Team Player Assessment for Employers
Assessment to Hire the Best
As a business leader, your team is only as good as the people you lead. Yet finding team players based on gut feeling alone is bound to fail. You may look at a resume and think you’ve discovered the next Magic Johnson, only to find out they’re the next Kyrie Irving.
When employees don’t put their team first, they let everybody down. Communication fails, tempers flare, and toxicity seeps in. Before long, team members don’t trust one another to do their jobs, and it becomes a free-for-all to hit quotas and impress senior leaders.
Research shows teamwork is instrumental to organizational productivity. Why, then, would you ever compromise on that?
Our sample pre-employment team player assessment test can help. Copy and paste the questions below to screen your new hires and find the next Lionel Messi. Or, partner with The Hire Talent and unlock even greater tools for your hiring process.
Use the teamwork skills assessment below to screen your candidates, or let The Hire Talent do it for you. We’ll screen for team player ability — plus honesty, problem solving, sales acumen, and a host of other skills — to prequalify your job candidates automatically.
What Is a Team Player Assessment?
A team player assessment is a pre-employment test designed to determine whether a job candidate has the qualities and behavioral traits needed to enable effective teamwork. A team player assessment typically measures traits including selflessness, collaboration, and team-centric thinking.
In hiring, a teamwork skills assessment can give you critical data points you won’t find through a resume or structured interview alone. By screening for team player abilities, your new hires will be humble and reliable, like Bill Gates or Patagonia’s Yvon Chouinard.
Pro Tip: Team players have high-level people skills. Use our interpersonal skills test to make sure you’re hiring candidates who get along and get things done.
Sample Team Player Assessment
The sample team player assessment below will help you get a leg up on your pre-hire screening. Feel free to copy and paste the questions directly — or, use The Hire Talent’s prepackaged online test for an even more powerful and precise assessment.
1. I am responsible for my work, and my work alone.
- True
- False
- Middle
Answer: False. When working on a team, you’re responsible for your shared success — and that hinges on your collective work. This team player quiz question assesses whether a candidate operates with a selfish vs. selfless mindset.
2. When a teammate isn’t performing well, I must inform their manager.
- True
- False
- Middle
Answer: False. Accountability is a critical part of any team. However, “tattling” on a teammate won’t build trust — it only leads to resentment. This team player assessment gauges whether a candidate understands how to properly hold team members accountable.
3. Conflict is detrimental to my team’s success.
- True
- False
- Middle
Answer: False. Conflict is a necessary part of any productive team — provided it’s grounded in safety and trust. This collaboration test question assesses a candidate’s ability to recognize the importance of conflict to innovation, productivity, and long-term success.
4. My colleagues deserve the benefit of the doubt when they make a mistake.
- True
- False
- Middle
Answer: True. A team player assumes good intentions from the people around them. This teamwork skills question gauges whether a candidate defaults to trust vs. distrust when the going gets tough.
5. It’s OK to tell my manager I have too much work on my plate.
- True
- False
- Middle
Answer: True. Being a team player doesn’t mean accepting every single assignment or task that comes your way. To be a supportive teammate for your manager and peers, you need to strike a healthy work-life balance.
Pro Tip: Great team players are great communicators, too. Use our communication skills test to find employees who understand each other and drive organizational success.
6. Working alone gets me further than working with others.
- True
- False
- Middle
Answer: False. While autonomous work can be valuable, it can also create silos and stifle teamwork. This teamwork assessment question assesses whether a candidate will put their own independence above the needs of their team.
7. When my manager schedules a sudden meeting, it’s my responsibility to attend.
- True
- False
- Middle
Answer: True. It can be annoying to receive a last-minute meeting notification, but true team players take these moments in stride. This team player assessment question measures a candidate’s level of collaboration and flexibility.
8. The experience is more important than any end goal or result.
- True
- False
- Middle
Answer: False. While it’s important for teammates to enjoy working together, effective team players understand that they’re working toward a long-term goal. This question gauges a candidate’s aptitude to think big-picture and prioritize a broader task or result.
9. It’s OK to prioritize one teammate’s request over another based on personal preference.
- True
- False
- Middle
Answer: False. Friendships exist in the workplace — but when they turn into biases, that becomes a problem. This teamwork test question serves to answer whether a candidate would treat every member of their team with the same respect and courtesy.
10. It’s OK to ask for time off when I don’t feel like I’m producing my best work.
- True
- False
- Middle
Answer: True. Burnout is a pressing issue for today’s companies, especially in the aftermath of the Great Resignation. Being a team player doesn’t mean working around the clock. This question assesses whether a candidate understands the importance of self-care.
Spot the applicants with Tom-Brady-level teamwork skills — before you even interview them. Try our team player assessment test today.
