Quote: "But these questions have become clichés which any prepared applicant will have answers for…"
Well that is good! It shows the applicant is a hard worker, does his homework, researches things, and sees to it that the correct answers will be given - does the job right! Someone I would prefer to hire.
In past interviews, for teaching positions, I’ve said that I haven’t had much experience with discipline issues, because the kids at the schools I’ve been at have been thankfully mostly well-behaved. Though, lately, I’m told that some teachers have specifically sought me out as a substitute because I’m good with discipline. So I’m not sure what I would say now.
I can’t edit my post above…
Anyway P.S., there are a LOT of very stupid job applicants out there. You should see some of their resumes with misspelled words, saying they are searching for a different job entirely, etc. As for questions like the above, they might answer “I have no weakness, why are you asking me that question?” (Seriously, people do that!)
I’ve seen the answers some people give when they google around for the best answers. They’re hilarious. If you as the interviewer follow up on them aggressively, you can generally tell who is actually talking about a real problem and who thinks they are going to paper over the conversation with some internet talking point they haven’t actually thought about.
Getting ideas of how to frame things from the internet is smart. Copying and pasting someone else’s answer into your memory file is dumb.
The trick is to give a weakness that isnt really THAT bad, just to show you have some self-awareness.
I tend to talk about a weakness my wife complains about: that I can’t just give a terse, precise answer to questions, but will keep talking and talking about the subject, long after I’ve provided the I information people actually wanted.
If those applicants make it to an interview, the employer is desperate, or incompetent.
I don’t mind the stock answer to a few of my questions. I don’t want “I work too hard” but if you do the classic game of dressing up something that really isn’t bad with a little sneak bragging I’m okay with that. Some of the positions I’ve hired for don’t need a lot of creativity, they need someone who is prepared to do a job.
I usually say “delegating”. I’m a bit of a control freak (I don’t use the term in interviews) with how I want certain work to be done and I’d as soon do it myself than have to risk an employee whose eye for detail is lacking do it and then have to spend more time straightening it up.
This is one of those issues that doesn’t have a “right” answer, because the “right” answer is contextual. For example, you could have two people with different weaknesses in a department that basically cancel each other out. If the first guy left, you’d be willing to hire someone with similar weaknesses, but not if the second guy did–that would just be compounding the situations.
There’s also issues with culture. I’m at a STEM school. I’m going to be very reluctant to hire an English teacher who confesses they are bad with math, even though it wouldn’t normally have a huge impact on their ability to be a good English teacher. But our kids love math, and work really hard at it, and they don’t click well with people who don’t have a positive emotional relationship with math. But such a teacher with such a weakness might be a great fit somewhere else.
“Oh no, I mean it. I’m a perfectionist. Perfect is the enemy of the Good and I will be the best enemy of the good in your company that you’ve ever seen!”
Along this vein, I like to give one that’s real but mostly irrelevant to the job, eg. I’m a weak public speaker (I do scientific writing and rarely present anything), or I’m not a big traveler (I travel occasionally for work but it is by no means a big part of the job). It’s real, it required some introspection, and it doesn’t matter for the job I’m applying to do. The one caveat is that you have to have a pretty good grip on the job’s requirements.
What is your greatest weakness?
Hookers and Blow
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
Selling my stock options and up to my eyeballs in hookers and blow.
What have you been doing for the past 5 years?
Trying to get more hookers and blow
What perks are you looking for in a compensation package?
Hookers and blow.
What can you bring to this companies corporate culture?
Hookers and blow.
What was your college major?
Hookers and blow.
Hobbies?
Hookers and blow.
Can we get some references?
Will hookers work?
I have told interviewers in the past that I have a problem with refusing reasonable ideas. That really is an issue in my line of work (industrial IT) because there are always more good ideas floating around than resources to implement them. It leads to overpromising and underdelivering if you don’t make hard choices consistently. Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately) I have gotten fairly adept at saying ‘No’ to almost anyone so I don’t think that would be an accurate answer anymore even though interviewers seem to like it.
I don’t think they would like my real answer. That is that I only work to help support my lifestyle and not the other way around and I plan to retire very early.
I’ve mostly been self-employed, but when I have interviewed and had to respond to this question, I always frame it around the fact that I like to work on one project until it’s done. I can multitask, but I hate it. If the employer hears that and eliminates me from the running because they expect lots of multi-tasking then they have done everyone a favor.
I agree that a lot of people give evasive non-answers and that’s one reason I do ask it when I’m interviewing my own employees. While preparing for an interview shows one kind of skill and professionalism, I’ve learned through experience that a polished, prepared answer for that question means we can end the interview right there. I don’t care what the answer is, the fact that you prepared one shows that I can’t trust anything you’ve said during the interview or put on your resume, and you’ve surely coached your references as well.
Well, if all you want is an applicant who turns the crank and just apes the behavior and resposnes others, sure. On the other hand, if you want to see how an applicant will think on their feet or the through processes by which they address novel problems and issues, it is far more useful to propose a specific scenario and ask them to walk you through they way they would resolve it rather than as generic and vague questions like, “What is your greatest weakness?”, “How do you handle conflict?”, or my personal favorite, “If you were me, why would you hire yourself?”, which only deserves a Sterling Archer level of response. “Because I’m AWESOME?!?”
When an interviewer asks me those kinds of questions instead of asking specific questions about my background from the resumé sitting in front of him or her or giving me specific technical queries to demonstrate why I know and how I respond to issues, I know that they are lazy and unprepared, which tells me how they are as a manager and that they aren’t interesting in impressing on me what a great place that is to work. (And while many employers don’t treat interviews this way, it really should be an exchange with the interviewer putting just as much effort into selling the job as the interviewee is in demonstrating aptitude for the position.) The response to the question “What is your greatest weakness?” tells me nothing as a manager about a candidate except their ability to fill empty space with bullshit, and as a manager, I got enough of that from above; I don’t also need it from the people who work for me. I want to hire people who speak plainly, get along with other coworkers without a bunch of passive-aggressive bullshit, and are interested and competent at their work; not someone who can give pleasant and unoffensive responses in inteviews.
Stranger
You might struggle with an interviewer like me who uses follow up questions, especially if you know that your “weakness” isn’t relevant to the job.
“How do you see your weak public speaking impacting your work here?”
Why? It’s not a struggle to answer honestly. If my biggest weakness is a big negative for the job I’m applying to do, I’m almost certainly applying for the wrong job.
BOSS: “What’s your biggest weakness?”
ME: “Honesty.”
BOSS: “I don’t think honesty is a weakness”
ME: “I don’t give a fuck what you think.”
Because if you can’t name a weakness that would actually impact your real job, you either have never been challenged or you are really blind to your own weaknesses.
“I don’t see how my public speaking abilities will impact my work. That’s why I’m a good fit for this job. It matches my strengths.”