How to Answer "What is your greatest weakness?" Interview Question
“What is your greatest weakness?” This question is another mainstay in the typical interview. Here you need to turn a negative trait positive! Your prospective employer is actually trying to find out if you are able to be critical of your own behaviors. Here are a few examples of how you can do this. Add a personal example to them if you can.
Related: What is your greatest strength?
“My greatest weakness is…..
BEING A PERFECTIONIST:
“I tend to criticise my work a lot and continue to look for ways to improve on it. I rarely am happy with my first draft of a piece and find myself going over and over it. This trait also sometimes means I will do extra research on the project in my own time so I can be happy with it. I like to know that my clients can be assured they will always get a quality piece of work from me”
DOING MANY THINGS AT ONCE:
“I often find myself working on tasks simultaneously when I have several projects ongoing, some people think you should do one at a time; however I feel that by varying what I am doing me actually am more productive, as I do not get fatigued by one subject, whilst boosting my creativity as I am able to think more freely.
IMPULSIVE:
“I tend to be quite impulsive and instinctive. I seize opportunities when they arise. I learned to harness this trait quite effectively in my last role by training myself to use it to sense when somebody might be interested in products and services and introducing them to the products that would suit them.”
SEEKING APPROVAL:
“I often find myself needing to check my work with others before signing it off or asking for feedback from clients. I do tend to worry that I might have made a mistake, and I always want a client’s work to be perfect. I don’t need constant supervision or anything like that, I just like someone to say ‘that is fine’ when I am done. It makes me feel good about what I have done”
PLANNING EVERYTHING:
“I often find that I have to plan everything. I like to know exactly when I will be somewhere, how I will get there, how I will get back, what I will be doing. I even like to know exactly when people will be visiting me at home etc. Some people dislike this aspect of my personality, however it keeps me organised and means I can make the most out of my day. I hate having empty time, or turning up too early or too late for appointments due to lack of planning.”
Just be sure never to use negative words when answering such as ‘Bad’, ‘Failure’, ‘Weakness’ etc.
photo by: uniondocs
I really appreciate the way the posting has been made for this trick question. We get very limited exposure to find some good examples to handle this crucial question in the job interview.
I am quite the perfectionist when it comes to my work. I like to do everything to the best of my ability, and sometimes can work too hard.
This is really helpful. This question catches a lot of people out, so yes by turning a negative into a positive is the way to go. Not only does it show the employer that you are willing to work on something, it also shows them you are human!
Never answer this question with "oh, i dont have a weakness" as that makes you sound smug!
I have no weakness, I must be perfect
Hi
I have an interview for post 16 PGCE (this is the teaching qualification) next week and want to ask something like this: Where do you think the lifelong learning sector will stand in the next five years?The purpose being to find out if it really is worth investing another £9000 in fees to do the course, I don’t really fancy working with teenagers or youngsters but post 16 is something I’ve done before and feel more suited to