Yes, what is your greates weakness? Maybe, it is the most dangerous question which is asked in job interviews. The aim of this question is to learn how well you know yourself. How can you reply such questions? As you know, while you are talking about your greates weakness, you have to try to be positive and you have to focus on the solve and also be honest.
Why Should You Give Effective Answers?
You should give effective answers. Because you are a candidate for that job and you have to prove yourself. The authority or Human Resources Specialist or the employer or the manager waits you to introduce yourself with your answer to this question. Because they try to learn your characteristics, your reactions, weaknesses, etc. By giving well answers, you can help them. Your answers have big effect on their decision – whether you are suitable for that job or not. If you give an effective answer, you can affect them and they can accept you for that job.
There are three methods that can turn your weakness into your advantage at below:
- Mention about your characteristics which are not necessary for the job.
Firstly, you should have to analysize necessary characteristics for the job application which you want to apply for. After you make an analysis, you can mention about your weaknesses which are not related to the job. For example; if you apply for an assistance position, you can emphasize that your relationship is so well with people, but you can say as your weakness that you are not successfull to make a presentation to crowded groups. As you know, an asistant doesn’t make a presentation, it is unnecessary for that job.
2. Mention about your characteristics which you improve.
Another way to escape from this dangerous question is to describe about your characteristics which you improve in your previous workplace. So you can give a message to the authority that you have some weaknesses, but you can improve them when you come accross to need them. For example; I waited the last minute to make a plan but now I make my plans before. I noticed that to make a plan on time is so well.
3. A negative characteristic can be seen as a positive feature to someone.
You can mention about your positive characteristic as it is a negative feature. For example; you want to complete to do list immediately as wonderful. To say it will cause that the authority thinks for you to be a worker who completes his or her works on time and as planned.
There are some answer examples. You can use these answers while you are coming across such questions:
- “Organization hasn’t always been my strongest point. I’ve always been inclined to prioritize tasks that directly impact the bottom line, and maintaining a pristine desk or an organized inbox didn’t seem to truly move the needle in terms of my output. Over time, I’ve learned that keeping a clean workspace — both physically, and digitally — does support my ability to focus and enhance the efficiency of my workflow. I’ve implemented a time management system that enables me to stay organized without encroaching on my other responsibilities.”
- “When I’m working on a project, I don’t want just to meet deadlines. Rather, I prefer to complete the project well ahead of when it is due. While this means I never miss a deadline, it also means that sometimes I can find myself rushed when I’m working. I’ve since learned to slow down, be more patient, and give each project the careful attention it deserves.”
- “I like to make sure that my work is perfect, so I tend to perhaps spend a little too much time checking it. I’ve come to a good balance by setting up a system to ensure everything is done the first time correctly. I also time myself when I work to prevent myself from spending too much time on one project, and guaranteeing I’ll have enough time to get to the rest of my work.”
- “I used to wait until the last minute to set appointments for the coming week, but I realized that scheduling in advance makes much more sense. I’m now much more proactive about scheduling meetings, and this allows me to plan and segment out my work for the week without having to guess at when I’ll need to leave time for meetings.”
- “I’ve learned to make my perfectionism work to my advantage. I have become proficient at meeting deadlines, and with my attention to detail, I know that my work is accurate.”
- “I spend more time than necessary on a task or take on tasks personally that could easily be delegated to someone else. Although I’ve never missed a deadline, it is still an effort for me to know when to move on to the next task, and to be confident when assigning others work. In my recent position, I implemented a project management tool that allowed me to easily oversee the progress of all the tasks I assigned, which helped me feel much more comfortable delegating work.”
- “Numbers have not always been my strong suit. Fortunately, as a copywriter, I can focus most of my time on the creative process of writing. However, in recent years I have begun to familiarize myself with the digital analytics tools used in the various websites and apps I write for and found that when you add context, “numbers” can actually be quite enlightening.”
- “I used to like to work on one project to its completion before starting on another, but I’ve learned to work on many projects at the same time, and I think it allows me to be more creative and effective in each one.”
- “As an undergrad, I used to leave assignments until the last minute, but with the workload of graduate school, I had no choice but to schedule my time very effectively. This has translated into an excellent sense of time and project management in my professional work.”
