In a recent behavioral mock interview, I was asked the question Tell me about a time you motivated a colleague in your team. From my understanding, the question's focus appears to be on teamwork and collaboration. A story I had was when a colleague in my team was struggling to meet deadlines for a group project and complete his work due to him having multiple upcoming exams in a short timespan. I proactively approached the colleague for a 1:1 conversation to listen to their concerns and empathized with his struggles, understanding how tough it was for him to balance multiple priorities. I then suggested to collaborate on the project and offered to help him with some of his tasks so he could focus on the ones most important for the project. After communicating with the team, I assigned him the task of identifying and fixing a tricky bug in our system, as debugging was one of his key strengths, and this allowed him to focus on what he did best. My colleague became more motivated to contribute to the project by working on a task tailored to their strengths. This approach not only helped the project stay on schedule, but also reduced their stress and boosted overall morale and team productivity. Do you think this answer is on the right track? I would gladly appreciate any thoughts or feedback on this answer. Big thanks for reading through all of this - I know it is a very long post and I really appreciate your time!

Hi Alex, Thank you so much for your prompt reply! This question surprised me as well, but it was actually asked for an entry level software engineer role at Microsoft during last year's hiring cycle. Following up, would this story also be appropriate for a question such as tell me about a time you worked with difficult coworkers? My understanding is that when it comes to negative questions, it is best to approach it with positivity. The coworker was difficult to work with in the beginning due to him having difficulty with meeting deadlines, but I was able to solve this issue and enhance overall team productivity, leading to positive end results.

How to best answer "Tell me about a time you motivated a colleague in your team"

Entry-Level Software Engineer at Taro Community2 months ago

Interviewing

Junior Engineer

In a recent behavioral mock interview, I was asked the question "Tell me about a time you motivated a colleague in your team."

From my understanding, the question's focus appears to be on teamwork and collaboration.

A story I had was when a colleague in my team was struggling to meet deadlines for a group project and complete his work due to him having multiple upcoming exams in a short timespan.

I proactively approached the colleague for a 1:1 conversation to listen to their concerns and empathized with his struggles, understanding how tough it was for him to balance multiple priorities.
I then suggested to collaborate on the project and offered to help him with some of his tasks so he could focus on the ones most important for the project.
After communicating with the team, I assigned him the task of identifying and fixing a tricky bug in our system, as debugging was one of his key strengths, and this allowed him to focus on what he did best.
My colleague became more motivated to contribute to the project by working on a task tailored to their strengths. This approach not only helped the project stay on schedule, but also reduced their stress and boosted overall morale and team productivity.

Do you think this answer is on the right track? I would gladly appreciate any thoughts or feedback on this answer.

Big thanks for reading through all of this - I know it is a very long post and I really appreciate your time!

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33 Comments

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Discussion

(3 comments)

0
Alex Chiou
•Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
2 months ago
Oh wow, you pretty much gave the exact answer I would give:

Empathize with the other person and let them know they're not alone

Offer to reduce their workload

Concentrate the remaining bandwidth they have on something they enjoy

You'll be a great tech lead someday 😉. I'm actually surprised you got asked this question as it's more something for senior/staff+ engineers, engineers who are expected to be good leaders (you did mention it was a mock though, so maybe that person just asks the same set of questions to all people, regardless of level).

The main thing that interviewers are looking out for with this question (at least from my experience) is that you aren't engaging in toxic behavior to increase productivity. The classic bad (and braindead) strategy here is to simply tell people to work harder, stressing the importance of the deadline. You'll be surprised at how many tech leads and engineering managers I have had come through my interview loop who gave a response like that. That's instant rejection in my book.
- 1
  Entry-Level Software Engineer [OP]
  •Taro Community
  2 months ago
  Hi Alex,
  
  Thank you so much for your prompt reply!
  
  This question surprised me as well, but it was actually asked for an entry level software engineer role at Microsoft during last year's hiring cycle.
  
  Following up, would this story also be appropriate for a question such as "tell me about a time you worked with difficult coworkers"? My understanding is that when it comes to negative questions, it is best to approach it with positivity. The coworker was "difficult" to work with in the beginning due to him having difficulty with meeting deadlines, but I was able to solve this issue and enhance overall team productivity, leading to positive end results.
- 0
  Alex Chiou
  •Tech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course Hero
  2 months ago
  I think a similar approach could work for the difficult coworkers question as well!
  
  In general, good companies are looking to hire bridge-builders, not bridge-burners. That's why I always approach these questions (and scenarios IRL) with positivity. And that's not hard for me, because that's who I am as a person (assume good intent, add value to people, etc).
  
  A company that doesn't want bridge-builders isn't a company you want to work for anyways.