What’s your biggest weakness | Best way to answer weakness question | Career Interview Tips

what's your biggest weakness it's one of those questions people love to ask in interviews but we may not be quite as excited to answer it so today I am going to show you the old-school advice that just needs to go away on how to answer this question then I will show you the proper way to answer it and I'll even give you a formula of how to answer it and some sample answers to make this one just a little bit easier than it probably seems right now I'm Cassandra Thompson your career consultant and it's time to get down to business so first let's talk about the wrong way to answer this question and that is the old-school advice of turn a weakness into a strength or disguise a strength it's a weakness whatever these are those answers like coin just such a workaholic I just have no idea how to do work-life balance basically saying like yeah yeah yeah I'll work for you all the time and I'll get all my work done or I get so caught up in the details I just care about the nitty-gritty so much great you have strong attention to detail here's the thing with those types of answers people see through it we've all read this advice we've all seen it somewhere everyone knows you're trying to disguise a strength as weakness now I do think and we'll talk about a little later in an example I do think there are certain things that are strengths and situations and weaknesses and others and what you want to give for a weakness probably will be situational just know that that goes into the right way to answer this question for the what's your biggest weakness question number one you're not going to give your biggest weakness and you are not going to give a weakness that is directly related to what you are doing but you are going to give an act weakness this feels hard this feels like you're laying your cards on the table right but they want to see that you're self-aware and know you're not perfect so what you want to do is you want to give an actual weakness but one that is not directly related to what you are doing so for example if you're in sales you are not gonna say oh my biggest weakness is that I'm kind of shy and I just have a real hard time approaching new people that's not gonna work that's the core of that job is to go talk to new and different people so it doesn't work for that you have to think relative to your situation what is something you're not great at and then you're gonna talk about how you're working on it so that is the formula essentially state your weakness how it affects your work or your life in some way and it is a weakness in situations and then don't forget you're going to finish on how you're working on it right now one of the best answers I ever heard for this was from a client who's actually an animator and worked in an animation studio she was very soft-spoken it wasn't surprising when she said well my weakness is that I'm very shy and highly introverted to things that are totally fine to be when you're an animator it's a pretty independent job in most situations you're off at your desk drawing by yourself but she said I realized this is a weakness because I'm not really connected at work I don't know everyone as well as I could so I decided that instead of eating lunch by myself I would go up and sit with other animators for lunch each day and from that it's been great I've met friends I've learned new skills because I've heard more of their process and how they do things and really improved my animation as a result as well and I'm going to continue trying to get out of my shell a little bit and meet new people it's a great answer it's not affecting the core of her work she can still do her job but she showed how life got just a little bit better by working on that weakness my go-to answer is very situational I am an external processor and I have an opinion on everything in certain cases that's great a little brainstorm like crazy but my answer to this question is always well I'm an external processor I'm very opinionated and I don't mind sharing opinions because I like bouncing off people that way however I realized it can look overbearing or a little too much when in every meeting when a question is asked I'm the first to share my opinion and I can see where that gets hard for others who may be needed a moment to internally process and think through their answer and maybe want her to share something else but feel like they know it can't because of that I know intentionally do not answer first in meetings and I give people a breath and I wait and try and hear a couple of people's answers before giving my own that's it it doesn't say oh I'm a horrible person but it's something I realized I need to work on because I want to make sure other people have the opportunity to feel hurt as well it's not gonna affect my day to day in my work but it does show some growth which is something you want to prove to this hiring manager okay so to recap answering the tell me your biggest weakness question it takes a little practice but it can be done to answer it don't share a strength disguised as a weakness but instead share a weakness that's situational and will not affect the day-to-day work of your job if hired and please don't forget to share how you've been working on it and the movement that you've seen now if you like this advice I have a whole playlist all on interviewing just for you there will be a card to it right here and I'll put it in the description box below so if you're in the midst of getting ready for interviews and prepping go through and watch those on their videos so you have the whole story and with that we are done for today please be sure to subscribe if you haven't already hit thumbs up if you like this video and the notification bellow so you know when new videos come out and share this with any of your friends who are also currently in the middle of the interview process that's all for today thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one you

Channel: Cass Thompson Career Advice

Views: 275,635

Rating: 4.9375629 out of 5

Keywords: cassthompsoncareer, cassthompson, cass thompson, Best way to answer biggest weakness questions, biggest weakness, tips for answering biggest weakness, biggest weakness interview tips, what’s your biggest weakness, what is your greatest weakness, greatest weakness, job interview greatest weakness, what are your weaknesses, what is your biggest weakness and how do you plan to overcome it, interview preparation and best practices

Id: 25zu6EEYl-I

Length: 6min 26sec (386 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 06 2018