Do you have any weaknesses?
By Karalyn | Categories: Career advice | No Comments
Should you talk about your weaknesses in interview?
Why yes, you should.
Here’s why.
People want to hire people they can relate to and who are self-aware. Interviewers do know that you are not going to reveal your worst character flaw. But they do want to get a sense that they are talking to a real person, not an automation who cannot talk about anything other than their strengths.
For any of you who are tempted to Google “perfect interview answers to the weakness question” – please don’t. Interviewers can actually tell if the answer you are giving has been pulled off the internet. They also don’t really want to employ someone who dodges the question with a cliché answer.
Think about it this way.
You are in an interview because the skills and strengths you have lend themselves to that profession. A weakness you may have may not actually be the huge deal-breaker you think it is. We all know software engineers, accountants or analysts who are not people-people. They are not being hired for that. They are being hired mainly for their technical skills.
So our advice is to keep it real.
If for example you’re an analyst and your role is to get deep into the numbers and standing up in front of a group of people and presenting is not your first favourite activity, then you can actually tell the interviewer that. You can then talk about what you are doing to improve your skills, and how you know you have.
In the workplace, team work rarely runs smoothly.
Employers would rather hire people who understand their both their strengths and their weaknesses, rather than someone who does not acknowledge where they may have issues and is not prepared to work on those.
PS: Please don’t ask say that your weakness is that you care too much about the job, or you eat too much chocolate. We get kind of cranky!
