Tips to Answer “What Is Your Greatest Weakness?” in Interviews

As a well-informed candidate, you wouldn’t want to sound uncertain or unprepared while answering, “What is your greatest weakness?” What if your answer works against you? Also, you cannot deny having a weakness.
Therefore, perfecting the answer to this common interview question is essential and the best way to go about it.
This article will share some tips on answering the ‘your greatest weaknesses’ question in a job interview.

“What Is Your Greatest Weakness?” in interviews?

Interviewers ask this common interview question to evaluate the following character traits of a candidate:

• Self-improvement: They want to know if you can adapt and evolve with time.
• Confidence: Hiring managers want to understand how confident you are in your skills and how well you can use them to get the desired result in difficult situations.
• Honesty: The interviewers want to know how honest you are about your weaknesses.
• Self-awareness: The hiring managers are trying to understand if you are conscious of your strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, if you are willing to mitigate the shortcomings.

Demonstrate these four personality traits while answering the “what is your greatest weakness?” question. Here are some tips on how to integrate them into your answer.

How To Answer About Your Weakness In An Interview

Choose a weakness that does not sabotage your chances of securing the job offer

Nobody is perfect; everyone has flaws. However, using them to your benefit sets you apart from the rest. Therefore, while discussing your weaknesses in the interview round, talk about the weaknesses you have turned into your strengths. Let the hiring manager know how you turned your liability into an asset.

Pro tip: It is essential to understand that the interviewer doesn’t expect you to be perfect. However, they expect you to be self-aware and honest about your weaknesses and work daily towards turning them around.

Be honest with your answers

As mentioned at the start of the article, honesty is an interview skill that can get you hired. Talking about your weaknesses in the job interview might initially sound intimidating, but it bears sweet results. It helps the interviewer understand you better and draw parallels between your ideologies, journey, and skills to the companies. It also helps them understand how self-aware and self-improving you are as a candidate.

For instance, you quit your previous organisation because adjusting to their work culture was challenging. So, mentioning that in the hr interview round and the steps you took to overcome the skill gap will highlight how self-aware and motivated you are as a professional.

Share instances of how you have overcome your weaknesses

Being vulnerable can be freighting, especially in front of strangers. However, being vulnerable can be equivalent to being open to change in the professional realm. It is a personality trait that most interviewers look for in their employees.
It helps reinstate the fact that the employee will successfully mould themselves into the company’s work culture.

Humanise your weaknesses

It helps the hiring manager to connect with you on a personal level. For instance, if you are an extrovert and are habituated to oversharing everything. Sharing that with the interviewer will help them visualise working with you in the future.

Be open about the help you need from the company

Overcoming one’s weakness is often a team task, especially in a professional set-up where the managers and the co-workers push you to get better at work.
Moreover, being open about the help you need will help employers realise your positive attributes like:

• You know how to identify and mitigate your flaws without affecting your work.
• You have found a helpful solution to a problem that you and perhaps the whole team might face at any time in future.
• You are self-aware and open to taking feedback in stride.

How to Choose Your Weaknesses?

Here are some common weaknesses that many people face at some point in their careers. You can take inspiration from these to determine your weakness.

• Lack of patience
• Lack of organisational skills
• Trouble with delegating responsibilities
• Timid personality
• Lack of tactfulness or strategizing skills
• Fear or anxiety about public speaking
• Indecisiveness
• Harsh self-criticism
• Micromanaging
• Oversharing
• Trouble maintaining positive work-life balance

What Are The Other Common HR Interview Questions?

Apart from your weakness, a hiring manager asks other personal questions. Here are some of the common HR round interview questions.

1. Tell us about yourself
2. Why are you leaving your current job, and what intrigues you about this role?
3. What are your hobbies?
4. Where do you see yourself in ten years?
5. How do you handle stress?
6. What are your biggest strengths?
7. What motivates you to do well?

You can even join leadership development programmes to discover your weaknesses, strengths, what motivates you, etc.

Emeritus India has partnered with renowned universities to offer freshers and working professionals the best leadership development programmes.