The value of group work: How you can improve your skills and leverage the experience in recruitment processes

By Jess Henderson, Careers Manager

Pretty much any student I have ever spoken to bemoans having to do group projects at university. So, why are they so common and why should you value such opportunities?

One key reason is they mimic working life. In the workplace, as at university, some of the most common frustrations stem from having to collaborate with others.

Whatever type of career you go into, in whatever type of capacity (including self-employment), you will have to work with others and deal with the complexities and challenges (and benefits) that come.

Why it is an essential workplace skill

You will have to work and collaborate with others in any career. Even when you are not part of a formal team or group project, you’ll likely have to depend on other people doing their bit to be able to progress your own work and vice versa.

Employers, therefore, need people who:

• understand what effective teamwork takes
• understand themselves—particularly their own strengths and weaknesses
• can communicate these clearly to others
• can negotiate, influence, persuade and collaborate diplomatically and effectively
• can overcome challenges to maintain productivity and get results
• can build effective working relationships and reputation

Why it's more important than ever

Teamwork is one of those transferable skills that has been on employers’ ‘must-have’ lists forever for reasons noted above, among others.

Some major graduate recruiters are reporting having to do more development work on teamworking and communication skills with ‘pandemic era’ students and graduates. Similar needs were also reported in ISE’s 2023 Development Survey . Moreover, LinkedIn included teamwork in its list of the top ten most in-demand skills of 2023 .

While not surprising, given the limited opportunities for teamwork and interpersonal communication in the last couple of years, it provides you an opportunity to distinguish yourself from others. Ensuring that you understand and can contribute to effective teamwork (with examples to illustrate this) will put you in a stronger position when applying for graduate jobs.

It's also worth highlighting that, even where you have had opportunities to work with others, simply having done it does not necessarily translate into being skilled at it.

So, what makes effective teamwork and how can you improve your skills and articulate this to employers?

Benefits of teamwork

Teamwork—that is, successful teamwork—can result in a range of benefits, including but not limited to:

• Enhanced problem solving and creativity: Teams bring together diverse perspectives, knowledge, skills and experiences. Pooling these collectively can lead to the generation of new ideas, promotes problem-solving and encourages creative thinking.
• Increased productivity: When individuals work together and pool resources, they can accomplish larger tasks more effectively. By distributing workload responsibilities, tasks can be completed more quickly. Members can often work on tasks that align with their skills and interests, allowing them to contribute more effectively.
• Improved decision-making: Diverse perspectives in functioning teams reduce the chance of groupthink and will result in better decision-making.?

Challenges of teamwork

Challenges are near inevitable when working with others. You have probably experienced several yourself already. Some common challenges include:

• Different priorities and expectations: In a university context, a particular course in which you will be assessed in a team may be a key module for you but less important for others in your group.
• Different working styles: We all work differently. What you think is logical, the best approach or obvious, may seem completely illogical to others and vice versa.
• Different communication styles: Some of us explore ideas through discussing them. Others are more reflective, wanting to digest information on their own prior to discussing it. Some of us are naturally talkative, others may prefer to listen first.
• Different opinions and lack of consensus: This can be on what needs to be done, how and when to do it and how much effort to put in.
• Disengaged or uncooperative team members: Some members may be less engaged which can cause or worsen?problems.

How to improve your teamwork skills

There are plenty of ways to improve your teamwork skills, and here are just a few.

Understand yourself and others you need to work with

We all have different strengths and weaknesses. Trying to understand others from this positive position will stand you in better stead for effective teamwork.

You can improve your self-awareness by taking a personality test like 16Personalities . This is based on MBTI and like most personality ‘tests’ is simply a self-report questionnaire. Such ‘tests’ can give you a useful external perspective on yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, how others might see you and more.

Understand different team roles

Meredith Belbin’s seminal work on team roles is widely popular and can help you understand yours and others’ strengths and weaknesses. It approaches these from a positive position, providing both strengths and what Belbin calls ‘allowable weaknesses’. You do not need to do the test (there is a charge), but Belbin identified nine different team roles . Ideally, you want a balance of different roles in a team situation. You will have some natural preferences as well as other roles you can adapt to as required.

Establish ground rules

In a new team situation, investing time in getting to know each other and agreeing ground rules will pay dividends in the long term. What the ground rules cover are up to the team to decide, but as a minimum, consider things like communication process and frequency, where and how meetings will be held, note taking, timekeeping, dealing with problems, etc.?

Agree goals and define what this means

A goal of ‘completing the assignment on time’ will mean different things to different people. For example, if it is assessed, what grade are you aiming for? Do you have common expectations of time per week that this should take? And so on...?

Stay organised

Keep notes and use a shared workspace. A?tool like Microsoft Teams is useful as it allows you to create a shared workspace, as well as communicate and collaborate, all in one place. There are plenty of others. This should be agreed at the start of the project, along with how often you will all check this.

How to articulate your teamworking skills in an impactful way

Having examples which demonstrate your understanding or teamwork, your abilities in this area and impact you had, will be key in a recruitment process.

Use the STAR approach to structure your examples. The best examples often come from situations where there were challenges.

And no, teamwork is not all about leadership. Whilst many employers are looking for potential future leaders, teamwork and leadership are distinct, albeit related, concepts.

Being able to recognise what the situation needs, where there are gaps potentially and adapt to these is key in a team situation. If nothing else, Belbin’s team roles are a useful reminder of the various contributions it takes for a team to be successful.

Other resources

Belbin Team Roles on Mind Tools : Get further insight into Belbin’s team roles and teamworking more broadly

Improve your teamwork skills : Learn about?all key aspects of teamwork from ground rules, to managing conflict, inclusive interpersonal skills and more?in this LinkedIn Learning path