Career and Workplace
Directions
What’s Your Greatest Weakness?
By Leslie Rothman, Career and Work Directions
Handling the Dreaded “What’s Your Greatest Weakness” Question
Your hands get clammy and your stomach flip-flops. If you dread this question, join
the crowd. Questions that probe for your weaknesses routinely get asked, and when
answered poorly can sabotage your candidacy. With a little practice, you can stand
out from most candidates with a thoughtful answer to the “weakness” question.
Why the “Weakness” Question is Asked
To learn how to handle this question, and any other question that forces you to
speak to a negative attribute or situation, it is useful to understand why they get
asked. In my experience, this question is asked to reveal the following attributes classified as “emotional intelligence”:
•
Self-awareness – does this person understand what their own liabilities are
- what they are not good at?
•
Confidence – does this person have the confidence to acknowledge they’re
not perfect and share some level of vulnerability?
•
Self-improvement focused – does this person work at improving
him/herself, recognizing that weaknesses do not disappear and will surface
again without attention?
Additionally, the interviewer is trying to determine whether this job and work
environment is a good match with this candidate – are the things this person is
really not good at going to prevent them from being a strong performer in the job?
Approaches to Avoid
Here are some ways candidates frequently misstep on this question.
•
Stonewalling - not offering up any weaknesses or difficulties. No one’s
perfect, so this type of response can make an interviewer question your
honesty, self-awareness and confidence.
•
Giving a “fluff” weakness - one that is so superficial that it’s as good as
not owning up to any weakness (i.e., I’m not a good speller). With this
response, you may get asked for another.
What’s Your Greatest Weakness? is reprinted with permission by Jobsinme.com.
and is a copyrighted publication of Career & Work Directions and cannot be copied without
express written permission of Career & Work Directions. © 2005
Career and Workplace
Directions
•
A “tell all” spilling your guts response. Getting flustered and naming several
weaknesses.
•
Naming a “killer” weakness - a weakness that will directly impact your
ability to be effective in the job.
I’ve seen these all happen; sometimes an individual will make all of these mistakes,
in succession.
Developing an Effective Answer
The formula to answer the “Weakness” question successfully has three steps.
1. Do your homework – Think about the job you’re interviewing for and
identify the core responsibilities. List the skills, abilities and traits these
responsibilities require. Sometimes you are given that information in a job
description, posting or advertisement. Often these attributes aren’t
specifically named, but are critical to uncover.
2. Identify your weaknesses - Next, think about your weakness (these can be
personality traits, lack of a skill, interest or expertise) and identify a few that
are “real” weaknesses, but not ones that indicate you’d struggle with a core
job responsibility. For most of us, any strength carried to the extreme can
turn into a liability. So you can speak to a strength that has an “up side” and
a “down side”.
3. Plan for improvement - For each weakness, think about how you’ve worked
on improving that weakness, or have learned to compensate for it. If you
haven’t ever thought to work on improving your weaknesses, now is the time
to come up with plans to do that.
Let’s work an example and some possible responses.
1. If you’re interested in coding/ programming, administrative or accounting
work, requirements for all these jobs can be detail orientation and the ability
to methodically follow steps. Based on this, you’re not going to name a
weakness like “ I am not always as careful as I could be” or “I get bored
following sequential steps.” These could be “killer” weaknesses in these jobs,
and would indicate a job mismatch.
What’s Your Greatest Weakness? is reprinted with permission by Jobsinme.com.
and is a copyrighted publication of Career & Work Directions and cannot be copied without
express written permission of Career & Work Directions. © 2005
Career and Workplace
Directions
2. If you’re truly a detailed, methodical person, these abilities taken to the
extreme can be turned into a non-threatening weakness. “I’ve always been
good at following established procedures, being methodical and I have never
considered myself a creative person”, or “spontaneously brainstorming ideas
that push the envelope is hard for me.” OR, name a skill-based weakness
that isn’t linked to “core responsibilities” – “I don’t consider myself to be a
strong writer.”
3. Now, the self-improvement part. “I’ve been reading a book on creative
thinking and trying to incorporate some new ways to approach my work.” (Be
ready to talk about what these new approaches are!) Or “I’ve enrolled in a
college level English grammar course this spring.” Obviously, you only want
to mention what you’ve actually been doing or really plan to do; this isn’t a
time to make things up.
Compensating for the weakness is another way to respond. “I know I’m not
particularly creative, so I look to team up with individuals who are when I
work on a project. The work benefits, and I learn from them.” (Again, be
ready to share a specific example!) OR, “After I write something, I carefully
use my grammar check. I also have developed a template which was
reviewed by a peer who writes really well, and I use this for my routine
correspondence.”
Step 3 of this strategy works for any type of question that forces you to speak to a
negative situation. Sometimes you can unintentionally take a positive response to a
negative place, of your own doing. Catch yourself sounding negative and turn it
around to a positive by talking about what you’ve learned from a difficult experience.
This shows maturity, self-awareness and a desire to grow.
Listed below are some variations of the weakness or negative response questions
you may get asked.
- What is your greatest weakness?
- What two personality traits do you like least about yourself?
- What developmental or critical feedback have you received from past
supervisors?
- What would your peers say you could improve on?
- You’ve named your strengths, now name your weaknesses.
- Tell me about a situation where you feel like you blew it.
- Tell me about a professional mistake you’ve made.
- Describe a boss that has been challenging for you to work with and why.
What’s Your Greatest Weakness? is reprinted with permission by Jobsinme.com.
and is a copyrighted publication of Career & Work Directions and cannot be copied without
express written permission of Career & Work Directions. © 2005
Career and Workplace
Directions
By preparing ahead and applying these basic steps, you can effectively handle these
tough questions, turning your responses into winners!
What’s Your Greatest Weakness? is reprinted with permission by Jobsinme.com.
and is a copyrighted publication of Career & Work Directions and cannot be copied without
express written permission of Career & Work Directions. © 2005