What's Your Biggest Weakness?! (Sample Interview Answer)

finally the answer to what is your biggest weakness that terrible interview question that sometimes people ask now when it comes to answering this question there are some things that you really should do and some things that you really cannot do so first of all i'm going to start with the things that you really cannot do right because answering a question in a you know an okay way is fine but committing one of the cardinal sins of interviewing is not fine right and that's what i want you to stop doing so that's why i'm going to talk about those first so what are the things that you cannot say all types of things when you're answering the what is my biggest weakness question well first of all don't actually talk about your true weaknesses right might be obvious but if you have problems with things like time management or if you have problems with interacting with people don't talk about those things the whole point of this question well actually this question is a terrible question i don't understand why interviews asked it right i've interviewed for you know hundreds of people for one of the biggest companies in the world and i never asked this question because it's an awful question people obviously are only going to prepare for it and it's a question that they are going to use for their interview technique right it might screw up their whole interview even though they're a great candidate it's a terrible question but people still ask it so what you need to do is you need to make sure that you're doing the right things so going back to what was talking about what you do not want to do at the other end of the spectrum is talk about something disingenuous so what i mean by that is saying things like the classic well uh i actually i work too hard right my biggest weakness is i work too hard or my biggest weakness is i'm a perfectionist right because i know what you're trying to do and some people teach this and it's completely wrong because interviewers you know anyone who's interviewed more than three people can see around this which is you're trying to to reset your weakness as a strength right is it is it actually a weakness that you work too hard is it actually a weakness that that you're a perfectionist so you don't want to talk about those things because the interview will be able to see straight through it and they will know that you've just practiced some interview answer that you've seen somewhere right so to recap what you don't want to do you don't want to talk about real weaknesses a and b you don't want to talk about something which is not actually a weakness right you're trying to spin it so it sounds like a strength don't do that either because that's not answering the question fairly that's not answering the question respectfully to the interview they'll know exactly what you're doing and either of those are terrible terrible answers so what do you do instead and you should prepare something in case it comes up what you talk about and this is this is the interesting part what most people get wrong is what you actually talk about the ins the actually answer you the actual answer you give to what is that what is that weakness almost doesn't matter what matters is the explanation around it right that's the important thing so what we need to do when you're answering this question is pick something which would not impact your day-to-day work life right but it's something that it you know would be helpful right so a really good one is public speaking right hey because you know a lot of people suffer from that a lot of people suffer from having public speaking issues most jobs it doesn't matter right you don't have to actually go unless you actually need to be a public speaker in your role don't say that because then that's a true weakness right and maybe you shouldn't be applying for this type of job anyway um but something that is not core to the role that you'll be doing you know if you're an accountant don't say i struggle with math right don't you it's not that's not going to get you the job what you need to focus on are the things that are you know secondary as i said kind of outside of the job which could be helpful and in an ideal world the you know the best person out that role would have those skills but if you don't it's not that much of a problem so pick something like that public speaking like i said is a really really good one okay then what do you do because once you you know if someone asks you what's your biggest weakness you say public speaking right that's you can't leave it like that that's that's not how an interview works so you need to be an active interview means you need to add more to it so what you do in this case is you talk specifically about how or why why that weakness came up and what you've done to solve it right that's the important thing what have you done to show that you're overcoming this weakness right it's absolutely loaded with psychological tricks when you do that right because it will get the person the interviewer thinking to themselves oh okay this person's actually working on their weakness right it's a fantastic attribute that you want from your from your future employees so what do you do you talk about your weakness maybe it's public speaking you say oh yeah it's been an issue since name a time when something happened that allowed you know that showcased this so oh during college actually you know i had to do a presentation and it went badly blah blah um but ever since then i you know i've i've i've noticed this um and i realized that public speaking is actually something that you know if i can if i can if i can fix it and i can and i can get better at it it's going to make a big difference because of whatever reason and that reason should relate to the job that you want to get because it allows me to speak more confidently in front of clients because it will allow me to speak more confidently in front of the product managers in our team because it will allow me to speak more confidently in front of journalists whatever it is that you do in your current role or your the role that you want to that you want to get that you're interviewing for and then importantly once you've done that you then talk about the strides that you have made to fix it to get better at it right so it might be um so with public speaking you could say actually um i you know i've realized this is a weakness i know why why i need to get better at it would have this impact and what i've actually done to uh to try and overcome this weakness is to join a debating club um where you know i'm kind of forced to get up and speak in front of people it's quite challenging and you know it's not always the most fun part of my week and i actually use that time to improve myself right so i would still classify public speaking as you know is one of my biggest weaknesses but it's something that i'm really strongly working on because i realize the benefit of being much better at it right absolutely perfect interview answer if you answer it that way the interviewer is going to be blown away right it's so so important that you have each one of those steps right so let's recap you talk about a a kind of secondary subsidiary um weakness that you have that won't that won't impact your job at a core level right so you don't talk about a real weakness and you don't talk about a disingenuous weakness like i'm perfect i worked it hard right don't do that so talk about this core weakness this non-core weakness that's what we want to focus on then you talk about when you actually notice this weakness coming up then you talk about why that weakness is something that if you overcame it you realize how it would how it would benefit the role that you're going to get and then finally you talk about the work that you are doing to overcome it things that you've done classes that you've been to whatever it is right and then you tell you you mention that hey it's still a weakness but it is something that i'm actively overcoming right so so powerful when you do this that is how you answer what is my biggest weakness i've done this so many times with so many clients and it works to perfection so i'm gonna be recording more videos on what you say in different scenarios um in different interviews both for you know people who are in their kind of mid-career and also in the late create in their lake because that's who we help and you know we help people get hired into their dream roles their career defining positions we call it the one the one position that you deserve that's gonna make all the difference to your life right that's going to be that's going to mean more fulfillment and impact and earning potential we do this every day and we're very good at it okay so i want you to hit that subscribe button on this video because then you'll get notified when i record more videos and i release them talking about all these topics and more so press that subscribe button and i'll see you in the next video

Channel: James Whittaker - The Ambitious Exec

Views: 12,794

Keywords:

Id: L7SZz60xeN8

Length: 9min 13sec (553 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 30 2021