How to answer the "What is your greatest weakness?" interview question
During job interviews, the interviewer may ask, “What is your greatest weakness.
Your answer should be stating the weakness and then telling a story about how you faced your weakness and turned it into an opportunity to improve yourself.
Why do interviewers ask this question?
This is a popular question because your answer tells them:
Are you an honest person? Can you be trusted? (Do you lie in your answer?)
Do you have self-awareness? (Do you say you don’t have any weaknesses?)
Are you willing to improve?
Do you freeze? (Why would they hire someone who can’t think quickly or who can’t take pressure or who doesn’t prepare?)
How to plan your “What is your weakness?” answer
Keep these points in mind while writing your answer -
Choose a weakness that won’t keep you from doing the job
Choose a weakness that you can talk about and give an example of, but not something listed on the job description.
Don’t pick something that’s essential for the job.
For example, if “Java” is listed as essential for the job, don’t talk about how your Java skills aren’t great.
You can pick something important for the job but that you learned how to fix a long time ago, maybe at the beginning of your career.
Don’t say something that’s actually a pretty severe weakness. Like, “I have a hard time controlling my temper at work.” Why would I want to hire someone who has a bad temper and who doesn’t have the self-awareness to not mention this?
A lot of my clients give me answers like this - this is too severe of a weakness.
2. Choose a real weakness
Be honest – give something real. I know you don’t want to admit to any weakness, but we all have them.
I know admitting to a real weakness seems scary and like it’s not a good idea. This is why many interviewees try answering the weakness question with what I call a “fake” weakness.
Fake weaknesses
“I work so hard I get overloaded.”
“I have very high standards so I have a hard time delegating.”
“I get very competitive about my work.”
“I’m a perfectionist.”
Don’t use a fake weakness. It makes you look inexperienced and dishonest. Just imagine how often the interviewer has heard the same thing.
The weakness question is a chance for you to show that you monitor your behavior and have high standards. If you don’t pick a real weakness you’re not showing you’re capable of self-awareness.
3. Say how you’re working on fixing the weakness
Once you’ve identified the weakness, say how you’re working to overcome it or have worked to overcome it.
You can say that you:
learned about your weakness and then started working on it - say how
if it’s a skill, say you took a course
How to identify your greatest weakness
Your answer has to be real, not fake, but also not so severe it will keep you from getting hired. What should you pick?
Ask yourself these questions:
How have I failed in the past?
Have I made mistakes?
Have I gotten comments from my past managers criticizing any part of my work? Look at past performance reviews.
Do my colleagues complain about anything I do?
What do I hate doing at work?
The correct structure to use for your “Weakness” answer
State your weakness.
Give an example with it - when did you figure out that this was your weakness?
State how you’re working on improving it. Give details.
How has it improved? The results don’t have to be perfect; you can still be working on it.
Your answer can be one paragraph or several paragraphs. 2 minutes is enough for length.
Some common examples of weaknesses
These are some ideas I’ve seen people use that should give you an idea of what kind of ideas can work.
These first three are very common, so not a great idea to use.
My English
Since I work with a lot of non-native speakers, I often hear “My English” as a weakness. This can work, as long as you phrase it correctly.
Why is it a good choice of a weakness? Well, English is important if you’re working in an English-speaking environment, but it doesn’t have to be perfect unless you’re in a role like CEO or PR.
“I think one of my weaknesses is my English. Although I speak it pretty well, I know it’s not perfect. It bothers me a lot and I’m working on it by taking lessons every week, but I wish it were better. I’m very self-conscious about it.”
This is fine to say because it’s honest but it isn’t something that would be a reason not to hire you. If your English is really terrible that’s another story, and in that case you don’t want to draw attention to it by bringing it up.
My Writing
“My writing skills are my weakness. I’ve always been more of a technical person. I like working with computers and technology. When it comes to words I don’t have much of a gift. I do need to write emails for my job, so I make sure to use the grammar and spell check.”
Writing can be an important skill, even in some technical jobs, so if it’s going to be important for the job this isn’t a good choice. But in many jobs perfect writing isn’t essential.
I’m Bad at Presenting to a Group
This is a popular one, maybe so popular it’s too common to use.
“I’ve always been nervous when speaking to large groups of people. I don’t enjoy it at all. It hasn’t been part of my past jobs, so it hasn’t been a problem, but I’ve assumed that it might be in the future so I’ve been trying to speak up more in our team meetings and I volunteered for the office social committee. I also joined Toastmasters since that would force me to get some practice presenting before a group.”
This is a good weakness for a lower-level technical person, because public speaking isn’t generally a part of this level of technical jobs.
Here are some ideas that are less common, so you can modify them to fit your own situation.
I Don’t Know Much About Finance
This one was used by a VP of Product. It’s a risky move to be this honest, but his excellent track record means he can say he has a weakness and it won’t count against him, because a good interviewer knows that everyone does indeed have weaknesses. You could pick another area besides finance to talk about, like saying “I’ve been in manufacturing for so long I don’t know much about e-commerce.”
“As I’ve been more in a position to make decisions that have a larger influence across the organization, I worry about my own biases and blind spots. You’re taking a gamble about what things to focus on, and you’re always trying to figure out ways to mitigate that risk. I worry that not having a deeper knowledge of some areas, like finance, might make me miss something crucial. I would say it’s a weakness but it’s a weakness that I’m aware of and I intend to improve over time. But you know, weaknesses are part of being human.”
