what is your weakness? (1 Viewer)

[John Spencer]

I tend to be very verbose whenever I answer someone's questions. You know, like I tend to overexplain a point to make sure the other person understands my point. Have you ever been in a situation where you're pretty sure that you're not really getting your point across in the way you want? When I'm in one of those situations, I find myself reiterating the same concepts over and over, just to make sure that I don't appear to be ambiguous. I want to make sure that the listener knows exactly what it is I'm trying to say. But I feel that it's never a bad thing to be sure that you get your message across the way you mean it.

 

[Chris Tsutsui]

You could say "My weakness is little boys and girls". Look at how successful Michael Jackson is.

Or you could say "My weakness is that I occasionally post in the after hours lounge of HTF". You'll be sure not to get the job if you say that though.

 

[DaveF]

But I feel that it's never a bad thing to be sure that you get your message across the way you mean it.

John -- my experience is that too many words are no more helpful than too few words. And both can indicate poor communication skills.

And a risk in reiterating a confusing statement is that you are repeating instead of clarifying.

Not to say that you're a poor communicator, but if you're interested in improving your communication skills there are many good resources including my favorite, Toastmasters

 

[Benny G]

I've heard many times over that it's best to be honest and give them a true weakness.

If you try to make your negatives into positives, the interviewer will know you're just BS'ing. EVERYONE has weaknesses.

 

[Paul_D]

I think this is absolutely the worst way to approach this question possible. Having actually discussed this question with an interviewer for a major investment bank, he said that you should list a few job specific weaknesses... e.g. "I haven't had as much experience with.... as I'd like" etc. Then list what you would consider to be one genuine character weakness, but one that won't detract from your suitability for the job. You will come across as honest, and self-aware. Interviewers can see pseudo-positive answers a mile away, it it doesn't reflect well on you to give one.

 

[BrianW]

I agree that turning it into a pseueo-positive is blatantly manipulative, but only because the question itself is laughably manipulative as well. Given that we're not at all likely to volunteer our worst weaknesses, any answer we give will be total BS since it conceals more than it reveals - ALWAYS.

Suppose you have two vendors in a conference room showing off their new Gizwhiz, and you were going to buy a million Gizwhizes from one vender or the other, making them compete for a multi-million dollar contract. After their "commercials," you ask each vendor to tell you what his Gizwhiz's greatest weakness is. Do you really think you'll get an honest answer? These guys just want to make a sale, and they're not going to do anything to sabatoge it.

It's a stupid interview question that NEVER gets an honest answer, and interviewers should know it.

There are other questions that can reveal weaknesses much more effectively. I've been asked a few that I consider to be good weakness-revealing questions:

Tell me about a C++ coding nightmare you have had. (Note: The expressions on the faces of the job applicants is generally all you need for an answer.)

What's the longest it's taken you to debug a proces-control algorithm, and why, in your opinion, did it take so long?

How do you feel about inheriting a bad programmer's output and making it work, as opposed to starting from scratch on your own? (Note: This is definitely a trick question.)

Tell me about a factory-floor automation project you have done in which safety was a major concern. How did it turn out? What kind of safeguards did you put in place, and what kind of testing did you perform to ensure safety?

These questions, of course, will apply only to a specific kind of job, but I thought these questions to be much more insightful and much more revealing of my weaknesses than the one we're discussing here. Even a simple hypothetical question, like "How would you handle it if you had to work with a coworker who was a butthead?" would reveal far more than asking what someone's greatest weaknesses are.

It's a stupid question that never fails to get a dishonest and rehearsed answer. What is the point of that?

 

[John Spencer]

Wow, Dave. My whole post was meant to be facetious. The humor in my post just zipped right over you, huh? Don't worry, everyone has to have a weakness, right?