Most of us have been there at one time or another.

You know that co-worker that just drives you up a wall. The individual who makes you cringe each time you see their face around the office. The person who’d leave you jumping for joy should they come in and give their two weeks’ notice they were leaving the company.

At the end of the day, having to deal with a bothersome co-worker can be difficult, but your career and its future success are more important when all is said and done.

If you’ve had a bad experience or two working with folks in the past, don’t let it sour you this time around while job hunting.

Remember, interviewers count one’s attitude as much if not more than their skill set. If you’re asked during an interview how you work with others and you start bringing up some bad experiences in the past, don’t be shocked if you’re not called back for another interview and/or do not get hired.

The difficult task oftentimes is trying to find the right way to address the problem. If an interviewer asks you about how you did with others and/or how you would do being part of a team with a potential employer, don’t come across as a problem waiting to happen.

In the event you have found yourself dealing with a difficult co-worker in the past, keep several things in mind during your interview:

• Don’t take the bait – The worst thing you can do is find yourself being baited into a discussion during your interview that shines a negative light on you. If you had issues with one or more co-workers in the past and the subject comes up during an interview, take the high road. Tell the interviewer how you attempted to solve the problem either on your own or through management. Make it clear that you took the initiative to try and fix the problem, showing the interviewer that you are a team player and will do whatever it takes to make the team successful;
• Point out your attributes – Employers like to hear about how individuals worked to fix problems, rather than how they dealt with them in a negative way. Show the positive side of your career and don’t harp on one or more negative experiences;
• Don’t appear to be a problem – The last thing a potential employer wants to hear or see is someone who potentially is going to cause problems in their office. If you’re a low-maintenance employee, you stand a much better chance of being hired and staying on. If you complain about this, that and everything else regarding working with others, good luck getting and staying on the job for long;
• The past is the past – Having gone on a number of interviews over a 23-year working period, I’ve never made it a major point to bring up past work experiences unless they work to my advantage, i.e. skill set. We all have worked with a few people we’d rather not remember, don’t make them the focal point of your interview when the inevitable questions of how you work with others, are you a team player and where do you see yourself fitting in with us come up.

Co-workers come in all shapes and sizes; how you associate with them is oftentimes up to you.

Even truer is interviews come in all different forms, some good and some not so good.

The bottom line is that you can control what you say and don’t say, so don’t relive the past in front of someone who is looking to the future.

Have you ever had a bad co-worker situation? If so, how did you handle it?

Dave Thomas, who covers among other items workers compensation, writes extensively for Business.com, an online resource destination for businesses of all sizes to research, find, and compare the products and services they need to run their businesses.