I have a tendency to dive straight into analysis when discussing a challenge and, if I’m not careful, an accompanying temptation to blurt out my thoughts as a series of ‘yes, but…’ responses that despite being often valid, are easily perceived as negative. I have to consciously control this behaviour in project planning meetings and force myself to either frame my responses carefully, or note them for further thought and feedback in a more structured way.
That’s pretty much what I was planning to respond with next time I’m asked this question. It is actually true (I imagine this is not an uncommon trait amongst members of this board).
No, what you do on your own time is your business.
Quite frankly, I’m surprised by the negative attitude regarding this question. It’s a common enough question that you should be prepared for it and honestly, it’s a legitimate question that gives you, the interviewee an opportunity to sell the interviewer on a flaw that is probably already apparent to him or her.
Obviously the “I work too hard” answer is bullshit. Unless you quantify it. For example “when I was a Deloitte consultant, I used to drive my team to work 100 hour weeks. While immediately responding to client and management requests and then working as long and hard as required non-stop without question to complete tasks worked in that culture, it doesn’t work in all corporate cultures. Particularly when managing others. When I left consulting and went into management, I had to adapt my management style to take more of a long-term big picture approach that didn’t depend on an endless flow of eager analysts willing to forgo work-life balance.”
Or maybe an engineer might say something like “I want to improve my public speaking skills. Most of my time is spent heads-down writing code so it’s not something I get to practice and get comfortable with. So to develop those skills, I joined a local Toastmasters chapter, actively seek out opportunities to speak to groups, etc.”
Why would you be surprised by it? Like you said, it’s a common question and the interviewer expects you to have a can of BS ready to open when they ask it. It’s not a legitimate question, because it’s blatantly obvious that it’s not looking for a real answer, but a canned pseudo-answer that really only says “I am aware of this stupid interview question and prepared something to say for it”. Maybe decades ago when this question was new you’d get an honest answer, but now it’s just a ‘are you aware of the interview game and willing to do useless nonsense to get this job’.
Isn’t that something you do on your own time, so is your own business and not relevant to the interviewer?
In truth, this describes me as well. This is why I always thought that I would truthfully answer that my greatest weakness is perfectionism. And no, I don’t think that this trait is “humble-bragging”; it has caused real problems in my life.
I actually had one of my superiors on a nuclear submarine (where you might think that perfectionism would be a desirable trait) complain that I was too much of a perfectionist. While I met all my deadlines, I also impacted my health due to lack of sleep and worked myself into an ulcer.
Anyway, I have combated this in my professional life by trying to realize that life is not perfect, and that I need to realize when “good enough” is acceptable.
So with that said, it’s distressing to me to hear that some employers deem such a response as being trite or untruthful. I’m glad to hear that the question is going by the wayside.
I just gave you two legitimate answers. And it’s not a useless question. I like it because it makes the candidate think. What do you expect? I’m just going to slow-pitch a bunch of soft questions that let you give me a bunch of BS answers on why you think you are perfect for this job?
Are you doing it to develop your professional skills? Then it’s relevant to the interviewer.
It makes the candidate think ‘what was the canned answer I prepared for this interview question’, which isn’t a very high level of thinking. I’m not really sure what you’re trying to say with your question to me - asking a standard interview question that anyone putting effort into interviewing has a canned answer for is exactly what I’d think of as a slow-pitch, soft question that lets you give a BS answer that you prepared years ago on how you’re perfect for the job. Do you really think that asking a question that everyone expects and preps for is a fast-pitch, hard question?
I’m astounded at how many people who conduct interviews apparently have no idea that putting together a good BS answer for the ‘what is your greatest weakness’ question is part of really basic interview prep and genuinely believe that everyone is surprised by it and has to think up an answer on the spot.
Part of the disconnect is how many people are arguing that the question is unanswerable and impossible while others are arguing that it’s easy and mindless.
And the truth is that people answer it really really badly fairly often. So it doesn’t really seem to be “basic interview prep” for many.
