How to answer the dreaded ‘weakness’ question

How to answer the dreaded ‘weakness’ question

You’re half way through an all-important interview for one of your dream graduate jobs. It’s all going just fine, you breezed your way through your past experience, your education, and you’re feeling more and more confident that you’re the perfect candidate.

Then they drop the bombshell. The biggest interview cliché of all time. The one question that you thought SURELY they wouldn’t actually ask…

‘What are your biggest weaknesses?’

It does seem like a fairly unintuitive question. They must know you aren’t going to answer it candidly and so they won’t receive any true insight into what your failures will be on a day to day basis. However, like any good interview answer, the best way to answer is to really think about why they’re asking each question.

Why are they asking me about my weaknesses?

It really comes down to three things:

• They want to see how honest you are
• They want to see how self-aware you are
• They want to see how focused you are on self-improvement

Of course, they could truly be trying to catch you off guard and illicit an insightful answer. Equally they could be judging how you react to the question, and how you are under pressure.

However, truthfully they will probably know that you have prepared for this, so it’s really less about trying to catch you off guard and more about the route you’ve actively chosen to go down with this answer.

Let’s start off with how to definitely not answer this question.

Don’t lie or be boring

If companies looking to hire a graduate had a penny for every time they’d heard ‘I’m too much of a perfectionist’ or ‘I work too hard’ to this answer, they’d have enough money to retire to a secluded private island. It’s not only probably a lie but it’s such an obvious way of trying to turn the negative that you’ll be sending your interviewer into a boredom stupor. They’ve heard it before.

Even if this is actually one of your weaknesses, it’s still not a good idea to go down this route. It’s just too much of a challenge to keep it believable and interesting.

Don’t flag up a truly concerning weakness

While we don’t advocate telling a lie, you also have to be careful you don’t give a weakness that could seriously jeopardise your chances of getting the role. It would be easy to make a throwaway comment about not having great attention to detail in a role which required you to be somewhat of a perfectionist.

As much as you want to avoid throwaway lines that aren’t necessarily the case, you also want to avoid some things that may be true. If you really struggle to get out of bed in the morning this is not a good time to tell your potential employer. Equally it’s not a great time to mention the fact that you tend to drift off for large amounts of time…

Don’t refuse to answer the question

Maybe you are the perfect candidate. Maybe there’s not a single work related bullet that can’t dint your Kevlar career armour. But for goodness sake don’t tell them that you don’t have any weaknesses. At the very best it will come off as overtly arrogant and at the worst it will make you seem deceitful and dishonest.

The recipe for a perfect answer

So now that you know what to say, you’ll find that the recipe for success is a fairly simple affair:

• Come up with a genuine weakness that isn’t strictly essential to the job, or that won’t impact your day-to-day work massively
• Explain how you’re already addressing this weakness and the success that you’re having

You want to remain as truthful as possible because it is much easier to come across as genuine and this is one of the key things that the recruiter is looking for in everything you say.

The most important thing is the second part though; employers want to see that you’re able to reflect on your own skill set and that you have already done so by making steps to improve.

You want some concrete examples you say…

‘I can be too direct’

This sits nicely in the category of something that won’t affect your ability to do the job well, and also is something you can improve. Explain that you’re sometimes too honest with feedback and perhaps don’t always personalise the way you talk to different people. Perhaps you understand that you need to employ more diplomacy at times.

Working on it? Explain that you’ve looked into conflict management, taken a class or read a book on the subject. Impress upon them that, while it might not come naturally to you, you’re learning how to best communicate with different types of people

‘I can struggle talking in front of large groups of people’

Begin by making it clear that this isn’t an essential issue with your communication abilities, perhaps mention that you excel in smaller group situations and always put your hand up to be counted. However, go on to explain that you get nervous in front of large crowds when you have to present ideas, and find the nervousness can hamper your ability to get the point across. This works particularly well as graduates will rarely be required for a large public speaking role.

Working on it? Explain that you’re working on it as a development goal, by either taking classes, listening to advice or challenging yourself to talk to crowds when you can. Think of an example when you battled through the fear and produced a positive response.

‘I sometimes struggle with asking for help from others’

This is something I find difficult; I’m very good at communicating with others but when it comes down to asking them for something, whether inside work or out of it, I find myself concerned that I might be inconveniencing them. As Tim Ferriss says “Success can be measured in the number of uncomfortable conversations you’re willing to have,” and it can be an incredibly important skill when you take a more senior role. However, at graduate level, it shouldn’t hold you back too much, provided you’re showing it’s something you’re improving.

Working on it? Let them know you’re pushing yourself more at networking events, trying to get contact details from more senior people, and maybe challenge yourself to send a cold email out to people who inspire you asking for advice.

Have you got any better weaknesses? Let us know below!

Image source: Flickr / Samuel Mann