. Personal difficulties and circumstances are less likely to interfere with company activities when the employees are team players.

Coworker connections are social bonds formed by working for the same business. This has been the most typical business connection, although it may take on distinctive qualities or traits depending on circumstances. Because teammates spend more of their time together during their careers, their interactions might resemble friendship.

How Should you Answer Such Questions?

How Should you Answer Such Questions
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Work relationships are ones that you have social purposes. They have no bearing on the job except to increase work pleasure and keep you calm. As both a tip, don’t bring up any past drama and also don’t criticize the coworkers.

1. Be Positive

Even if some of the old colleagues were difficult to deal with, try to focus on the good parts of teamwork. The first part of your response should list unique connection characteristics that best characterize your previous professional relationships.

This question needs you to describe the form of your relationship with your coworkers and employer. You would like to prove that you can get along with everyone. It could range from being nice to becoming complex.

Here are a few characteristics that contribute to effective workplace relationships:

  • Having frank and transparent conversations with your coworkers
  • Being willing to trust and be trusted by coworkers in professional and personal situations.
  • You respect the people’s individual choices, even if one disagrees with them all the time. Also, it helps a lot when coming up with a solution as a group.
  • To foster a sense of belonging and a mindset that every team member should be involved in work actions and decisions.
  • Being conscious of how your comments, acts, and ideas influence those around you.

2. Share Your Strengths

Show companies that you can contribute to any team by understanding the root cause of a problem. Describe the position you have usually played in your previous organization and how it has helped you achieve a common goal.

Emphasize your ability to strike a balance between cooperation & personal life. You can also prove to companies that you can strike a balance between trust and work effort. Although your response should state that your love is collaborating, you will always be committed to keeping an active and engaging relationship with your coworkers.

Prove that the company is your primary concern. You can use this statement, “although I  love working with people, my primary focus will always remain on the company’s aims and ambitions.” Even though you can form connections with your coworkers, you must recall being a team worker.

3. Avoid Generic Answer

You should always be truthful while delivering the responses, as it helps in providing a fantastic reaction, allowing you to give a specific and non-generic answer. There is a perfect chance, as you can amaze/impress the employer and gain an advantage over other applicants.

This entails going further than a broad description & discussing real-life scenarios in which these characteristics were utilized. It’s also crucial to underline that your peers acknowledged and returned their attempts in a certain way.

4. You can Provide a Reference

If you’re talking about your relationships with specific people, don’t be hesitant to include individuals as further references. The interviewer may try calling your previous colleagues to get an honest evaluation of your professional relationships. If this is the case, you can assert that your former coworkers will become more knowledgeable.

You should prove great confidence in communicating with your coworkers under any conditions.

Few Examples Have Been Listed Below, Which can Help you in Answering such Questions

  • As a manager, I describe my relationships with my subordinates as respectful and friendly. Furthermore, I would state that it’s never overbearing or authoritarian, and I have tried my best to motivate team members to achieve the company’s success.
  • My connection with my coworkers was competitive while remaining cordial(warm and friendly). We were able to help each other and learn new skills. We were able to assist each other in discovering new talents. It was not a hardship for me due to my competitive nature. But it helped me stretch my limitations as it encouraged me to push my boundaries.
  • My interaction with my coworkers was quite cordial. I always talked about topics ranging from work-related difficulties to private things. As I am a pleased person with an extroverted personality, I often used to talk to my co-workers.
  • This will be my first resume as a recent college graduate. Besides, I’d like to mention a connection I had fun with throughout my college years. It was a partnership wherein my elders aided me and provided career advice.
  • My relationships with all my coworkers were excellent, and we all used to work together toward a similar goal. This improved the effectiveness of our talent, but it also improved our communications skills.
  • My connection with my coworkers was one of mentorship. I recall how everybody came to me for guidance. I helped my teammates with technical elements of work and practical difficulties in their private lives. I have an uncanny ability to solve people’s problems and provide practical advice. Besides, I had a pleasant connection with my superiors and developed a good relationship with them.

How to Tell If you Had any Conflicts?

How to Tell If you Had any Conflicts
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We all are humans; we all have different choices over the same issue. The same happens in an organization, as every team member has a different idea to solve a particular problem. Due to these situations, many team conflicts may arise. But how can you tell this in an interview?

This will not cause much harm in your evaluation process. You can say that, at present, I’m having issues with my coworkers. But, disagreements are not interpersonal; feelings take no role in them.

You can also add that “I disagree with these business operations and have a different point of view on how things are done. But I’m not going to keep silent about this because it affects both clients and employers.

You should never forget that it is always easier to see coworkers’ flaws or defects than accept your mistakes. But, companies do not want to recruit people who blame people and believe they are correct. You can control the behavior of others, and we can alter ourselves and how we view their acts. And that’s the mentality you should have during your interviews.

Bonus Read: 9 Job Interview Tips To Ace Your Next Job Interview

Helpful Tips for Building Good Work Relationships

Helpful Tips for Building Good Work Relationships
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It takes time to develop good working relationships. Endurance and perseverance go a long way toward creating successful professional connections. Some skills can assist you in improving and forming new ones. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Good communication skills (empathetic, communicating, hearing, resolving conflict, issues, and teamwork) are the basis of effective partnerships. There are plenty of online tools to help you improve these talents.
  • Tiny interactions such as bringing a cup of coffee to a busy colleague or responding to social media posts by coworkers are all bit methods to help create connections.
  • Recognizing your wants in a partnership can provide insight into what others’ needs could be.
  • Emotional intelligence involves the capability to recognize and communicate. This also helps in managing interpersonal relationships with compassion and sound judgment.
  • Whenever it comes to building solid relationships, it’s critical to acknowledge others’ efforts and express gratitude when someone assists you.
  • Try to see things better since this will make others need to be around you.
  • In business interactions, limits are essential. You should always know your limits and sticking to them is necessary for keeping successful connections.
  • Gossiping behind a coworker’s back is the quickest way to ruin a good rapport.
  • A good connection is built on listening to others.
  • Make eye contact and accept your colleague’s statements with a smile.
  • Don’t allow yourself to be sidetracked while others are speaking. You should always wait until they’ve finished formulating your reply.

Conclusion

The question about working relationships is the most common question that a job seeker may face during an interview. You should not respond by focusing only on yourself when such questions crop up. Rather than saying, “I conceived the idea, and that everyone agreed: you should say, “the group and I worked hard to come up with acceptable solutions for all team members.”

You can also add that all the coworkers I’ve worked with have treated me with the utmost respect. We assist others in achieving the same goal–providing the finest possible instruction. We share common aspirations and collaborate to reach them to our best ability. I used to have a good relationship with all our coworkers because I worked very hard to build that. I was responsive to my coworkers’ concerns and was a good influence in the office.

Every job seeker should have an idea about the importance of working relationships. The interviewer always looks for a candidate who can maintain a positive and healthy environment. They always select an individual with great confidence and communication skills to protect against miscommunication and misunderstanding among team members. It’s essential to answer such questions by thinking instead of blaming the other team members for their behavior. Try to give the examples like what was the best thing your team members liked about you, etc., to impact the interviewer’s mindset.