Right, but the problem is that I’m never going to give my real “biggest weakness”. My biggest weakness as an employee is that I’m a lazy bastard who’d rather slack off than dig into the work, and I prefer to work just hard enough not to get fired.
I understand that if you were interviewing me, you’d like to know this information, so you can decline to hire me. But what’s in it for me? I want this job because I gots to get paid. Therefore I need to hide this irritating flaw from you. So instead I’m going to come up with something else. Yes, I need something that isn’t ridiculous, that actually makes sense. But “I hate public speaking” is irrelevant for most jobs, unless you’re constantly going to conferences and giving presentations. That’s not a weakness for 90% of engineers, unless you’ve got such a crippling fear of “public speaking” that you can’t express yourself in regular meetings.
You’ve got to game-theory this process out. How is this supposed to work? You give an honest question, I give an honest answer? That would be great, except your needs as a hiring manager and my needs as an candidate are not always congruent. If it’s gotten to the point of an interview, then on paper I would be an acceptable candidate. As an hiring manager you’re trying to discover if I have disqualifications. As a candidate I am trying to prevent you from discovering any disqualifications. What’s in it for me to give you a list of the reasons I’m a horrible employee? I’m trying to explain to you why I’d be a great employee.
Yes it’s true that if I’m not honest with you, you might hire me for a job that I’m not actually well suited for. If you ask “Are you comfortable with public speaking?” for a job that you imagine is going to include lots and lots of presentations and conferences, that’s a perfectly fine question, and if I would hate that sort of job then I should never answer “I love it!”, even if that would get me the job. Unless I really need the job.
So this is why, as an interviewer, you’re always going to get an answer that won’t provide the answer you really want. If you want to find out if the candidate is comfortable with public speaking, ask him about public speaking and ask for specifics. If he claims he’s an awesome public speaker but can’t back it up, then he’s not a good candidate. Expecting him to volunteer the information you need to make the decision not to hire him is pretty naive.
But what are you looking for as a hiring manager? Will you DQ a candidate who can’t come up with a smooth polished answer?
What information about the candidate do you believe you will get from asking this question?
Obviously a confession about a real weakness means a DQ. A lazy bullshit “I’m a perfectionist” means a DQ. Stammering and being unable to answer the question means a DQ.
The only thing from your perspective that isn’t a DQ is a professional “X, so Y, then Z” answer that isn’t about a real weakness.
If the job you’re hiring for requires a lot of polite professionalism in the face of baffling bullshit, then it’s actually a good question to ask. And candidates who can’t answer the question would be miserable at your bureaucratic puzzle palace anyway, so it’s probably for the best and they can go find another job at a place that values their actual work.
But is this position actually going to require this quality? Are you hiring a technical person who needs to be an expert in the actual stuff he’s supposed to do? If so, maybe ask questions about the actual work? And if you want to dig into his soft skills, something a little more focused, like “Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a coworker about X. How did you handle it?” If you’re trying to weed out people who don’t play well with others then more concrete questions are going to get you more helpful answers.
The point is, what information are you trying to get about the candidate, and what information do you think their answer to the question is going to give you? And are these things actually the same thing?
The question is ‘unanswerable’ and ‘impossible’ in the sense that answering it honestly for most people would not get them the job, it’s not ‘unanswerable’ in the sense that you can’t come up with a BS ‘weakness’ and ‘solution’ that just so happen to sound good, you just have to be willing to lie abut what your ‘biggest weakness’ is, which is no big deal.
Lots of people are dumb - after all, people will show up to a job interview in shorts and a smelly, cheeto-stained t-shirt. That doesn’t magically make ‘wear something nice that is at or one level above the usual dress code where you’re interviewing’ not part of ‘basic interview prep,’ that means you had a candidate who failed basic interview prep. And again all that someone answering it well shows is that they did basic interview prep - I would be surprised if ANY answer you like actually comes from someone who didn’t prepare an answer and is being completely honest about what their biggest weakness is.
