Five Good Answers To The Question 'What's Your Greatest Weakness?'

Dear Liz,

I always panic when I get the interview question "What's your greatest weakness?"

Like you, I don't think my weaknesses are anybody's business, but I don't want to embarrass myself or the interviewer by saying so.

I suspect that the person interviewing me didn't decide to ask that question because they really care about my weaknesses. They were given a list of questions they have to ask.

I don't hold obnoxious interview questions against the interviewer, but those questions still bother me.

Can you suggest a good way to answer the question "What's your greatest weakness?"

Thanks Liz!

Yours,

Gianna

Dear Gianna,

"What's your greatest weakness?" is one of the worst interview questions ever, but you are bound to run into it on your job search.

Companies that do not know how to interview people properly almost always include this brainless question on their interview script. They are stuck in the 1950s. These days, well-brought-up people do not ask perfect strangers what their "weaknesses" are!

Here are five ways to answer the pointless and insulting question "What's your greatest weakness?"

What's your greatest weakness?

Dark chocolate! How about you?

What's your greatest weakness?

There are millions of things I don't do well — and will never do well — like playing golf and repairing cars, so I try to put myself in situations where I can do the things I do well and love to do, like Public Relations.

What's your greatest weakness?

Right now I'm teaching myself Excel, which I never really learned before. I used Excel here and there but I never understood all the functions, so I'm learning how to build nested spreadsheets and a bunch of other tasks that will come in handy in my next job!

What's your greatest weakness?

When I was younger I used to obsess about my weaknesses. I took classes and read books to try and correct what I thought were my 'defects.' Now I focus on getting better at things I know I should be doing -- forecasting and creating financial models, specifically -- and invest less energy in things I'll never be good at, like graphic design.

What's your greatest weakness?

I am fascinated  by thorny problems I run into at work, and I sometimes get so deep in exploring them that I have to tear myself away — but once a complicated problem grabs my interest I will return to it when I have time, and get to the bottom of it!

End of Script

It is only a belief — not a fact — that people have weaknesses at all. It is dogma, closer to an article of religious faith than objective reality. What is a weakness, after all?

Everyone is good at a few things and really bad at lots of other things — including millions of activities they have never tried! Here's the important question: why should we keep track of, much less worry about, anything we're not good at?

That would be a waste of our precious time and energy!

Any interviewer who wants you to ponder your weaknesses — especially interviewers who treat this silly question as a serious test of a job-seeker's "self-awareness" — is someone you do not need in your life.

If the person who asks this question very seriously and weighs your answer carefully is also your hiring manager, you may not want the job!

It's a new day. The Human Workplace is already here, and you deserve to work in a place where the people get you. The people who get you, after all, are the only ones who deserve you!

All the best

Liz