Without a doubt, the most talked about interview question is ‘what are your weaknesses’ or something to that effect. I have heard many people sarcastically comment ‘Oh, I’m a perfectionist’ whilst discussing this question. In my view, it is not a question to be taken lightly and it provides a great opportunity to position yourself for the job. It can also be one of the most damaging questions.
I have interviewed new graduates who have not been able to identify a weakness, even with significant prompting. This really makes me question their suitability for a role and their level of self-awareness. Admittedly, we phrased the question as ‘Tell us of a time when someone has given you negative feedback in the workplace and how you implemented some self-improvement as a result.’ This is still a weakness question.
You need to demonstrate your self-awareness by identifying a genuine, honest weakness, and at the same time showing how you have taken actions to make it work in the workplace. This is not the time to talk about a weakness that has no obvious strategy for making it work. This question requires preparation and forethought.
I respond to this question by talking about my struggle to say no (a genuine weakness of mine). I identify this as a weakness and then talk about how my managers generally love it (you can imagine!) and that as a result I have to implement strategies to help me be effective at work. One of the strategies is excellent time management (seriously). Another strategy is directing a question back to my manager when I have too much to do and know I can’t do everything to allow my manager to work out what they don’t want me to focus on.
As another example, a friend of mine is a perfectionist, so she can answer this question honestly by talking about her perfectionism. And then discussing how she has implemented strategies to help her be effective at work. She will talk about things like allocating a set amount of time to a task and concluding the task within the time limit so that she does not agonise over the remaining 1% that may not be perfect to her standards but which is still wonderful by anyone else’s. She could jokingly talk about how many hours she spent researching the company before the interview, including reading the annual report (clearly only to be mentioned if it’s true!) as another example of how it affects her work and how it can be positive.
You might talk about how much of an extravert you are and that you love to engage with people socially but that in the workplace you have learnt to reserve this social interaction for the break times.
You might talk about how naturally introverted you are but that in the workplace, you have to work outside your comfort zone to engage with clients or provide excellent customer service.
Everyone has weaknesses. This question is not asking for your deepest dark secrets. It is a way of finding out how self-aware you are and also providing your potential manager with an insight into how to work with you. Identify a genuine weakness that could affect your work and describe your strategies for overcoming it in the workplace. Prepare for this question. Practice it with a friend. And when they ask you in the interview, you can confidently address it rather than scrambling for the first example that comes to mind—which in my experience is usually something fairly alarming that you probably don’t need to tell the interview panel about!
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