Interview Skills: What is your greatest weakness?

[stormbind]

I am sure everyone has had the question thrown their way. What is your greatest weakness?

It is something I have thought long and hard about.

Bare in mind that the first step to correcting a weakness is to acknowledge it. For example, acknowledging that "my weakness is that I sometimes work too hard" might be construed as an intention to be excused from future work!

Similarly, "my weakness is that I am always early" and similar bold statements have a double meaning. Are you going to take lunch early, and get home early?

You could take Belbin's model as a guide and select an allowable weakness, but unless the recruiter tells you what the team role prediction is, giving one of those answers might be like rolling metaphorical dice in your career!

Alternatively, you might be tactical and respond to the question by asking them to disclose the allowable weakness, but in Belbin's model, taking that very action reflects a team role behaviour that will tie you to fewer allowable weaknesses!

You could say, "my weakness is that I under perform in job interviews" whilst giving an otherwise very competent performance. However, this might be construed as sarcasm and mockery of the question. For example, how are you going to back it up with a provable example?

Another possibility is to confess "my weakness is that I am too versatile" but unlike some of the other suggestions, that can be genuinely disabling weakness because you do not want to scare the managers! Furthermore, finding an example would be difficult and may require be an abstract theoretical explanation.

Of course, the classic from Belbin himself is "my weakness is that I am sometimes lazy" whilst possessing an excellent track record and portfolio, but its very dependent on the job role encouraging delegations and getting the right balance can be tricky. I suppose, it is quite a good answer for managers, but it is rather unsophisticated and might be construed as dim or boring. It is clearly unsuitable for many subordinate roles.

A final suggestion, at least for me, is to suggest "I have thought about this long and hard, and I can only conclude my greatest weakness is that I think about things long and hard". However, the interviewer might not understand the power of recursion, and they might construe the answer its most negative form: slow and indecisive.

What ideas have you come up with to answer this common question?

[Jennifer107]

"The truth is, hiring managers really don't care what your weaknesses are. They care about how you handle the question and what your response indicates about you.

The trick to answering this question is to identify a new skill you're learning or planning to develop " something that is only a "weakness" because you haven't yet mastered it."

http://www.pongoresume.com/blogPosts...-weakness-.cfm

[stormbind]

I would like to counter that argument specifically because it is the kind of answer you would expect of a wanting politician.

For example, the response advocated by your suggested site is a long-winded and (mis-)leading front that does not answer the question. Giving such an answer tells the interviewer a lot about the interviewee! It suggests they would make a good front-line spokesman who blurs the issues and twists news to their advantage and that they probably lack penetrating insight.

Furthermore, it lacks a credible qualifying statement. For example, it does not compare the suggested improvement to a history of achieving improvements. To put it bluntly, the answer suits someone who is all mouth and no action. It tells the interviewer that this person's weakness is that they talk too much.

It would be hardly suitable for a medical doctor, an engineer, researcher or journalist. It shows signs of creativeness and being quick on ones feet, but it lacks scientific credibility or signs of investigative ability.

The comments on the same site (below the article) include this little gem, "My greatest weakness is that I get too philosophical during interviews. I once went to an interview as a tree, and I never left."

It is quick, funny and genuinely well informed (assuming you back it up with an explanation of what it means).

[stormbind]

I would like to highlight a possible half-truth in Jennifer's reply.

The interviewer probably does not want to hear your technical weaknesses.

However, they probably do want to hear your behavioural weaknesses. Certain behavioural weaknesses can complement your strengths. For example, being prone to frustration might pronounce your team-driving power. Some teams suffer from too many ideas and very low productivity precisely because none of the current members gets frustrated.

Of course, that is only one example, and its not a suggestion that everyone goes around telling interviewers that they are easilly frustrated!

In other cases, your own behavioural weaknesses might be mitigated by the strengths of other team members - which is something the interviewer knows more about than the interviewee. Its important to identify what the employer wants and to deliver those behaviours, but if you try being someone that does not fit your personality, you will probably fail and it could bring harm on yourself (and your employer).

Its simply not an easy question. If someone asks me right now, I will give a clear answer within a few seconds. Meanwhile, I am still searching for the optimal answer!