I’m Impatient
You can use this one if you can think of a way to make it sound like it’s not too serious of a problem. If you express it incorrectly you will make yourself sound like you’re hard to work with.
“I’m always impatient to finish things. This can be a problem because most of our projects take a month or more. I used to try to make everyone on the project finish quickly but I could see that the way I was handling it wasn’t very effective. I’ve had to learn how to keep myself calm over the long term and allow my colleagues to finish their work.”
or another sample for the same weakness
“I’ve been told by both managers and co-workers that I can be very impatient. When something has been identified as important to do, I want to work on it now and finish it as soon as possible. I expect that of myself, and I expect it of my co-workers and subordinates. I have learned to recognize that there are always more things to be done than any of us have time to do, and that we all often have different priorities. So I've focused on prioritizing my own work, either by myself or with my manager or team. I actually keep a list, and share the top 5 items on that list with my manager and my team. I find I can get more done this way, am focused on what is most important to my manager, and also have a better relationship with my co-workers and subordinates since I can better gauge when they are overwhelmed or dissatisfied with their workloads.”
I Dive Too Deep
“I like to dive deep into problems. There’s nothing wrong with doing research, but it often diverts me from more pressing activities. In the past this has been a problem so I’ve learned how to manage my time and balance exploring a problem more thoroughly with fixing the problem.”
I’m Bad at Giving Constructive Criticism / Too Critical of Others
“In the past I’ve given feedback to my colleagues that has been too negative. I wasn’t intending to be negative but that was how my words were perceived and this caused friction. I decided that if I have feedback for someone I need to write down my comments first so that I can think about them. Then if they are useful and not negative I will give them to the person.”
Procrastination
“One blind spot I have that became a weakness when starting my own company was procrastinating. After years working in an established company with proper processes and procedures in place I was struggling with getting things done by myself. I needed to get clear on how to achieve our goals so I put a few things in place to organize our work: I set up a calendar with monthly and quarterly objectives in the areas critical for company growth like marketing, business development, and project delivery. I scheduled Monday morning weekly plan meetings and end of the week retrospectives. I also added metrics. After 8 weeks we increased our output by 20% in marketing and 30% in business development. We also made very important decisions such as outsourcing several activities that we didn’t have the capacity to do internally. These habits we built back then are now part of myself.”
I’m Too Blunt
“I like to state my ideas clearly in meetings. I’m also a debater. I like to point out pitfalls of projects and take a contrarian view to ferret out problems, but then people get upset. I don’t think this is bad necessarily but I’ve been told I need to be more strategic and diplomatic about it so that I earn trust. After I heard that I altered the way I presented my ideas.”
Other Ideas
I’ve given you some ideas of weaknesses that have the weakness and improvement. Here are a few more ideas that don’t have the recovery section or details:
I Forget People’s Emotions - “I don’t take people’s emotions into consideration when I’m giving feedback or assigning work. I don’t celebrate the wins we have. “
I Think About My Employees’ Emotions Too Much - This is the opposite side of forgetting people’s emotions. Do you care so much about making your employees happy that you don’t enforce quality and deadlines?
I Push Myself Too Hard - “I can’t step back so I get burned out and don’t enjoy wins.”
I Take Business Too Personally - I throw myself under the bus when the client decides not to move forward.
I Like to Do Everything Myself - This can be too much like a fake weakness if you say you’re a perfectionist, but if you phrase it differently it can work. You can say that you are a perfectionist but you have deadlines and you have to meet them, and that you like to do everything yourself but you’ve learned you have to give up control in order to get everything done. You should give an example. For instance, “I wanted to do all the training and implementation myself but I realized it would never be done in time so I delegated.”
I Can’t Say No / I’m Too Nice / Too Eager to Please- This could be too much like a fake weakness unless you give a good example of a time it happened and how it negatively affected your work and say how you’ve learned to improve it.
You Don’t Use Data - One client said that he was told he advocated for things without backing his ideas up with data. He learned he should collect proof of what the customer actually needs and use that as the data to back up his ideas.
I’m Bad at Giving Feedback
Some people are bad at saying anything negative. This may make you a nice person but it doesn’t make you effective at work because sometimes people don’t perform well and something needs to be said about it. You can give an example of sometime you should have said something but didn’t and say how you learned from it.
Ways interviewers can ask the “Greatest Weakness” interview question
The question could be phrased in several ways:
What is your greatest weakness?
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
What are your biggest weaknesses?
What is your biggest area for growth?
What would your manager say is your weakness?
What is another team’s complaints about you?
Have you set a development goal for yourself?
Has your work ever been criticized by a manager?
If I called your boss now, what would she say you need to work on?
I’ve mentioned these so you’re not surprised if you hear the question in a slightly different format than you were expecting.
How many weaknesses do I need?
Sometimes they may ask you for one weakness, sometimes two, and sometimes three. I’ve never heard of anyone being asked for more than three.
So you shouldn’t have just one example you can use. Most likely they’ll just ask you for one, but you should have at least two.
Practice your answer
The "Greatest weakness" question is is one of the most challenging interview questions. It can be difficult to answer because it requires you to reveal a negative trait about yourself while still maintaining a positive and confident image.
However, with proper preparation and practice, you can turn this question into an opportunity to showcase your self-awareness, honesty, and ability to improve.
By practicing your answer, you can refine your response and make sure you address any potential red flags.
If you’d like some feedback about the weakness you’ve chosen, you can schedule a coaching session with me.
Related topics:
How to answer, “Why do you want this job?”