How to Test Applicants for Team Player Skills
Screening candidates for team player skills is an effective way to hire stellar, unselfish employees who back up their coworkers. But — you have to administer the test with a few best practices — unless your goal is to build the Brooklyn Nets of the business world.
1. Use team player assessment questions and answers that are reliable.
A team player assessment is useless if it’s reliable only 50% of the time. Thankfully, there are assessments — like The Hire Talent’s — that are rigorously tested using a large sample size to ensure the validity. Armed with the right questions, you can cut through hiring red flags and find the right players for your organization.
2. Administer the test to applicants using a user-friendly interface.
Imagine you’re a candidate who hates taking tests. The only thing worse would be a test that’s frustrating, cumbersome, and slow as molasses. Respect your candidate’s time and abilities. The more intuitive and responsive your testing interface, the easier it is to get the candidate data you need to make an informed hire.
3. Make candidate data security a top priority.
No candidate wants to divulge sensitive information to an employer, only for that data to get lost or stolen. Invest in state-of-the-art cybersecurity for your data to shore up your employer brand. Secure it on an encrypted server and protect it with a team of competent, high-performing IT professionals.
4. Score each applicant's answers consistently and fairly.
Biases, whether conscious or subconscious, can harm your hiring process. So, use a standardized rubric when your recruiters score potential new hires. Otherwise, you risk hiring someone vastly underqualified. The more consistent your scoring, the more objective your data — and your hiring.
Pro Tip: Team members appreciate honesty. Ensure you’re hiring new employees with integrity, with our honesty assessment for employers.
How We Created Our Team Player Assessment
Not all team player assessments are created equal. By using an online, science-backed team player test that’s been rigorously tested, you’ll save money and improve your hiring quality, all while looking like Microsoft or Patagonia to your applicants.
Our team skills assessment was tested by administering a pool of questions to a large sample of candidates. We used the results to refine these questions and verify the ones that reliably measure critical team player skills. Through statistical analyses, we fine-tuned them to ensure they were bias-free and predictive of on-the-job success.
Benefits of Online Team Player Skills Testing
Great team players aren’t always so easy to find — especially when so many are humble and unpresuming. With online team player skills testing, you can screen for high-potential talent and nab Steve Wozniak in the rough.
There are several benefits of team player assessments, including:
- Screen out “prickly” candidates: Using pre-hiring assessments for team skills helps you screen out the Dwight Schrutes in your applicant pool.
- Identify team players: By quickly eliminating candidates who don’t play well with others, you can focus on the ones that fit in and work well with your existing staff.
- Use for a range of jobs: Team player skills can apply to practically any job role, making a pre-hire assessment a powerful tool.
- Remove bias during interviews: Instead of judging teamwork skills based on gut feeling, use a bias-free, science-backed, objective test.
- Predict job performance: Get a clear view of how a potential employee will collaborate, before you hire them.
- Inexpensive: Pre-employment testing for team skills is easy to implement and scale, making it particularly friendly to the wallet.
- Easy to administer, take, and see results: Get instant feedback on how a candidate will interact within your company.
- Decrease time to hire: When you can spot the highly functioning team players in a stack of resumes, you can quickly weed out lone wolves and find your next star player faster
- Increase retention: By hiring candidates who work well in a group, you increase the likelihood they’ll stay in the role for years to come.
- Lower hiring costs: The more you rely on objective data, the lower the likelihood of making a mishire — something that can cost thousands in training and hiring.
Pro Tip: Your next new hire is a team player, but can he think logically? Use our logic skills test to zero in on rational, competent employees.
Why Are Team Player Skills Important in the Workplace?
Team player skills are important because they help build a culture of trust, accountability, and cohesion. When you hire people who trust and support one another, you create space for greater creativity — enabling your organization to outpace and outperform competitors.
But you can only do that when you hire candidates who are willing to get along with one another and put the team first. An environment of trust is difficult to build, yet easy to tear down. All it takes is a single bad actor to derail even the best of teams, so it’s critical to hire with accuracy.
What Roles Need Team Player Assessments?
Almost all job titles require team player skills. If you’ve ever been on a dysfunctional or toxic team, you know the danger of a rotten apple. But some roles are more critical than others. You’d never hire Ebenezer Scrooge to head up your customer service team.
Team player assessments are particularly useful for roles where collaboration and teamwork are required. These roles include but aren’t limited to:
- Consulting
- Human resources / recruiting
- IT specialist
- Customer service
- Event coordinator
- Web developer
- Communications
- Marketing
- Cook / chef
- Construction manager
- Event planner
- Administrative assistant
- Sales manager
- Teacher
- Lawyer
- Therapist
- Nurse
Summary
At a time when engagement is more important than ever, it can be tough to find the right new hires to propel your team forward. A team player assessment helps you screen for teamwork before you even interview, so you can make a more objective and informed hire.
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