Top reasons why interviewers love this question:

• Everyone has weaknesses. Most interviewers want to see how you identify your own and realistic plans to improve them.
• They want to keep the applicant talking and get a general feel of the person. Sometimes the answer doesn’t really matter to interviewers.
• Some are lazy and simply Googled “interview questions”.

#1 – Best and Safest Answer

• I am bad at x but I’m improving it by doing y.

Example of weaknesses that you can use:

• Public speaking.
• Introverted.
• Delegation skills.
• Lack of planning and prioritization skills.
• You can’t perform well when being micromanaged. If they’re not pleased with this answer, it’s a bad fit anyway.

Tips:

• Pick your best weakness.
• Pick weaknesses that are non-essential to your job.
• For fresh graduates, you can mentioned your inexperience in certain field (can pick from job description), but you’re a fast learner and you are taking initiative to improve on it.

#2 – Creative answers

• Prepare a card with phrase “Sometimes my over-preparedness comes across as arrogance.”. Put in the company’s logo, your name, applied position, expected salary, etc. Hand over the card slowly with a smile.
• I don’t do office politics, which tends to get misinterpreted as aloofness.
• Self-assessment, but I could be wrong.
• I could arguably interview better, I’m sure you are aware.

Best for:

• Jobs that require creativity.
• Companies with creative and fun culture.
• Hipster companies.

#3 – Funny Answers

• Job interviews.
• Mortality.
• Chocolate.
• Kryptonite.
• Brevity.
• Stairs.
• Bullets.
• Identifying weaknesses.
• Answering tricky questions in interviews.
• I tend to interview for jobs I am overqualified for.
• I tend to procrastinate. I’ll explain further some other time.
• Singing, but I promise if I work here I won’t sing, so it’s all good.

Best when:

• The interview went great.
• Interviewer seems to have a sense of humour.

#4 – Answers if you don’t want to get hired

• Unemployment.
• Honesty.
• I lie at interviews.
• Answering stupid questions sincerely.
• Impatient with stupid interview questions.

Best when:

• Interviewer seems to be a jerk.
• You just want to get outta here.

Try to answer with the meanest tone possible in case your interviewer thought your answer is genius.

#5 – Cliche Answers

• I’m a perfectionist.
• I work too hard.
• I care too much.