How to Answer Questions About Your Weaknesses
By Arlene S. Hirsch
Every successful executive has weaknesses as well as strengths.
The key is ensuring that your weaknesses don't become career-enders. Potential
employers will try to discern your shortcomings to ensure they don't hamstring
their company. Your challenge is to convince them that you don't bring lethal
liabilities.
One way to learn a candidate's weaknesses is simply to ask
directly during interviews, "What are your weaknesses?" While job
hunters lament this question, employers are determined to continue asking it
because the responses typically are so illuminating.
Seven Response Strategies
To make sure this question doesn't trip you up, here are possible
strategies that you -- as an interviewee -- can use to frame an effective
response. Remember that context is as important as content. Whenever you cite a
weakness, be sure to remind employers of your strengths. Be honest about your
shortcomings, but never cite anything that might genuinely interfere with your
ability to do the available job -- and do it well. The key is to present your
weaknesses in a way that demonstrates your real strengths and character.
Strategy 1: Cite a weakness that, under the right
circumstances, can prove to be an asset.
Conventional wisdom suggests that you respond by stating a
weakness that really could be perceived as a positive, such as: "I'm a
workaholic. I spend a lot of time at work making sure that I do my job
right."
As you can probably guess, employers usually see right through
this type of response because it's both dishonest and self-serving. A better
answer is to mention something that may be perceived as a weakness but, in the
proper context, constitutes a genuine strength. For example, empathy -- the
ability to identify with and understand another person's feelings -- is a good
quality when trying to understand an enemy. But an empathic manager may be
viewed erroneously as "weak" or "soft." A candidate who
offers empathy as a perceived weakness (but knows it's a
strength) can then cite a time when he or she used empathy to gain
competitive intelligence.
The "strength as weakness" strategy works well if you:
show the value of using the particular trait in a given context; demonstrate
that you know how and when to use it most effectively; and explain how you
might be able to use it to help your future employer.
Saying, for instance, that you're a perfectionist would work if
you can cite times when this trait is a strength
instead of a weakness. An example might be when proofreading or editing, since
perfectionism can guarantee error-proof copy. On the other hand, a perfectionist chief executive officer might micromanage his top
managers and paralyze the organization. Knowing the requirements of the
job and the organizational culture can help you decide whether a potential
employer will view your perceived weakness as a potential strength.
Strategy 2: Cite a corrected weakness.
Another strategy is to cite a weakness that you're working to
correct. Always provide concrete examples of what you're doing to fix the
problem, the progress that you've made, and how these improvements will help an
employer.
An international executive felt his career had suffered because he
wasn't fluent in Spanish. After losing a job during a corporate reorganization,
he decided to combine work with pleasure by signing up for a language-immersion
program in
In another scenario, a marketing executive who had lacked
expertise in customer-relationship management related how she had used her unemployment
to take seminars and courses in the field and was eager to apply her new
knowledge in her next job.
Strategy 3: Cite a lesson learned.
Similar to the corrected-weakness strategy, the lesson-learned
approach acknowledges real missteps and mistakes within the context of a lesson
learned. If you can demonstrate what you learned from your mistake, potential
employers will be reassured of two things: first, that you can learn from your
mistakes; and two, that you won't make this kind of mistake again. It's also
smart to link how this newfound understanding will benefit a new employer.
An assistant manager who was having a personality conflict with
her boss complained to her boss's boss about her manager. After that, she was
demoted to a sales-clerk position. Reflecting on the experience, she could talk
about the importance of "managing upward" and, with 20-20 hindsight,
how she would handle the same problem now.
Strategy 4: Cite a learning objective.
After reviewing the job description, you may discover that part of
the job requires more skill and experience than you now have. Rather than
assuming the potential employer won't notice this weakness, develop a strategy
to compensate for it.
For example, a candidate for an employee-benefits specialist position
knew that she had experience in five of the six technical areas that the
employer required. Before she interviewed, she researched certification
programs that were available through professional groups. Her goal was to learn
the language and expertise the skill required and also how long it would take
her to get "up to speed" in that area. When she cited this weakness,
she could then address what she needed to do to learn it and in what time
frame.
Strategy 5: Cite an unrelated skill deficit.
You may know of professional weaknesses or deficits that, while
troubling, don't interfere with your ability to perform well in a specific job.
The fact that you aren't a great public speaker won't hurt you much in an
administrative role. Your less-than-perfect writing skills may not be a
deal-killer if the job requires mostly telephone communication. Obviously, the
key is knowing the job description and career path
well enough to understand what's necessary to be successful. Clearly, you don't
want to identify a weakness that would genuinely affect your ability to do the
work.
Strategy 6: Deflect.
If you don't feel comfortable answering the question, you can try
to deflect it by saying that, while you obviously have weaknesses, you aren't
aware of anything that would interfere with your ability to do the job. If the
interviewer persists, you can turn this into an opportunity to discuss what's
important to you. You might say, for example, that you work best with managers
who trust and give you a lot of feedback. Or you might say that you tend to
perform best in a fast-paced environment with clear deadlines. Although you
aren't specifically citing a weakness, you are implying that you work better
under certain conditions.
You also can use humor to deflect the question, as demonstrated by
one general manager. When asked about his weaknesses, he liked to reply:
"Ask my parole officer." Of course, this joke works only if you don't
have any felony convictions.
Strategy 7: Address the unspoken question.
Interviewers who ask the weakness question may be more interested
in how you approach the question than in the specific weakness you cite. If you
want to have a more honest and direct conversation, you can begin by
acknowledging the concern and asking if the interviewer is wondering if you're
hiding a fatal flaw that should be uncovered. You also can review your
qualifications and ask if there's a specific concern that you could
address in greater depth. This allows you to tailor your responses to any
potential reservations or resistance. It also levels the playing field by
changing the dynamics of the interview.
Before using this strategy, assess whether you think the
interviewer will respond well to your directness. While some might find it
refreshing, being this direct may be intimidating to someone who prefers to
hide behind an interviewing script.
Although there's a performance element to interviewing, you aren't
an actor who needs to perform for an audience. You're engaged in a conversation
designed to determine whether you can work together effectively. Towards that
end, you can do your part to make the interviewer more of an active participant
than a passive observer and critic of your performance.
In the end, it isn't your mistakes and weaknesses that matter
most, it's whether you're aware of your weakness, understand its potential
impact on others and are willing to work to improve yourself. Your ability to
handle this question confidently and effectively can send a powerful message to
potential employers about your real strengths.
-- Ms. Hirsch is a career counselor in
Article from CareerJournal.
October 2004