What’s your greatest weakness?

[autumnboys]

I’ve just been involved in a round of interviews, as someone is coming to work in my department. I was very much the junior member of the interviewing panel, given the questions just as we were about to start. All candidates were asked the question ‘what’s your greatest weakness’

Later on, as the interviews were being analysed, candidates were considered to either have a) given a answer designed to make themselves look good or b) to have been too honest, eg given an answer that genuinely might be an issue in this job. No one gave what appeared to be an acceptable answer for my senior colleagues.

What’s the point of the question, then? And what would be a better question? We will be interviewing again soon and I would like to be able to explore replacing this question. Grateful for any thoughts.

It's a rubbish question, the only way to answer it without making yourself look like either a liar (I have no weaknesses) or rubbish (I'm not very good at X) is to say something cheesy like 'I'm just too committed sometimes'

A better question if you really must focus on negatives would be to ask the candidate to describe a time when they made a mistake in a past role and how they dealt with it

It's easy to be great in life if nothing goes wrong. It's how you deal with problems that shows your strengths. @MrsDoofus' question is a far better one than a trick question.

Eczema. As Keith famously said in the Office.

It’s a stupid question. I’m surprised any decent organisation would use it.

My response is that I hate filing but as it's invaluable I get on with it in a timely manner.

I once interviewed for the position I was vacating. I asked one hapless candidate what her greatest strength was. She dithered for a while and said she didn't know. I then asked what her biggest weakness was and she said, "I suppose my timekeeping". I said, "Well then I suppose we could put honesty as your greatest strength" I also hired her because I hated the prick of a boss I was leaving.

Thank you all for your response and for confirming that it’s not a useful question.

@MrsDoofus yes, that would be a better question. Many years ago, before children, I had a job that involved a lot of interviewing and you have reminded me that most of the questions then began with ‘can you tell me about a time when…..’

I’m going to be brave and draw up a list of alternative questions for the next lot of interviews. Thanks again.

It’s a stupid question

No IV w any sense would use it. Apart from anything else it’s context dependant.

@JustJustWhy

OP I think questions about what skills they’d like to improve on could replace the ‘what’s your greatest weakness’ question.

I do think that at one point that line of questioning had a value depending on the role but it’s become one of the bog standard questions now and I don’t know if a lot of interviewers even really know what they think they’re looking to find out with it.

case in point is your colleagues reactions, basically it’s a question that is set up to fail people. Even ‘safe’ answers are treated as a negative.

Some would say my intolerance of lateness. Others would call that a strength.

Definitely a stupid question. When I did recruitment, we used to ask for an example of a time that someone had identified a weakness or something they needed to improve and how they went about doing it.

Yeah. Stupid question. I'd say something inane.

I've recently been through a few interviews and been asked on a few "what's your greatest strength?" and also "what's your biggest weakness?". Such a load of BS, though I thought my answer of "I can take things too personally sometimes" was quite good

That said, I keep being asked for customer service-y scenarios..... When I'm interviewing for NHS admin roles!

NHS admin surely has customers though - both the patients and the medical staff?