Interview question: "What is your greatest weakness?"

Have you ever been asked, “What is your greatest weakness?” in a job interview? How did you answer it? How do you wish you had answered it?

I have only been asked this once in an interview, and probably flubbed by answering “I do not suffer fools gladly”. In retrospect, I would have answered with a question of my own: “That is an interesting question; does it factor heavily into your decision to hire someone?”

I don’t know if that would improve my chances, but at least I’m not wasting their time and mine with a contrived non-answer like, “I work too hard.”

“Kryptonite.”

I think this question is going out of fashion in HR circles. Instead of this, they seem to be asking more, “Tell us about a time when you made a mistake [doing your type of work], and what you did to correct it.” Or something like that. (They call these behavioral interview questions, I believe.)

It gets at the same thing, from their point of view, and it might help to understand that. Everyone can admit the cliche that “nobody’s perfect,” but it’s usually important in work situations where people work together for employees to be able to admit it directly when an error has been made. They also hope that it will reveal a person’s problem-solving skills.

If you’re honest about it, and with the above rationale in mind, you might be able to identify a real weakness you have, that isn’t a deal-breaker, and find a way to talk about it in the interview in such a way to show that your awareness of it can be a positive thing.

I’m fresh off the job search, and I was asked this quite a few times.

I went back and forth between two answers. I would say my memory is pretty bad, but I always write everything down and I make priority lists (I’m a list fanatic). So my theory was to say what I was weak on and then say what I do to correct it. I would also say that I have a problem accepting help from other people on things that are my responsibility. I then explain what that means and, again, what I do to correct it.

I’m blind. Does that count?

Also, I’m very efficient. I’m good at finding better ways of getting the same work done, instead of pacing it out to fill the time available to do it… Employers hate that, they want to walk around and find people looking busy, regardless of whether a job gets done well or not.

HR stands for “human resources”, right? You mean like humans in the workplace are resources like timber and coal, to be exploited for corporate profit. I was never very good at being that.

I was looking for a job last year, went on several interviews, and I don’t recall being asked this question. In general, my interviews were very technical “How would you do X? Do you have experience doing y?” That said, I think the best way to approach this sort of question is trying to figure out what’s motivating them to ask it.

First, and probably worst and most common, it’s possible they’re asking it just because they got it off of some standard list of questions. You can figure this out if they’re asking you all the canned questions along the lines of “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” or “Why do you want to work here?” If that’s the case, they’ve probably also gotten a list of what good and bad answers are, and are therefore bad interviewers, and you need to just give them what they’re looking for. That is, probably giving an example of something you’ve done to address a common “failings”. You’re bad at presentations, so you’ve taken a course in public speaking or you have a poor memory so you’ve become a fastidious note-taker. In short, if this is where the interview is going, give a “weakness” that’s really more of a place you saw room for improvement, and a good response to it. Don’t actually take it seriously and talk about your struggles with alcoholism or depression or whatever.

If it’s actually a good interview, where it’s a dialogue rather than a question and answer session, then at some point you should get into a portion of the discussion where you talk about goals, personal growth, etc. If this is the kind of interview you’re having, good, and you can probably actually elaborate on some examples where you’ve seen places for personal and professional growth. Maybe you can talk about a project where you faced the dilemma of having an imperfect solution on time or a perfect solution after the deadline and trying to determine which one was appropriate. In this case, I think it’s really about sussing out whether you’re still looking to better yourself or you’re happy doing the same sort of job for a long period, and what sort of problem solving skills you have.

Regardless, you SHOULD be prepared to bring up some good real examples of situations where you’ve learned things, grown, overcome difficult obstacles, created something new or whatever. Really, the easiest way to approach it is to think about what you might want to know about a person applying for that same job. If they should be strong leaders, team players, creative, strong technical knowledge, process or detail oriented, or whatever, come prepared with a few examples things you’ve done to show why you’re good at that. Make sure you have things referencing that on your resume too.

It’s like someone sat down to write a “How Not To Get Hired” Guide.

For the OP, pick something real, and show that you are working to correct it (as someone demonstrated upthread).

An example of one of mine was (paraphrased) “I can be very single-minded. I can get very focused on something that interests me and stop paying attention to things I consider less interesting. To combat this, I purposefully schedule time first thing in the day to work on any issues that I might normally push aside. I use tools like Asana to make sure I’m always on track with all of the projects I’m working on.”

It’s all true, and it can be a big issue (unlike “I’m too efficient!” or “I am just such a perfectionist!” or “I just care TOO DAMNED MUCH” with added sobs), and my workarounds make sense. I’ve had lots of success with this sort of answer.

Whatever you say, don’t say something at alludes to false modesty, i.e. have trouble with work life balance, spend too much time at work; you are a perfectionist; you etc. Good interviewers pick up on that quick. Best to just state a true weakness, and what you have done to overcome it or make it less a weakness.

