How to Discuss Your Strengths and Weakness During a Job Interview
Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It is common for some people to struggle when explaining their weaknesses out of fear that doing so would only damage their opportunity for a job. While you may not like discussing your weaknesses, your interviewer is more interested in seeing how you answer the question, rather than the actual answer. The best way to discuss your weaknesses and strengths is to present them honestly and always accentuate the positive.
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Instructions
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Pick the weaknesses you will discuss before the interview. Asking to describe your strengths and weaknesses is standard for jobs, just like asking where you see yourself in five or 10 years. While some possibilities for weaknesses may seem good, they are often predictable, such as working too hard or caring too much. Unless you can provide specific examples, these clichéd responses won't do you any good.
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Select your core strengths based on what the job calls for. Brainstorm some answers and short-list them to no more than three strengths. Don't choose clichéd responses like working well as a member of team or that you are an effective communicator. Interviewers have heard this all before. Instead, be specific to the job, such as knowledge-based skills or leadership. Practice your responses before the interview.
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Explain how you are working to overcome your weaknesses or the steps you have taken to mitigate them. A weakness might be the inability to write grammatically correct sentences consistently, which hurts your credibility when submitting project documents to superiors. If you have taken courses, explain that you have done so to improve yourself. You can also add, if true, that you keep someone who is strong in that area on your team to help proofread all documents.
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Pick a weakness and turn it into a strength. For most people, their weaknesses can be strengths and vice versa. For example, you might describe how a common issue people have with you is that you are short and abrupt with them. However, you can turn this into a strength by explaining that this allows you to avoid long-winded explanations or allow the conversation to turn into idle chatter. This allows you to get back to work quickly and use your time efficiently. Your productivity increases, along with the quality as a result.
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Explain your strengths without boasting. If you grew sales by 30 percent in a short amount of time, explain how your strengths allowed that to happen. If it was your ability to cultivate relationships and find new clients, shine a light on those. Don't focus on the achievement -- you can do that later if you are asked to explain those -- but what allowed you to reach those goals. Those are your strengths.
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Tips & Warnings
Always provide examples. If you can't back up your claim, your words will be hollow.
Keep weaknesses to a minimum. If you are asked to provide three by the interviewer, only provide three. If they don't specify, one or two is fine.
When explaining weaknesses, keep them unrelated to the position for which you are interviewing as best as possible.
References
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