I guess the disconnect is that it’s easy to give a bullshit answer, but impossible to give an honest answer. So if the candidate tries to give an honest self-assessment then they’re shooting themselves in the foot. The only possible answer that won’t get them DQ’d is a professional bullshit answer.
So it’s an unfair question in the sense that it’s not a real question, it’s a meta-question. Can the candidate identify this as a bullshit question, and respond professionally? Or do they foolishly try to answer honestly, and thus disqualify themselves?
And to add, if your workplace really does expect employees in this position to navigate a lot of traps like this, then it’s a fair question. But if you really need do a smooth smoothie who can play this sort of internal bureaucratic politics, then it’s such softball basic question that asking it is kind of insulting.
I give honest answers to this question. I talked about it upthread.
And once more with feeling: I didn’t ask this question when I was hiring. I just don’t think it’s either as valuable OR as nefarious as it’s often portrayed.
Sure, “honest” for certain values of honest. As I said, a complete bullshit answer “I care SOOOOO MUUUUUCH!!!” is wrong.
But when you give an honest answer it’s something you’ve thought about. You don’t sink back in your chair, think quietly to yourself for a few minutes, honestly asses your strengths and weaknesses and give the interviewer some sort of insight into your character. Instead you give something prepared, which is honest(ish), like “I have trouble delegating, so I make sure to consciously check with my team that I’m not handling too much on my own, and when I made this change I found blah blah blah…” or any of dozens of such answers. You figured out something in advance which was true about you, you figured out in advance how to explain how you mitigated it, and you figured out in advance how to explain how this all worked out great for you.
This isn’t a “dishonest” answer, and I agree that a real dishonest answer isn’t a good idea. But you didn’t use the question as an opportunity to explain to the interviewer why you shouldn’t be hired. Instead you used it as an opportunity to explain why you should be hired. It’s only a trick question in the sense that candidates are supposed to realize this. It’s such a transparent trick that it shouldn’t really count as a trick. But as you say, you’ve seen candidates stumble on it. So it’s like asking a candidate about their previous employer, and if they start badmouthing the place they DQ themselves, or expecting them to understand how to dress and groom themselves.
I think it’s exactly that. Explain why you should be hired by demonstrating how you have it in you to overcome a shortcoming. I don’t want people to disqualify themselves in an interview. If I ask about a mistake they’ve made, it’s not because I want to write down “This person made a MISTAKE! OMG!” It’s because we all make them, so it’s important to be (or yeah, give the appearance of being) someone who understands that mistakes aren’t the end of the world. Mistakes are something you will make, and then have to try to correct and later try to avoid. You want to see that someone appears able to learn.
And sure, nothing prevents someone from having rote answers to everything (though follow up questions help), but there’s no question that can’t have a rote answer unless I want to ask what flavor Jell-O you’d be.
Really, your greatest weakness is that you’re singleminded when you work and sometimes forget other projects? You never, say, get bored and end up doing something that’s not your work? Never get angry at a coworker/boss and have to bury the feelings? Never just get sick of the whole job and want to just take off and live at the beach for a month but stay because you need a paycheck? Would you sell off company secrets and quit if you knew you could get away with a cool million? Or anything else that might possibly be worse?
You gave a nice pat answer that’s almost the same as my BS answer (and I might use yours in the future, since it actually shows less weakness). I’m sure it’s true if you ignore the ‘greatest’ part, but the ‘greatest’ part is the gratingest part of the question, and what makes it an obvious invitation to lie.
Yours is a polished version of “I just care TOO DAMNED MUCH” - you are saying that you care so much about the project you’re working on that you tend to forget other tasks. It’s just much better written and buries the "my weakness is a actually a virtue’ part better.
So maybe a better question would be “tell me how you overcame a weakness” rather than talking about weaknesses you have now. For instance “tell me what you have done for professional development” would be a great question. Good questions will require answers that take years, not minutes, of preparation. For example, anyone can bullshit on a college essay, but assuming you are honest you can’t do that for your list of high school activities.
BTW, when I look at resumes I look for things to indicate that the candidate has done more then the minimum required. But maybe we can afford to hire good people.
