Voices from the Field: The Importance of Teamwork and Collaboration Skills

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We are told by business leaders that soft skills, like team work and collaboration, are very important. We believe that afterschool programs are especially equipped to teach these skills. In fact, we developed a briefing paper on the importance of teamwork and collaboration skills to prepare young people for the workforce. But we wanted to hear directly from business leaders, so we spoke to Kanita Fuller, a corporate recruiter, to learn more. 

Q: Would you describe your position?

Kanita Fuller

A: I am a full cycle, in-house Senior Business Recruiter at an AI start up in San Francisco called Perplexity. I interview and support candidates through the recruiting lifecycle for a variety of roles at the company, from accounting and finance to legal and sales and more. I recruit for a variety of levels as well, from entry-level (college grads with little to no experience) to Director+, each recruiting process can vary depending on the role/level/team. 

Q: How important are the soft skills of teamwork & collaboration to employers?

A: Very important, something every hiring manager looks for in their hiring process. 

Q: Do you look for them? Why? How?

A: No matter what role I recruit for, teamwork and collaboration are always skills that are at the forefront of our process. We often have a cross-functional partner on the interview panel so that we can learn if a candidate would be a good collaborator on projects with team members that may have different perspectives and opinions. Every role at the company has an element of working with one or more team members to get your job done, whether that is project-based, building or iterating on a process or helping to rebuild something that is broken, no job is ever a "solo" job. You will always have to work with others, so those skills are discussed throughout the process. We will ask questions in the interview process to make sure we believe a candidate's ability to work well with others is strong and a match for our company. We ask questions around their examples of working with a challenging partner, where there was friction, of working with a client or manager who they didn't agree with or there was a communication issue - and we ask how they overcome those challenges. Through their answers we can learn how they communicate, problem-solve and find a path forward in troubling or challenging scenarios.  

Q: What can afterschool programs do to help youth develop these skills?

A: Programs that are centered on team building, where participation from everyone is required, are important. Learning to listen to each other and understand that more minds are better than one to get a job done. This can be done in a variety of ways but would be best practiced in brainstorming and collaboration-based projects or work. Everyone has a different approach to coming up with ideas and executing and learning how to listen to each other. Learning how to move forward together is a great skill to learn. 

MORE ABOUT...

Kanita Fuller

Kanita Fuller is a seasoned talent acquisition professional and currently holds the title of Senior Business Recruiter at Perplexity AI. She has over 12 years of experience across corporate staffing. Her work spans recruiting for all functions of a business and aligning recruitment with growth initiatives in the tech and services sectors. She currently operates in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Perplexity AI, Inc. is an American privately held software company offering an AI-powered web answer engine designed for research and real-time fact-checking with cited sources. It processes user queries and synthesizes clear, conversational responses using large language models and real-time web search. Perplexity provides answers based on current internet content with embedded citations, and is available as a free public product with a paid Pro subscription that unlocks more advanced models and features.