It is far and away the question in an interview that I loathe the most (although a close second is “what did your last performance/peer review say”, which I think is a little overly personal for an interview).
“What is your biggest weakness?”
Do you tell the truth, or do you come out with one of those pat answers that everyone else does?
Here are ten possible answers that you can use, although evading the question (or using one of the completely inappropriate responses here) is an option if you so wish!
- I’m too much of a perfectionist
- I’m very punctual, so I expect the same from others which can be a little unfair
- I’m extremely hard working and forget sometimes to relax
- I’m too creative, and some people prefer a more button-down approach
- I’m highly driven, and so I expect high standards of others as well as myself
- I’m very self-aware, so sometimes I take longer than others to plan a response as I want to make sure the right impression is given to a client
- I’m highly supportive of my team, which means I can forget to support myself in favour of them
- I like to ensure work is intellectually challenging, and expect others to perform at the same level
- I’m dominant in a team, and while that makes me a strong leader I sometimes don’t relax enough
- I’m too flexible, and once in a blue moon I will fail to stand up for myself
If I’m to be completely frank, I would cringe if I heard any of these in an interview, and it’s impossible to answer the question without either shooting yourself in the foot or coming across as a bit of a bulltalker, and my advice is just to stick with the answer I used the one time I ever was asked the question:
“What makes me a good candidate is my strengths, and we all have different weaknesses, that’s why working well in teams is so essential”
Related posts:
{ 1 trackback }