As a hiring manager, that question would put me off immediately. I would definitely think, and quite possibly ask, “Which other questions do you think I’ve asked simply to waste our time?”. Most hiring managers ask a question for a specific reason, though not necessarily for a specific answer. I don’t always ask the weaknesses question, but when I do it’s because I want to know if you can look objectively at yourself (and, by extension, your work). People rarely fail on their strengths, so it’s important to know what your weak areas are and how to shore them up. Ever worked with/for someone who, in their estimation, can do no wrong? An expert on everything? I have. I do not want to hire that person.

If the interviewee cannot come up with a real weakness and what they do/have done to shore it up, alarm bells start going off in my head and I will ask a series of follow up questions.

Perfectionist would probably be the FIRST thing that would pop into my mind. Yeah, I AM the guy that will follow procedure to a T (but also strives to understand why the procedure is the way it is and has a fair chance of understanding when following procedure might be a bad idea and at that point will not follow it blindly but will look for a resolution). Give me enough time and I CAN polish a turd. I’ll see it as a personal challenge.

This is a good thing when say, you want me making a reticulated framus for a rocket engine.

It is NOT a good thing, when say, you are flipping houses and I’m in there making sure every piece of plumbing is mil spec, all the tiles are perfectly aligned, and the walls are painted so well that Leonardo goes “dayum”.

Yeah, I forgot to comment that when I was doing interviewing/hiring, someone saying “That’s an interesting question” and then asking me a question (unless it’s just to clarify) would make me think “This person is evasive and irritating.” Questions aren’t always about specific answers, but they are always, always, always about personal style in interacting with others.

Don’t get me started. “Where do you see yourself in five years?” is also a lazy question which elicits contrived responses… If I was entirely truthful, I would say, “Working a lot less hours for more pay”, but, like the “greatest weakness” question, complete honesty is not conducive to a positive interview. I would be compelled to figure out what the interviewer wants to hear, without obviously pandering.

Seriously, don’t say this. Just don’t. Your interviewer’s eyes will roll so hard they will start a tornado.

What the interviewer wants to hear is some self-evaluation, thoughtfulness, and intelligence. Not arrogance and not bragging dressed up as humility.

Even with the caveat I gave?

Though I can see some people equating “perfectionist” with “I’m damn good at everything and when I’m done it will be perfect and nobody will find fault with it”.

Those are not the same thing.

Lets say I’m a perfectionist at painting a bedroom. Give me enough time and it will be the best I’m capable of. It will probably be better than some random handyman dude that wants to get it done in 2 hours and get his $75 and move on. It might not be quite as good what a professional painter that balanced quality vs cost/time.

The downside when I do it? I’ll take fricking forever and probably use twice as much paint doing it.

Unfortunately, what they frequently get is a practiced answer dressed up to look like self-evaluation, thoughtfulness, and intelligence.

There is a thing in psychology called “free association”. That is basically an “ink blot” test. The ink blot is of course nothing and the person is asked to look at it - say what he thinks it is.

The answer is purely from the person and is revealing of the person’s inner thoughts. (Since the ink bot is nothing.)

And same thing with interview questions like the above. It goads the person being interviewed to reveal a bit about his personality.

With questions like the above, the interviewer can quickly see if an applicant is nuts or mentally healthy, friendly or antagonistic, selfish or one who can work well with other people, etc.

Basically it a trap selfish hostile people will fall into without fail!

But these questions have become clichés which any prepared applicant will have answers for, that have been contrived to produce the most positive result. The association is anything but free. Clever applicants might even canvas an online forum to find a consensus for what the best answer might be.

Actually, the biggest defect of one of my brothers is that he is a damned perfectionist, or as I call it a negative perfectionist: his tendency is to think that nothing should be delivered until it’s perfect. The solution is to look at whatever it is as if he was the client: if he would accept it, it’s good enough to be delivered.

Dude took three years to do a project (thesis) which most people who get his same degree do in nine months. The evaluation was “you realize this is not a Doctorate, right? All those things you seem to think you should have done, nobody was expecting you to do them!” He won’t send his CV to an ad unless he meets every single requirement, which means he never sends his CV to an ad. If it wasn’t for people seeking him out, he would never have had a job because he doesn’t put himself forward because he is not perfect.

Sadly, not only am I not allowed to smack him, I don’t expect it would work.

I’d say avoid any of the stock humble bragging answers. Perfectionism, too hard a worker, caring too much, I’m just too good looking. They actually might be true, but they are risible for many.

A different way to frame perfectionism: “I can get bogged down in details, losing sight of the big picture. To combat this, I write out a list of big picture goals at the start of a project and regularly check my work against that list of goals to make sure I’m on target. Of course, I don’t want to go too far in the other direction and lose those details. It’s a balancing act.” That sort of thing.

Thinking about interview questions as an actual way to self-develop is also a good idea. “What IS my greatest weakness on the job? What could I do to make that better?” “What was my biggest mistake? How did I handle it? What would I do differently now?” “What is a time I had a conflict at work? How did I handle it? What could I have done better?” You don’t have to use the answer in an interview, but the habit of confronting and attempting to deal with weaknesses will make your brain more flexible and nimble when you get asked questions like this.