United NationsCore Competency
Teamwork — UN competency
Working collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals, and placing team agenda before personal agenda.
What this competency means
Teamwork covers soliciting input by genuinely valuing others' ideas and expertise, willingness to learn from others, and supporting and acting in accordance with the final group decision even when it does not fully reflect one's own position. It also includes sharing credit and accepting joint responsibility for shortcomings.
Based on the UN Competency Framework
Behavioural indicators
- Works collaboratively with colleagues to achieve organizational goals
- Solicits input by genuinely valuing others' ideas and expertise; is willing to learn from others
- Places team agenda before personal agenda
- Supports and acts in accordance with final group decision, even when such decisions may not entirely reflect own position
- Shares credit for team accomplishments and accepts joint responsibility for team shortcomings
Our interpretation for interview preparation
Behaviours that weaken an answer
- Works around the team rather than with it
- Continues to relitigate a decision after it has been taken
- Claims individual credit for collective results
PanelPrep interview guidance
What a strong example might demonstrate
Candidates preparing for competency-based interviews can use this competency to think about a team situation with genuine friction. A strong behavioural example would demonstrate how you sought others' input, how you handled the disagreement, and how you supported the final decision.
PanelPrep interview guidance
How to prepare for questions on this competency
Teamwork is often assessed through disagreement: what happened when the team went a different way, or when a colleague was not contributing.
STAR preparation
- Situation — set the context in two sentences: where, when, who was involved.
- Task — state precisely what you were responsible for, not what the team was responsible for.
- Action — spend most of the answer here, in the first person, showing the indicators above in practice.
- Result — quantify the outcome and add what you learned or changed afterwards.
PanelPrep interview guidance
Common interview question patterns
Illustrative patterns written by PanelPrep to help you practise. They are not published or endorsed by UN.
- Tell us about a time you disagreed with your team's decision.
- Describe a situation where a colleague was not delivering their part.
- Give an example of when you had to put the team's priorities ahead of your own.
PanelPrep interview guidance
Common mistakes
- Examples where you simply did your own part well
- Blaming colleagues for the outcome
- Omitting what happened after the disagreement
Practise Teamwork with an AI panel
Generate a full competency-based mock interview from any vacancy announcement and get scored against the official behavioural indicators.
Start free practiceSource and attribution
The competency name, category and behavioural concepts on this page are based on United Nations, "UN Competency Development – A Practical Guide". Summaries, interview guidance, question patterns and preparation advice are original PanelPrep content.
Framework version: UN Competency Development – A Practical Guide. Source date: 2010-01-01. Last verified: 2026-08-09.
PanelPrep is an independent interview-preparation service. It is not an official website of UN and is not endorsed by or affiliated with UN.