Toughest Interview Questions: #2 What Are Your Greatest Weaknesses?

By John Heaney on November 2, 2009 at 7:54 am
Interviewing, The Search, Video

One of the most dreaded interview questions that virtually every interviewer asks is: What are your greatest weaknesses?

So, what makes this one of the most uncomfortable questions to handle? As a job seeker, you understandably want to highlight your positive attributes instead of introducing personal characteristics that could eliminate you from consideration for a job.

You have to be thoughtful and careful with your response. If you admit that you have trouble getting to work on time and resent being told what to do by your superiors, you’re interview is going to be pretty short.

So, what’s the best way to handle this question?

First, understand that as humans we all have weaknesses. In fact, your career choices have likely been guided as much to avoid your weaknesses as to play to your strengths. Your interviewer knows this and wants to gauge how honest you are with your own shortcomings.

The keys to answering this question lie in doing your homework so you understand clearly what your real strengths and weaknesses are so you can prepare an answer that reveals an appropriate, relevant weakness, tells the interviewer how you deal with it and how you leverage your strengths to compensate for any professional shortcomings.

Stay away from the trite response that your greatest weakness is that you work too hard or you’re such a perfectionist that you have to make sure that everything you produce is spectacular. Your interviewer is looking for something, honest, truthful and insightful. They want an answer that indicates that you have some capacity for introspection and honest personal assessment.

If your weakness is a lack of organization, or difficulty attending to detail, your response could be:

I recognized back in school that I have trouble staying on top of a lot of details. After some missed class assignments I realized that I need an easy system to stay organized. My system has evolved over the years and I now use a combination of tools on my PC and my phone to write down the tasks I need to perform, track projects and assignments and set alarms to remind me throughout the day when I need to meet a project deadline, attend a meeting or make a call. I’ve also learned to delegate specific tasks to my assistant to ensure that contracts and other important documents are signed and filed properly, meeting confirmations are made and my calendar is kept up to date. The system is part of my daily routine so it’s effective and lets me focus on business development.

With the right preparation you can reveal a weakness without appearing weak and get on to more important things, like salary negotiations.