Work Coach Cafe

A job interview all too often includes those annoying little questions like “What’s your greatest weakness?” or “What’s your greatest strength?” Odds are one or both of these will be aimed your way as you sit there in the hot seat, trying your best not to sweat as much as Albert Brooks in the film Broadcast News.

OK. I admit I also sometimes use these questions and others like them when I do an interview. Not that there’s any one “right” answer I’m looking for. They just help me see how a person will react, even when confronted by the obvious. You can learn a lot about a person even from seemingly simple questions.

In fact, I was interviewing someone the other day. After only a few minutes into the interview, I knew he was probably going to get a second interview. But it’s my job to dig deeper to find out as much as I can about how the person thinks and reacts and also look for things that need to be explored in the next round. In addition, if I can tell they’re moving on, I like to give people practice for the next interview. So I went to some of the standard questions, including “What’s your greatest weakness?”

Well, this guy started to answer it without any subterfuge or the typical “I know this is one of those questions” tone of voice. I was pleasantly surprised. (Keeping it as real as possible is always a good idea.) But then he kept going, trying to give me a thorough and honest answer including several examples of how sometimes he gets caught up in the tiny details of a problem - almost to the point of obsessing. I actually got nervous for him! I got it. I got it. “Don’t tell me too much!” I wanted to coach.

Truth is, he was so sincere and talented he didn’t hurt himself with me by trying so hard to give a thorough answer. But that might not have been the case with all interviewers. So when you get a question like this, just know that it’s ok to stop at the summary of the weakness like “I can get caught up in the details sometimes.” But your follow-up should be that you are aware of this and have been learning how to balance being thorough with the other things you have to get done.

Now you could go on and emphasize the part of you that likes to improve and is always open to suggestions or other such stuff, but quite honestly, my take on this question is: keep it short, leave with a positive thought, and then just shut up until you get the next question. If the interviewer pushes the question, try your best to specifically answer what was asked (shows you’re listening) but again keep it short and stay as positive as possible.

There are questions where it’s good to expand your answer so you can throw in cool stuff about yourself. This is usually not one of those questions - unless you have a good story to tell about how you overcame your weakness…or at least have been making progress.

An example would be if you had a fear of public speaking, worked on that fear, and wound up becoming a lecturer on some topic. Now that’s something an interviewer would like to hear. (Uh…please don’t use this story unless it’s real. Stuff like that can come back to bite you.) But if your story isn’t that strong, probably best to keep it short and sweet when answering the weakness question.

Let’s be honest. Most people just throw in these questions to fill out the interview anyway. You get a good idea within the first few minutes of interviewing a person whether this is someone you want to seriously consider. I doubt any interviewer is really looking to get you to reveal some deep dark weakness like “I steal office supplies” or “I’ve lied all over my resume and hope you don’t find out.” DOH!

But even if you make a great first impression, you can still trip yourself up with a bad answer. While there is no one right way to answer this question, it helps to come prepared with something good based on who you really are (some employers are serious about the question and want to see how self-aware you are). And make sure your tale of weakness has a natural positive spin - like the ones above or any good example from real life about how you turned some weakness around.

Oh…in case you’re wondering, the guy has super skills and gave a good interview, so he’s moving on to the next round. But in the interim, an anonymous someone has clued him in about how to answer the dreaded weakness question - just in case. Shhh! Don’t tell anyone.