"Tell me a time you worked in a diverse team" - Interview Question

Hi guys,

I was going through some practise UK interview questions and this one came up (apparently has been asked before at GS, DB etc.), and I'm struggling to come up with a good answer. Obviously I have the team example (STAR format), but how do they want you to relate this to diversity? Am I supposed to attribute the success of the team to the diversity in the team? As I am a straight white male, am I expected to give my general thoughts on diversity at the end of this answer? Just a bit confused.

Thx

 
Most Helpful

Dont be explicit about racial diversity unless it was a big factor in getting over a team challenge (ex: a new team member from another country had a super strong accent and was hard to understand so the rest of the team kind of ignored his input. Then Superman you noticed he was quiet and made sure to ask his opinion during meetings and he actually had great ideas that contributed to the final success)

If the above doesn’t apply to your story, focus on diversity of thought. Like how well you can read the room and make sure everyone on the squad feels comfortable contributing— this can be for new members from maybe another class or maybe a quiet woman on a team of mostly men. It’s more so checking your ability to process opinions that may not be mainstream in order to avoid echo chambers. Hope this helps

 

I've gotten these for consulting and finance roles in the past.

I would answer in it as a way "diverse backgrounds", not diversity.  Example:

"On XYZ project/team, we encountered ABC problem due to 123 reason. Despite this being a finance/etc issue, we took a multi-faceted approach, since the team was consisting of x # of STEM/engineers, y# of finance people, z# of econ....etc....we ended up formulating an approach that >resolution here< that did >metric< for the team/project."

Hope that helps.  I fucking hate those questions.  However, since I've had to ask this to consulting candidates, I think if you can demonstrate that you proactively reach out for different views to formulate an approach, it demonstrates "teaming" and also good social skills.

 

That makes a lot more sense - thank you.

Yeah, I also really hate these kind of weird / annoying questions. I blame HR

 

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