Answers to these questions range from the standard, "I am a hard worker and I get easily stressed when I miss a deadline", to "I see a job to its logical conclusion and don’t take colleagues mistakes very easily."
An interviewer will find these answers bland and uninspired. Moreover, they are stereotyped. Most candidates will say that they are hard working. Do you really expect someone to say "I am lazy and slothful".
Most will answer the weakness question with a lot of ambiguity and indistinctness. They start with a negative, such as there are none that I can think off, and then use words like probably, maybe, perhaps, possibly, making the answer even more trivial and unfitting.
But this question needs to be answered, and it should be answered honestly, diplomatically and tactfully so as not to hamper your employment chances. Follow these guidelines to understand what the best way to answer this question is:
- Evaluate Your Strong Points
Don’t leave your strengths confined within the pages of your resume or consigned to memory, to be recounted when the interviewer asks you questions pertaining to them.
Make a written list. Write them down randomly. Then categorize them under three sub-headings.
- Expertise Created Through Acquired Knowledge: This is knowledge that you have acquired through your traditional education, school through college and university, plus any additional training that you may have undergone in languages, computer skills and other technical ability.
- Skills That Are Portable: These are skills that you can transfer from one job to another. This includes people to people management, communication, analytical problem solving and planning skills.
- Individual Qualities Unique to You: Every individual has traits that are distinctive to him or her. Honesty, dependability, flexibility, punctuality, sincerity, and humility are all attributes and virtues that are unique to you and carry a lot of worth. Jot them down.
Now that the list is complete, choose the top five strengths that you feel that the job warrants and what the interviewer may be looking for. Now write down specific examples that support and uphold your claims. For example, if you have written down honesty and punctuality, it is quite possible that the interviewer may ask you, why do you think you are honest or what makes you believe that you are punctual?
- Expertise Created Through Acquired Knowledge: This is knowledge that you have acquired through your traditional education, school through college and university, plus any additional training that you may have undergone in languages, computer skills and other technical ability.
- Evaluate Your Weak Points
This is perhaps the most feared question. Who does not have weaknesses? However, most would prefer to keep them hidden and not reveal them in an open and public domain such as a job interview.
Just as you have listed your strengths, list your shortcomings as well. From this list, choose a trait that is a weakness, but not one that is so big that it would impact your job negatively. Now think of a solution to the weakness that you have chosen.
Don’t talk about personal weaknesses, like drinking, smoking, wasting money, hanging out with friends, but talk about professional weaknesses. Something like "I am a player for the big games, and I find lapses in my concentration when the challenge is not strong enough."
- Write Down Your Answers
Write down an affirmative sentence and read and re-read it. When the interviewer asks you for your strengths, repeat it verbatim. For example it could be, "My strength is my ability not to buckle under the most difficult challenges. As Human Resource manager at my last job, I was able to turn around a negative working environment where unions kept inciting workers to strike and created an amiable working atmosphere. As far as weaknesses, I feel that my management skills could be stronger. I could be less trusting and not as lenient in meting out penalties for erring workers."
Interview questions can be difficult or easy. However, it is the difficult questions, when they are handled with dexterity and flair, that entrench your image in the interviewer's mind and embellish your worth to the company. Do not shy away from harsh questions; they are a blessing in disguise. If you answer them well, your interviewer will think something like this: Okay he/she has a weakness, he/she is not perfect, but so what, he/she knows what the weakness is and is working on ways to overcome it.
