Do you have any weaknesses?

Should you talk about your weaknesses in interview?

I know I am going against popular opinion when I say this, but my view is yes.  So if you are looking  here for an easy answer on how to answer the weakness question in interview, then look somewhere else. There are plenty of other sites where you can find a prescribed script.

Most intelligent interviewers want to get a sense of the real you. OK, they know that you are not going to reveal your worst character flaw. But they do want to get a sense that they are talking to a real person, not an automation who cannot talk about anything other than their strengths. Nor do they really want to employ someone who dodges the question with a cliché answer.

All of the employers we interviewed for our book “What do employers really want” lamented the lack of self awareness among their teams and among people they interviewed. They simply wanted people to be themselves in interview.

Here’s what one employer said: (She’s a senior executive in the world’s biggest supplier of information.)

“A turn off in interview is when people are constantly in “sell” mode. Sometimes it’s nervousness, so I allow time for an applicant to get through that. Then there are people who use ‘sell’ as a barrier. They are the more difficult ones to deal with, because they will not let the barrier down. I’m not really getting to know them, so why would I want to employ them. I would rather someone say. ‘Look I have no experience in that area, but I think my skills would work really well, here.’”

Another employer, a senior HR Manager, said:

“What turns me off is desperation from a candidate, where people try to oversell themselves, who have given you a 50 page CV and over-emphasized their qualifications. There’s a level of over-kill that some people tend to go past…”

Think about it this way. You are in an interview because the strengths you have, lend themselves to that profession. A weakness you may have, may not actually be a deal breaker. We all know accountants or engineers who are not people people. They are not being hired for that, they are being hired for their technical skills.

The bottom line on talking weaknesses is to be genuine. Have a real conversation. If you can show that you understand what you are good at, what you are not good at, then talk about what you are doing about it, then you are coming closer to a real conversation about whether the role is right for you, and whether you are right for the role.

That’s kind of the point of an interview, isn’t it?

PS: Please don’t ask me if you should say that your weakness is that you care too much about the job. I get kind of cranky!