How to Answer “What Is Your Greatest Weakness?” (Interview Question)

How to Answer “What Is Your Greatest Weakness?” (Interview Question)

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How to Answer “What Is Your Greatest Weakness?”

Hiring managers frequently ask questions about your greatest weakness in a job interview. They’ll expect detailed examples in your answer, and they want to hear a unique weakness. To make things even tougher, some employers are now asking for 3 weaknesses.

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How to Answer “What Is Your Greatest Weakness?”

So in this article, I’m going to show you exactly how to handle questions about weaknesses in the job interview with plenty of example answers.

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Why Interviewers Ask About Your Weaknesses in the Interview

Employers ask about your biggest weakness (or top 3 weaknesses) in job interviews for a few reasons.

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Interviewers ask “What is your greatest weakness?” to test your self-awareness

Hiring managers want to see if you’re self-aware and able to identify a weak spot and be honest about it. They are measuring whether you’re upfront/comfortable talking about a weakness in general. Believe it or not, they don’t want someone to say, “I’m great at everything. I have no weakness.” Because nobody’s amazing at everything! 

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Interviewers ask “What is your greatest weakness?” to test your self-awareness

We all have strengths and areas we’re not so great at. So part of the reason they’re asking is to measure your character and personality.

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Interviewers also want to ensure that your weaknesses won’t impact your performance in their job

If you do have a weakness that’s going to hurt your performance in this job, the interviewer wants to know and avoid hiring you. This is why you always need to keep the employer’s job in mind when answering this interview question. If you notice on their job posting that the job involves a heavy amount of self-management, 

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Interviewers also want to ensure that your weaknesses won’t impact your performance in their job

time management, etc., the last thing you want to say is that you struggle with time management skills and staying organized. As another example, if a job is heavy on leadership and teamwork, you won’t be getting the job if you say your weakness is that you struggle when it comes to delegating tasks and delivering quality work as part of a team effort.

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Finally, interviewers know this isn’t an easy question to answer, so they ask this to observe how you perform under pressure

Fortunately, if you’re going to go into the interview room with a game plan for this specific question, so you’ll feel a lot less pressure than most candidates! So now let’s look at how to plan out a great answer to your greatest weakness… starting with a warning about a common mistake to avoid.

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The Top Mistake When Answering “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

If you’ve asked a few people how to answer, “What is your greatest weakness?” it’s likely you’ve been given the advice that you should turn a strength into a weakness. Example answer using this strategy: “Well, sometimes I’m too detail-oriented and thorough, so I have to remember to hit my deadlines and balance speed too.”

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The Top Mistake When Answering “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

Or… “I’m passionate about this industry and the work I’m doing, so sometimes I need to remind myself to relax and not get over-excited in the moment.” This isn’t a great answer strategy for a few reasons, which I’ll explain below.

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The Top Mistake When Answering “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

“I’m too detail oriented” is not a good weakness Interviewers are tired of hearing answers like this. You shouldn’t give any answer that tries to disguise a strength as a weakness. If an employer is asking you to describe a weakness, they aren’t going to view it as a negative if you give a real, genuine answer. 

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The Top Mistake When Answering “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

“Perfectionism” is a bad answer, too. So is “I care too much about my work.” Giving a fake weakness that’s really a strength doesn’t tell the interviewer anything valuable. They’re not going to view it as a positive if you fail to name any true weakness. They’ll simply view it as you dodging their question.

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The Top Mistake When Answering “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

Plus, because this strategy is so frequently recommended, hiring managers have heard it over and over already, so they’re tired of this type of strategy when you answer the question. That’s one more factor to keep in mind when considering this type of response.

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The Top Mistake When Answering “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

Because of these factors, it’s critical to avoid all answers that don’t tell the interviewer an honest weakness. There’s also one more reason that you shouldn’t answer with, “I’m too detail oriented.” In general, it’s better to name a professional, job-related skill as a weakness rather than a personality trait.

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The Top Mistake When Answering “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

I’ll explain this in the next section, along with the exact two steps for giving a much better answer when the company asks about your weaknesses in the interview.

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The Best Method to Answer “What Is Your Greatest Weakness?” (Two Steps)

Now that you know what not to do when naming your weaknesses in a job interview, let’s look at what you *should* do to impress the hiring manager.

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Step 1: Provide a real weakness, but with a few rules…

When they ask “what’s your greatest weakness?” I recommend you be straightforward and give an honest answer to the hiring manager. They’ll appreciate it if you do it right… That means you have to keep a few things in mind and avoid a couple of potential traps.

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Step 1: Provide a real weakness, but with a few rules…

First, don’t name a weakness related to how you work with others or how you get along with management. Examples include: Trouble following instructions, trouble communicating, being prone to arguments and disagreements, etc. You better pick a different weakness to share, because no hiring manager wants to hear this type of thing.

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Step 1: Provide a real weakness, but with a few rules…

In fact, to play it even safer I recommend you pick something skill-based, not personality-based. That’ll keep you in the clear. When you pick something skill-based, you want it to be relevant to your work, but not a primary focus of the job you’re applying for.

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Step 1: Provide a real weakness, but with a few rules…

If you’re looking to become an accountant, don’t say your weakness is working with numbers or being detail-oriented. However, you could say your weakness is a certain type of tool or software, or an entire area of accounting that you haven’t worked particularly closely with recently. 

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Step 2: Demonstrate what you’re doing to overcome this weakness

After giving a real weakness in your answer, you want to show how efforts you’re making and/or recent improvement that you’ve achieved in this skill. That’s going to impress any company. You want to show that you’re working actively to prevent this weakness from being a long-lasting problem,

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Step 2: Demonstrate what you’re doing to overcome this weakness

and either turning it into one of your strengths or at least putting some focus on addressing the area. And you want to show the company that you’re making sure it will not negatively impact your work in future jobs you take.

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Step 2: Demonstrate what you’re doing to overcome this weakness

You can point to a piece of experience on your resume that helped you strengthen this weak area, you can mention recent tasks or projects that offered you a chance at improvement, or how you struggled in the past but have done much better recently.

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Example Interview Answers to “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

Sample answer 1: “When I look at my programming skills, one weakness is Java programming. It’s just not something that I’ve been asked to do since college so I understand the fundamentals but I’m a bit rusty in terms of working hands-on with it.

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Example Interview Answers to “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

I was planning on brushing up in the next few months to broaden my skill set, though. I think it’d help me be more well-rounded and would filter down into other areas that I use more often in my work.”

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Example Interview Answers to “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

This is a good answer as long as you’re not interviewing for a job where they expect you to start using this skill (Java programming) every day. Never name a weakness that’s a core part of the job you’re interviewing for!

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Example Interview Answers to “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

Look at the job description and you’ll get a sense of this before the interview. Now, sometimes employers will ask for 3 weaknesses in a job interview, so let’s look at examples of how to answer that now.

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Example Interview Answers to “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

Sample answer 2: “One of my weaknesses is hiring and team leadership, simply because I haven’t done much of it in my career. However, I’d like to become a manager in the future, so I’ve begun making positive progress in this area whenever I get the opportunity to learn more. In my last company, 

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Example Interview Answers to “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

I started participating in the committee that hires new candidates, and I trained and mentored five of the new team members that we hired. I also gave some presentations to an entire class of newly-hired staff, so I got to build my public speaking skills and confidence, too. My hope is that within a few years, 

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Example Interview Answers to “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

I can be ready to lead a team, so I’m actively working to turn this area of past weakness into a strength.”

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Example Interview Answers to “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

Sample answer 3: “One weakness that comes to mind is familiarity with all the different software used in our industry. Since I’ve spent my career with one single employer up to this point, I haven’t been exposed to as many different tools and pieces of software as someone who has hopped around between companies.

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Example Interview Answers to “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

However, in my most recent position, I frequently used <Software Name>, and from what I’ve read, that’s the same tool your company uses for most projects. I’m also more than happy to learn new tools and technologies to succeed in the position. I’m capable of it; I simply haven’t been asked to do this in past jobs, because my entire career was with <Company Name>.

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Example Interview Answers to “What’s Your Greatest Weakness?”

If hired for this role, I’ll make it a priority to learn any software required for my projects before coming in on my first day, so that I can get started on my work tasks from day one.”

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How to Answer Interview Questions About 3 Weaknesses

There’s a chance that the interviewer will ask a variation of the questions above: “What are your top 3 weaknesses?” This is a bit tougher, but I’m going to give you an easy method to answer it that will allow you to use the same steps above without much extra work.

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How to Answer Interview Questions About 3 Weaknesses

At first glance, this question is tougher because you have to think of three different weaknesses while making sure it’s not going to scare the employer off. And then you have to keep your answer organized. So for this reason, I’d recommend picking three closely related skills that are weaknesses. 

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How to Answer Interview Questions About 3 Weaknesses

Choose one cluster of skills to mention, not three entirely different skills. For example, don’t pick one personality trait, one hard skill like software engineering, and one leadership skill like delegation. That’s going to make your answer far too complicated and also too negative.

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How to Answer Interview Questions About 3 Weaknesses

Keep your 3 weaknesses related and you’ll have a much easier time delivering a good answer in your interviews.

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3 weaknesses for a job interview: example answer

Here’s an example of how your answer will sound… “When I look at my skill set as a whole, I think three weaknesses are Java, Ruby, and CSS. Those are just not programming languages I’ve been asked to use in a professional environment. I did study them in college, though. 

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3 weaknesses for a job interview: example answer

So I understand the fundamentals, but I’m pretty rusty in terms of working hands-on with them. I was planning on brushing up in the next few months to broaden my skill set, though, even if they’re not required in this role. I think it’d help me be more well-rounded as an engineer and would filter down into other areas that I use more often in my work.”

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Don’t Choose an Answer from a Generic List of Weaknesses

If you search online, you can easily find a list of weaknesses, but that won’t give you a good answer to this interview question. The problem is that these lists typically feature personality-based weaknesses such as, “trouble staying organized,” where you should be naming a skill-based weakness like, “public speaking.”

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Don’t Choose an Answer from a Generic List of Weaknesses

So if you want to search around and brainstorm some ideas, that’s fine, but just be careful about choosing random weaknesses from a list without putting thought into how it’s going to sound.

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