What Are Your Strengths? | Best Answer | What Recruiters Look For

hey everybody so what are your strengths let's talk about this common job interview question starting with how to answer it if you're in a job interview and they ask you what are your strengths what are you gonna say well you're probably gonna rattle off a list of positive things about yourself that will hopefully persuade them to select you now contrary to popular belief this question is actually very similar to another popular job interview question why should we hire you think about it for a second if they ask you why should we hire you what are you going to say well you probably rattle off a list of positive things about yourself that will hopefully persuade them to select you right it's the same answer it's because it's the same question this is not really a very tough question to respond to but it's actually a deceptively hard question to get the answer right let's dive in now the problem with this question okay what are your strengths or why should we hire you it's the same thing the problem is that you might consider something you have a strength but how do you know that the interviewer can also consider that to be a strength let me give you an example let's pretend i was in a job interview and an interviewer asked me so bill what are your strengths and i said well okay my number one strength is that i tend to make very good decisions okay i take the time necessary i do my research i don't buckle the pressure and when i do make a decision it's the right decision i never have to go and redo work twice because i got it right the first time i'm much more efficient that way and it's because i make good decisions that's my number one strength okay so let's pretend i said this okay now i consider this to be a good answer and i'm being genuine i genu genuinely do feel that way about myself but unbeknownst to me it turns out the job i was interviewing for it's in a fast-paced environment and they're looking for employees that can go right they can get things done they can accomplish tasks they can be productive okay so when the interviewer hears my answer they think you know um that's actually not what we're looking for we don't want somebody sitting around mulling over decisions doing research you know getting other other people's opinions we want someone that can go right they can just get on with it get things done accomplish tasks and get work completed okay we want people to be productive and so i'm sorry i think we're going to go with somebody else that's the problem with this question it's pretty easy to say things about ourselves that we consider to be strengths but a lot of times the interviewer doesn't necessarily consider them to be a strength okay so how do we fix this what can we say well here is the answer okay in the job posting they've already given us what exactly they're looking for okay there's usually a section called requirements and they've listed some of the technical requirements for the job right they've said things like we're looking for someone who's got five years experience in a senior role or someone who has this educational qualification or someone that has experience using these particular tools okay so they've given this to us now when they ask us you know what are your strengths a better answer is to go down the job requirements and speak to each one okay so for example they say what are your strengths and you say well my strengths are that i have five years in a similar role right i have this particular educational qualification and i do have experience using these particular tools those are my strengths now when you say this the interviewers are thinking oh okay this is stuff that they were looking for anyway now the odds of you saying something that you think is good that they don't consider a strength the chances of that goes down dramatically okay when you give this answer however we're not quite done here okay when i say go down the list of job requirements and speak to each one what does that actually mean okay now if you meet the job requirements you don't really have much of a problem you say you have it you meet it right and there's no issue but what if you don't actually meet all the job requirements let's face it most jobs that are posted they usually have a long list of requirements and the odds that you meet every single one to the letter are rather remote so what if there's a specific job requirement that you don't actually meet what do you do well you might think that you would not mention it but i disagree i recommend that you do mention it and that instead you say how even though you don't mention it how it's not going to be a problem for example let's say they're looking for a certain educational qualification okay now maybe you don't have that exact educational qualification but you have something that might be a substitute for it okay so you could maybe explain well i don't actually have this qualification but i do have two years of a four-year university degree where i took all the courses that pretty much covers everything that's in that qualification that you're looking for so although i don't have it i have been exposed to that i am familiar with that knowledge i've been taught it i've applied it and it's never been a problem before okay so even though you don't actually meet the requirement you can hopefully put their mind at ease that it's not going to be a problem okay and that's all you have to do a lot of times in in job postings all the requirements are all not absolutely necessary it may not be a deal breaker if you don't meet one or two or possibly more of these requirements okay so you know if you have something that can substitute or you can put their mind at ease