What's your greatest weakness? 3 ways to answer like a pro

The question of weaknesses is both pervasive in behavioral interviews and daunting to answer. Thankfully, there are several ways to answer this question and coming out of the interview unscathed. In my opinion, there are three tiers to possible ways to answer this question:

Tier 1: Hard Skills

If the job that you are applying to might benefit from you having specific hard skills, like Excel, R, Python and the like, you can point to the fact that you aren’t where you want to be with this skill set and are actively working on addressing it. So something to the effect of, “I currently struggle to write my own formulas in Excel, and have registered for a certification course which ends in two weeks.” This shows that you are lacking in the area of Excel, and are actively doing something about it.

Pro Tip: This is the weakest of the three tiers and might underwhelm the interviewer. This being said, it’s still better than either a) pointing to something that used to be an issue and has since been addressed, or worse b) pointing to a strength and dressing it up to sound like a weakness.

Tier 2: Talents That You Lack

If you happen to take the Clifton Strengths assessment and receive your full sequence, you will see that the bottom of your sequence (talent themes 30-34 or so) will have areas that you simply will never be great at. Similarly, you might also be aware that you really struggle with attention to detail, big-picture thinking, or others. If you are applying for a position that doesn’t have these skills or talents as a hard requirement, then it’s safe to say something to the effect of, “I have really struggled with keeping my eye on the big picture as I tend to focus more on details. To manage that, I make it a point to partner with people for whom big-picture thinking is a strength so that we can both add value in our own ways.” This, as far as I am concerned, is a perfectly adult and responsible way to answer the question of weaknesses. Everyone has weaknesses and knowing yours and showing that you have a way of actively addressing them is important to employers.

Pro Tip: There is no sense in developing the talents at the bottom of your sequence as you will never be good enough in those areas for it to make a meaningful difference. Instead, capitalize on those talents that you can really excel at.

Tier 3: Your Top Talents

 This is where things get really tricky, but bear with me. Again, if you have taken the Clifton Strengths assessment, your top 5 or 10 talent themes will be those that are the path of least resistance in developing into extraordinary strengths. This being said, the instrument is a misnomer as it doesn’t assess strengths at all. As mentioned above, it merely assesses what talents come most naturally to you. It may be, however, that you aren’t intentional about how you deploy them. Imagine a wolf. Wolves have innate talents like hunting small animals, using aggression to settle a disagreement, working in teams, among others. If you bring a wolf into your home, it will likely wreck the place. But, if you can train it to build on its talents and only use them when needed, you suddenly have an extraordinary guard dog or hunting dog. Similarly, if you haven’t taken inventory of your raw talents, it may be that they show up in ways that aren’t helpful to you. For instance, someone with a natural talent for communication might overuse that talent and speak out when they should otherwise be listening. Someone who has a strong drive for making sure their projects are perfect may be overly judgmental of others and difficult to work with. Having an awareness of which of your talents sometimes get away from you and cause problems allows you to then manage them by maybe focusing on another talent that might be more appropriate in the moment. So as an example, to the question of weaknesses, one could say, “While I pride myself on my ability to empathize with others, it sometimes comes at the cost of me struggling to make difficult management decisions. When that happens I focus on my ability to also treat people with consistency such that I don’t let my empathic side override managerial decisions.”

Pro Tip: Being able to answer at this level requires a significant amount of introspection. Working with a good coach can help you dig deeper to attain a clearer understanding of who you are and how you can add value.

Don’t let this question intimidate you. This can be one of the highlights of your interview if you answer it in a thoughtful and mature way. If you have questions about anything I wrote, please feel free to reach out to me directly.