How to Answer: What Are Your Strengths and Weaknesses?
If you haven’t properly prepared for your job interview, it can be stressful. The best method to prepare for interviews and land a job at your dream company is to practice the most popular interview questions. Every candidate is asked a variety of interview questions, which set the tone for the remainder of the interview. The following are some of the most common interview questions:
- Introduce yourself.
- What are your weaknesses and strengths?
- Why do you wish to work for us?
“What are your strengths and weaknesses?” is the most crucial interview question. It helps you differentiate yourself from other candidates and demonstrate why you are the perfect fit for the job position and organisation.
What Are Employers Looking For?
Before you start thinking of the responses to the interview questions, it’s crucial to understand why interviewers ask such questions and what they intend to gain out of them. Interviewers are interested in how self-aware you are and whether you are willing to work on your weaknesses. Interviewers might use your strengths to determine why they should choose you over other candidates.
Basically, this question gives the interviewer a good understanding of who you are and allows them to compare you to other contenders for the job. It’s critical to realise that your strengths and weaknesses are less important than how you communicate them. Everyone has weaknesses, but the employer is looking for you to communicate them so that they become your strengths.
Don’t worry! We will explain the best way to address this difficult interview question.
How To Address The Strengths And Weaknesses Question?
Follow this simple technique to answer the question “What are your strengths and weaknesses?” for an interview.
Think carefully about what strengths and weaknesses to reveal
Use the job description
The job role’s needs should be reflected in your talents and weaknesses. Make sure to emphasise the talents specified in the job description and explain how you plan to acquire or enhance the crucial skills you lack. Project management, communication, team management, and other skills that can be reinforced by experience should be among your strengths. Give examples to the interviewer to back up your strengths. If you don’t want to lose your job, your flaws should include talents that aren’t critical to the position. Always back your weaknesses with examples of how you’re working on them.
Do not over reveal weaknesses
While it’s vital to be honest about your weaknesses, some characteristics aren’t suitable or advantageous to bring up during a job interview. Poor attention to detail, anger issues, and an inability to fulfil deadlines are a few weaknesses that you should avoid as they can lead to job loss.
Convey weaknesses in a positive light
The greatest method to answer the question about your weaknesses is to point out those weaknesses that are truly hidden strengths. Excessive attention to detail and workaholic tendencies are hidden strengths that can be conveyed as weaknesses, which would amaze interviewers.
Be honest
While discussing your skills and weaknesses in an interview environment, honesty is one of the most critical things. It may sound cliche, but it is true. A genuine and sincere response will impress, while a generic or overstated response will do the opposite. Interviewers are skilled and can easily detect if you are lying.
Keep answers short
You don’t have to spend most of the interview answering these questions. Only mention the most crucial qualities relevant to the job position or description. Keeping the question brief helps show that you are telling the truth and not lying.
Examples Of Strengths
When it comes to discussing your skills at an interview, the goal is to use the opportunity to show that you’re the best fit for the job, the team, and the company. Here is an example of how to respond to the strengths part of the question.
- One of my biggest assets is my ability to handle groups of people. As a team leader, I effectively managed a team of ten members and prepared a training program for all team members to ensure that they were comfortable in their new roles. As a result, during the first two months, we improved product sales by 10%.
Examples Of Weaknesses
A nice method to approach this topic is to portray a weakness that isn’t too extreme but rather one that is positive in some way. Here’s an example of how to respond to the weakness section:
- I am afraid of public speaking and had bad experiences in the past. As a result, I’m currently enrolled in a public speaking course to help me gain confidence and my communication skills.
Final Thoughts
The most common question in any job interview is, “What are your strengths and shortcomings”? Therefore, practice your response in front of a mirror and friends. Make a list of your job-related strengths and a list of your weaknesses to bring up during the interview.
All the best for the interview!
