What is your greatest weakness?
Basically the most painful question an interviewer can ask. A friend of mine was laid off on Monday (boo!) but already had two phone interviews this morning (yay!). He claims to have bombed both of them, citing his response the most dreaded question in the history of job interviews: "What is your greatest weakness?" Apparently he said "um" for a minute before the interviewer just moved on. Probably not the best response.
So he doesn't get caught off guard by the question again, I went a-googling and found this incredibly helpful blog post. Basically the idea is to answer the question by showing the interviewer that you were aware of this weakness prior to the interview and that you have already implemented steps in your work routine to overcome it. The author also provides examples of how you might phrase specific weaknesses. Not that I have any plans to be interviewing any time soon, but it's always good to be prepared. Here's my 100% truthful answer:
I tend to become overwhelmed if I think I have too many projects going on at once. My solution to this is to create a to-do list so I can see what I have to do still as well as the progress that I've made.The author also offers the funniest answer he's heard: "Kryptonite." And one of the commenters claims to have said "Chocolate cake," which made the interviewers laugh (he was hired). In fact, a funny answer may make you a more memorable candidate if you can provide the interviewers with a genuine chuckle. All the same, best to have a real (and honest!) answer prepared before you show up. Feel free to leave yours in the comments.
6 comments:
I basically go with the problem/solution approach too. I say "I get really frustrated when I don't feel like projects are moving forward quickly enough and that starts to affect my attitude." Which sort of sounds like a suck-up reverse answer implying "I'm super productive!" However, I follow-up it up with a comment like "I try to access the reasons a project is at a standstill and establish whether it's stuck because of something I could ask for help with, if I'm waiting on input for others, or if it's beyond my control, and then I feel more equipped to brainstorm ideas for fixing that problem."
That's a good answer. Frankly, I feel stupid that this problem/solution formula never occurred to me before.
Oh, and my other interview tip is to have "thinking time" phrases ready to avoid saying um or sitting in uncomfortable silence. It feels silly, but I think it works pretty well. Instead of "Umm..." saying "That's always a tough question, but..." "That's a good question, I think that..." or "Actually, I've been thinking about that and..." or even "I hadn't thought about that before," gives you the 5 precious seconds you need to come up with something. Speaking a little slower than usually and taking a second to consider each question throughout the interview helps too.
Proof reading comments when you're in a hurry is also a good idea... *cough*
Although the "chocolate cake" anwer is funny a number of interviewers may not have such a good sense of humor - expecially if they have already had to conduct five interviews that day! My many years of experience in Human Resources have shown that candidates who try to be funny in their interviews are often unsuccessful. A good guide to answering the weakness question is to acknowledge one or two weaknesses, describe the efforts made to overcome these and end your story on a positive note.
Also avoid those weaknesses that are supposed to actually be a positive such as "I'm a perfectionist"- this tends to frustrate the interviewer who is actually trying to determine your self-awareness, insight and maturity in asking this question. For some good sample answers to this and other typical interview questions you can go to The Free Job Interview Q & A Guide.
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