Comments on: What Is Your Greatest Weakness?

By: NotHired

NotHired — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 00:19:32 +0000

Q. biggest weakness?
A. I’ll give you 2 but the first is your typical canned answer: I enjoy cross dressing from time to time.

By: Melanie

Melanie — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:12:06 +0000

Yep, I was asked this one yesterday.

I handled it by saying that I COULD give them a canned standard answer, but that I prefer to be upfront. Then I went on to say that the flip side of my analytical abilities is a tendency to go too in depth, to drill down a couple of levels beyond what is in the best interests of productivity in my quest to cover all bases, but that I am aware of it and work to balance it. The interview panel seemed to receive it well

By: Gene

Gene — Sun, 03 May 2009 07:25:12 +0000

I say that my greatest weakness is that I’m a workaholic and have a hard time leaving the office at night. LOL!

Another weakness is that I have a lot of initiative. This makes it hard for some managers to manage me because I’m always trying to think outside the box and if they are in the box, well you get the picture.

I usually don’t bother with behavioral questions, but my favorite is: “Did you watch the Celtics?”

By: Seattle Interview Coach

Seattle Interview Coach — Sat, 02 May 2009 03:27:36 +0000

As a hiring manager, this is one of my favorite interview questions. It’s a test of self-awareness and how the interviewee has addressed that weakness.

I wrote a blog post on how candidates might answer this question, using lessons from a recent interview between Katie Couric and President Obama: http://blog.seattleinterviewcoach.com/2009/01/ace-your-job-interview-questions-like.html

By: Phil LaViolette

Phil LaViolette — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 06:08:51 +0000

Some candidates will be well versed in their responses.
‘Oh my weakness I hate it when I do not get the job done perfectly’ or
‘My development area, knowing when to stop work and go home!’

Great to turn a positive into a negative, but show me the evidence of the behaviour!

As for myself I don’t have any weaknesses, I have ‘development areas’!

By: This HR Guy Is Over Your Spelling Mistakes | YourHRGuy.com

This HR Guy Is Over Your Spelling Mistakes | YourHRGuy.com — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 13:04:20 +0000

[...] we keep going back to this tired and ineffective way to absolutely screen out candidates because we have a hard time evaluating whether or not someone is a good fit, has the skill set and is the right person for the job. So we latch on to anything concrete we can [...]

By: Laurie Ruettimann

Laurie Ruettimann — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:35:24 +0000

Also, you’re awesome. (That’s another test.)

By: Laurie Ruettimann

Laurie Ruettimann — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 23:34:59 +0000

I forgot to tell you that my greatest weakness is being a stalker. Also, I just wanted to test to see if my new site links to this website. It does! Hooray! Thank you.

By: Ashley

Ashley — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 05:59:50 +0000

I think a better question I was asked in an interview was to rank the 5 skills they gave me from best to worst. They said ” of course the last doesn’t mean you are bad at it, just that not as great as the first”. Uh huh. So they ended up finding my weakness without asking it directly.

great post- we should all ask ourselves what our weaknesses are and try to turn them into strengths (even when we aren’t preparing for an interview)

By: GBMGBM

GBMGBM — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 01:11:17 +0000

I am one who relies on this question in my interview. Basically if you open your mouth and say anything except “My weakness is that I have no weaknesses” you most likely aren’t going to meet with me again!

I use it more for a laugh then anything else, but it’s incredible at getting some things out of candidates. Word of advice, don’t give it to any Gen Y interviewing for a junior or entry level position – there simply isn’t enough time in the day to hear their response!

Great piece!