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.