“What is your biggest weakness?” is a question that is starting to disappear from interviews,
especially for graduate programmes, because it has become very cliché. However,
there are still plenty of old school hiring managers out there who (some would
argue out of laziness…) like to ask this question, in part because they know
everyone absolutely hates answering this one. Even Barack Obama faced it during his presidential campaign
from several journalists!
The main stage I’ve heard it used at for
graduates is in final stage partner/director interviews – which unfortunately
makes it a question you definitely need to be prepared for because getting a
‘no’ at this stage of the process - even if you’ve done really well in a
challenging assessment centre - is usually career-limiting.
In general respondents still use the approach
of ‘I know you are asking for a weakness, but I am going to tell you something
that you will actually see as a positive.’ Something like ‘I like to get into
the detail of something because I like to make sure everything is done right’,
or ‘I need to learn to say no – sometimes I get involved in too many things and
get pulled in too many different directions.’ Or my favourite (!) ‘I’m a
perfectionist’. Oh please – so boring, and doesn’t lead the conversation
anywhere…
To be honest, as a recruiter, that trick is
very old now. It is really dull when
someone rolls out an answer such as these and in general it doesn’t inspire me
to push them forward to the next stage. I prefer to
hear honesty about a development point and some evidence of how you’ve already
started working on it:
“At the end of my internship, I was given a lot of positive
feedback but I also asked for development points as I was keen to make sure I
learned from the experience. My manager told me that sometimes in meetings I
needed to be more confident, because most of the time the points I raised with
him after the meeting were spot on, and he wished I had said them in the
meeting. I knew this was something
that I needed to work on, and I was trying to, but to have a manager I
respected raise it with me really reinforced the point.
I reflected on the occasions where this had
happened – where I had regretted not making my point in a meeting – and I realized
that had I spoken up at the time, I would have been seen in a positive light by
the directors at those meetings as I would have been making pertinent points
and would probably have enhanced my prospects of advancement. I also realized
that the worst thing that could happened would have been I made a point that
wasn’t necessarily relevant and the meeting would probably have just moved on
and no one would really have thought the worse of me except that I was trying
to participate, which in general people appreciate rather than just sitting
there quietly.
On my return to university, I was put in a
project team with some more senior members of the faculty around whom I did
feel quite intimidated. I set myself a challenge of making sure that I spoke up
in the first team meeting at least once. I was very nervous, but I did it.
After having made one point, which was picked up on and further discussed, I
found that I made two and three more points and got more involved in the
discussion as my confidence grew.
I still do get nervous in meetings, but I
am working hard at it and feel that I am getting much better as I am exposed to
more opportunities to participate. If I got this role, I would continue to work
on this development point.”
This is broadly an answer that I had a
couple of years ago and I thought it was a good, honest answer and demonstrated
something who wasn’t playing games with the weaknesses question. I also liked
that she was well-prepared as it was very articulately discussed.
I’m not saying that you don’t walk a fine
line with some answers like this – if you take this approach, you have to have
a finely-tuned answer about how you have worked to improve that development
point / ‘weakness’ – but there is something very refreshing about someone who
has been given some tough feedback and instead of ignoring it, or thinking the
person giving the feedback is just wrong, has taken it onboard, analysed where
they are going wrong, and then gone about correcting it in a methodical and
conscious way.
As a line manager as well as a recruiter,
the idea of training and developing someone who is open to feedback and really
works on improving themselves as a result is quite exciting because it is
possible to have proper, frank development conversations with someone like that
and really bring them on quickly. Their prospects for advancement are much better
than for others in my mind.
(As a slight aside, I would avoid actually
using the word ‘weakness’ in your answer, even if they have said ‘weakness’ in
the question. It is a word with such negative connotations. I prefer
‘development point’ or ‘areas for improvement’ – I would use that language
instead of ‘weakness’ if I were you. They are also words that indicate more
self-awareness and confidence.)
What’s your “weakness”? If you know, then
you’re already half way to an answer because being conscious of it and knowing
you need to do something about it is already more than many people.
GR
