Are there ANY good answers?

kkelly77

To the typical "What are your weaknesses?" question in an interview?

Let's exclude the cliche "I'm a bit of a perfectionist" response

I'm a bit weak.

briano

Tell the truth: Go through the job application and look to see what they have asked for. Find the element that you are weakest at and say that.

Now, the important part is to say what you are going to do to address this weakness. Are there tutorials online that you can do in your spare time? A certification? could you shadow someone in your new job? Show that you are willing to grow and have a plan for how you are going to develop while you work in that role.

greenasgrass

+1 to briano.

The only thing is make sure that it is not the main core skills for the job. Otherwise they might ask you why you applied in the first place (given that you are missing a key skill)

Pick somethin that is a perifery skill and have a prepared answer on what courses, training, relevant equivalent experience you have.

So you say. "I haven't really much experience in x, but there are elements of y and z which I can transfer to x"

Eoin

Good advice; pick a specific skill-set rather than character flaw, and say something like it's not an area that you have had the opportunity to focus on so far, but would be keen to address that - plus how you would do so.

I'm not sure what's cringier; the question itself or people saying stuff like "I work too hard".

A less bullcrappy variation is to ask candidates about any significant challenges they've experience in the past and how they overcame it, or what mistakes they've made before and how they corrected it.

kkelly77

Excellent responses!!

donkey balls

A few years ago I was interveiwed for an ops mgr job and the above question came up,I answered the question honestly and proved to the Director that my weakness would not hold me back and got the job.

What ever you do never bulls**t your way through an interveiw the amount of people that I have interveiwed over the years and I knew by just talking to them and looking at their C.V wether they had the relevent experience.

John368

They are probably looking for a good honest and down-to-earth answer related to the work. Do not try to be too clever using stock answers or neither bare your soul open and tell them about your bad spelling and love of fatty food.

I would suggest that you think about things that are lacking in your experience that might affect how you think you would initially fit into the firm.

Irish_Elect_Eng

Here is the best advice....

What Is Your Biggest Weakness?

- Bit of a tricky question this, after all no one wants to show their weaknesses but we all have them. The most comprehensive way of dealing with this question is to try and turn it into a “positive” from a “negative”. So you could perhaps say “my biggest weakness is buying the kids sweets when they ask for them in the shop” or “I really dislike washing the car at the weekend but once I have done it I always feel a real sense of satisfaction”

But depending on the interview/interviewer you coul always try.

What Is Your Biggest Weakness?

Hmmmm........Chocolate.....Belgian white chocolate......Mmmmmmmmm..

briano

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

Here is the best advice....

What Is Your Biggest Weakness?

- Bit of a tricky question this, after all no one wants to show their weaknesses but we all have them. The most comprehensive way of dealing with this question is to try and turn it into a “positive” from a “negative”. So you could perhaps say “my biggest weakness is buying the kids sweets when they ask for them in the shop” or “I really dislike washing the car at the weekend but once I have done it I always feel a real sense of satisfaction”

But depending on the interview/interviewer you coul always try.

What Is Your Biggest Weakness?

Hmmmm........Chocolate.....Belgian white chocolate......Mmmmmmmmm..

I have to disagree with you there. As John said you would be much better off sticking to something related to the job at hand, not talking about kids in sweet shops or car washing or whatever.

If you are going to go for the white chocolate line, then you had better follow it up with something relevant

Irish_Elect_Eng

briano wrote: »

I have to disagree with you there. As John said you would be much better off sticking to something related to the job at hand, not talking about kids in sweet shops or car washing or whatever.

If you are going to go for the white chocolate line, then you had better follow it up with something relevant

Yep, I agree, with you and disagree with my original post, it was late at night...

When interviewing candidates, some of the best responses have been where candidates have used real weaknesses that they have overcome.

For example, if you genuinely struggles with Time Management at one point in your career you might state

"In job x my supervisor gave me feedback that my time management could improve, so I became determined to improve. To tackle the issue, I started to schedule my day and began to work from a prioritized to-do list. After working my new system fro 1 month I scheduled a follow up meeting with my supervisor and was pleased that she had notices a dramatic improvement in my performance. Now time management is one of my strengths and allows me to multi task effectively"

You can take an example of a weakness you have overcome an use it in this manner to change the discussion to a new-found strength.

Just my 2c

DGranger

this is truly such a ridiculous question.... seriously who is going to give an honest answer to that????


have a look at the essential experience and skills needed for the role, then have a look at the "would be nice if you had" experience ... let's say one of those is PowerPoint,,,, you could say that it has been a while since you used it and that you would like to brush up on it... something like that..

daenerysstormborn3

I haven't been asked this in a while but when i have been asked it in the past I usually say something about the position itself, "i note from the job spec that x is a day to day task and while I don't have experience with x, I have done y and z and believe my experience in y and z would help towards performing x".

What do people think of questions like "do you have any intention to move away from your specific career?" or "why have you never chosen to move up?" I ask this question as a secretary who has been asked in previous interviews basically why am I still a secretary. I find it quite insulting and degrading and also makes me wonder as to how they treat their staff if they are questioning why I would want to be in a lower position than them.

Irish_Elect_Eng

pixiebean22 wrote: »

I haven't been asked this in a while but when i have been asked it in the past I usually say something about the position itself, "i note from the job spec that x is a day to day task and while I don't have experience with x, I have done y and z and believe my experience in y and z would help towards performing x".

What do people think of questions like "do you have any intention to move away from your specific career?" or "why have you never chosen to move up?" I ask this question as a secretary who has been asked in previous interviews basically why am I still a secretary. I find it quite insulting and degrading and also makes me wonder as to how they treat their staff if they are questioning why I would want to be in a lower position than them.

"why have you never chosen to move up? You should take this as a compliment pixiebean22, in interviews I would only ask this from a person that was either over qualified fro the position that they held or obviously more capable than the position requires. The purpose of the question is to determine how ambitions you are.

"do you have any intention to move away from your specific career?" The purpose of this question is to determine if you would move to a different role to advance or possibly how flexible you are.

Both questions also tell the interviewer a little about how self aware you are in terms of your career.

"do you have any intention to move away from your specific career?"

It's a stupid question and unfortunate for me, because I really am a perfectionist but I can't say it because it's a cliche.

I agree with picking one of the less important skills and saying you'd like to improve bla bla bla. I would stay away from anything to do with personality.

Stheno

Irish_Elect_Eng wrote: »

For example, if you genuinely struggles with Time Management at one point in your career you might state

"In job x my supervisor gave me feedback that my time management could improve, so I became determined to improve. To tackle the issue, I started to schedule my day and began to work from a prioritized to-do list. After working my new system fro 1 month I scheduled a follow up meeting with my supervisor and was pleased that she had notices a dramatic improvement in my performance. Now time management is one of my strengths and allows me to multi task effectively"

You can take an example of a weakness you have overcome an use it in this manner to change the discussion to a new-found strength.

Just my 2c

This is exactly what I have done in interviews, and it tends to lead to lots of discussion, I work as a manager and tend to micromanage, and have had to learn to trust my team, especially where their in depth knowledge is greater than mine.

It's hard to admit to being at fault in any way, but showing that you are aware of and have addressed it in the past is a positive.

I got asked what the biggest mistake I ever made professionally was in an interview last week :Eek: