How to Answer your Strength and Weakness in an Interview?
What actually this question is all about?
This question is the most basic and most favorite question from an interviewer point of view. But the main question is why it is this question which is so frequently asked in interviews.
This scenario has two reasons:-
- The interviewer wants to asses you on your knowledge of yourself. That is he/she wants to judge you on the skills of that how much you know about yourself and that too correctly.
- Then by answering this question the interviewer wants to know that why you are fit for this job and in your words.
This question can be twisted and can also be asked in a manner in which it will sound more professional like –
“What are key areas or behavioural aspect on which you are working?”
or
“What do you think qualities you posses which will make you fit for this particular role or job?”
Starting by Determining the Weaknesses that you have
Determining our strengths is generally easier; it’s fun to reflect on and celebrate our successes. But what about the areas where we struggle? Do you ever set aside the time to take a look in the mirror to see where you are letting others — and yourself — down, and how you can improve?
“Employers expect candidates to have weaknesses… so you are better served by answering the question frankly. A candid answer will show your prospective employer your growth-mindset and will demonstrate a sense of self-awareness and honesty.”
Here are some examples of common career weaknesses. Can you identify with any of them? If so, what have you done to improve these weaknesses?
- Wanting to control too many aspects of a situation
- Procrastination
- Inability to self-regulate, leading to burnout
- Disorganized
- Impatient
Again, you might choose to highlight some hard skills that are a weakness for you too, for example not being good with math, not being versed in a particular type of software or having trouble spelling — but only if it’s non-essential to the role.
Now, Determining all the Strengths that you posses.
Generally, you’ll focus on your soft skills as strengths — there are other ways for interviewers and recruiters to glean hard skills, whether it’s through take-home assignments, a coding interview or examples of your past work. But with soft skills, you have to tell them the story
“Don’t feel that your response needs to match what your friends or batch-mate said before you.” “It’s perfectly natural to say, ‘One skill I haven’t been able to use much in my current role is [insert skill]. I hope to use it more in the role we’re discussing.’”
Here are some examples of strengths. Which ones do you identify with? Can you think of more that have helped you shine in your career?
- Good communicator
- Team player
- Time management abilities
- Conflict resolution
- Ability to perform under pressure
Depending on the job, you might also choose to include hard skills in your strengths, citing your ability to code in a variety of languages, your knowledge of a foreign language or your experience as a copy editor as examples of why you would be a strong candidate for the job.
How to weave a story? With respect to Strength and Weaknesses
Backing up each strength or weakness with a relevant anecdote or reason is critical, this gives the interviewer the full picture of why you excel in one area, and what are the areas in which you are working to get better in.
As an exercise to prepare, for every strength on your list, write down a story (basically a small reason) that showcases how you effectively used that strength to accomplish something at a point in your life.
For every weakness, write down a story about how that weakness had (or could have had) a negative repercussion in your career — then write what you learned from it, and what you’re actively doing to improve it.
Framing is critical. But this should not be a bragged up framing because that will always increase your chances of rejection.
- You don’t want to make it seem like your flaws are immutable, or worse, incriminate yourself.
- You also don’t want to turn your weakness into a humblebrag, like “it’s hard for others to keep up with me because I think so fast.”
- So striking a reflective tone is key, which you can do by highlighting what you have learned about your weakness, and what you are doing to improve it.
Be honest — if you find during your research that the company culture doesn’t seem like a good fit for you, then you might want to take a step back and reconsider, rather than trying to squeeze yourself into a mold that doesn’t quite fit.
Here are some example anecdotes for the strengths and weakness we defined above:
EXAMPLES:-
How to answer Strengths:-
Whenever new software is released.
I’m always the first one to test and get familiar with it. I love pushing the edge and learning every aspect of the new software.
In fact, just last week I found a software issue with one of my video games.
I had contacted the developers about that via email, and they had fixed it right.
This position will give me the opportunity to apply my passion and help make programs better for your company.
I believe that my greatest strength is the ability to solve problems quickly and efficiently.
I can see any given situation from multiple perspectives, which makes me uniquely qualified to complete my work even under challenging conditions. That problem solving allows me to be a better communicator.
I am just as comfortable speaking to senior executives as I am junior team members.
I think my ability to see all sides of an issue will make me a great asset to the team.
How to answer Weaknesses:-
I always try to avoid confrontation, in both my personal and professional life. This caused me to compromise sometimes on the quality of my work or what I needed to complete a project just to keep the peace.
One of the most critical aspects of managing people is telling them what they need to hear and not what they want to hear.
I recognized this weakness and had been actively working to voice my opinions constructively and helpfully for the betterment of the team.
When I’m given a task, I am very goal-oriented and work hard to complete that task.
However, when new projects come across my plate, I sometimes jump right into those projects and halt work on the projects I had in progress. Having to jump between tasks, so many times throughout the day hinders my productivity and prevents me from delivering my best work.
I have been using a project management tool to help me manage my tasks and my time, which has helped me become more aware of prioritization.
Since implementing this project management mentality, I have only improved my efficiency and productivity.