in the sense that you have something that's comparable to it that's what you explain okay you're using this question as a vehicle to communicate to them how you fit the job requirements okay that's his purpose and that's the advantage of answering this way now a question that comes up quite often is that as a lot of us know job interviews are not really necessarily about technical skills a lot of the times they're about soft skills okay soft skills things like your charisma how likable you are you know your communication skills your interpersonal skills your sense of protocol uh your ability to persuade people your ability to negotiate maybe the quality of your written communication as well as your verbal communication right these are all soft skills even things like you know public speaking skills negotiation skills the list goes on and on okay a lot of times they can gauge your technical skills from your resume but the reason why they invite you in for an interview and they want to meet you face to face is because they want to gauge your soft skills so soft skills are what they're looking for at least to a certain degree so the question is when they ask you what are your strengths should you mention soft skills this is a question that's been oft debated okay now i highly recommend that you don't mention soft skills simply for the reason that soft skills are not something that you have to explain that you have soft skills are something that you're demonstrating you have just by you talking to them okay and that's what they're looking for they want to see it firsthand so if you say you know i'm a very likable person you know or i've got very good communication skills they're judging you directly not because of what you said that you have but because you're what you demonstrate okay so often it's not necessary to explicitly state things okay however there's a bit of a debate on this now i would argue that um when it comes to the pros and cons of whether you should mention soft skills i would argue that uh it's a con you shouldn't mention it because saying you have something doesn't prove that you have it okay um however if you do it a certain way okay it is possible to demonstrate that you understand the importance of a soft skill by virtue of the fact that you mentioned it okay so for example if you're going for a customer service job and uh you suspect that something that you're gonna have to have is you're gonna have to have rapport with customers and you're gonna be the type of person that customers want uh would enjoy speaking with right that's something that you could say that you have and thus prove that you understand the importance of that but you leave it to your actual interaction uh during the job interview to demonstrate this okay that's what i would say about this now um the problem of course here is that you're having to guess as to which soft skills they consider a strength and sometimes it's not super intuitive because i have seen companies that you know for example if you say that you know one of your strengths is that you're a very nice positive person okay you would think that would be pretty benign and that anybody would find that to be a strength but i have seen some companies that actively don't want that for example if you're up for a receptionist type job uh and you have to be the gatekeeper from the public that are calling into the company and uh you know you're the person that either forwards their call through or kind of stops them at the uh at the switchboard i have seen some companies that don't want a very nice amiable person they want someone that can direct traffic someone who can take care of business and deal with people and say no to people if necessary and they might regard being super nice and amiable as not really a strength for this type of role just as an example okay so the problem with mentioning soft skills is that you have to take a guess as to which soft skills they would consider valuable so one practical solution here is if you do want to mention soft skills you can say maybe mention one or two of them but they're not general soft skills that you have they're soft skills that you feel are essential to this role or to this job and for that reason you might want to mention them okay now i hope that was helpful thank you very much for your attention i just want to say 70 of all jobs that are out there are hidden all the jobs you see in the jost the post to job market those are only 20 to 30 percent of all the jobs that are actually out there the rest of them the vast majority of them are in the hidden job market now if you're wanting to know how to break into the hidden job market how to discover those jobs apply for them and get them i actually have a course called get hired and i have a link in the description uh it not only teaches you how to tap the hidden job market discover those jobs and get those but it teaches you how to ace a job interview and questions like this i go much deeper into and cover everything you need to know so check that out if you're interested don't forget to subscribe and always always remember you are awesome take care

Channel: The Companies Expert

Views: 374,227

Keywords: What Are Your Strengths? | How to Answer (from former CEO), advice, job interview, questions, question, get hired, recruitment, hiring, selection, hr, personal development, what are your strengths, why should we hire you, candidate, strength, requirement, job requirements, how to answer, best answer, sample answer, example, why should I hire you, job description, The Companies Expert, you're awesome, interview, interview question, success, preparation, interview preparation

Id: E5Gt2W9zKJE

Length: 12min 45sec (765 seconds)

Published: Tue May 04 2021