"What is Your Biggest Weakness?"
In a job interview, should you answer the the question, "What's your biggest weakness?" with a humble brag?
Honestly: No.
I hate this question because of the number of "humble brag"-type answers that I get: The overly cliched "I work too hard" or "I get too excited about projects," or similar answers. I don't ask this question. Unfortunately, other people on interviewing panels usually do.
What I appreciate in an interview is honesty. Having someone squirm to make their chosen "weakness" seem like an asset doesn't help me form an opinion of the person at all.
You know what impresses me? When someone describes a genuine weakness, and then goes on to tell me how they work to acknowledge it and work with it. I've had a candidate tell me that it was hard for him to remember to follow-up on tasks because he got very focused on what was currently in front of him. Then he went on to describe how he'd used calendaring in Outlook to manage reminders and follow-ups, and adapt his workflow to that blind spot. He owned that it was something he still struggled with, but of which he was also very aware, and actively working on improving. (We hired him.)
People have weaknesses and they make mistakes. If you can't talk about yours in an interview, then I worry you will hide mistakes and weaknesses once you're working for me. Give me something real, and let me get to know the real you. I'll let the interview run as long as it needs to — after all, if I'm going to spend 40 hours a week working with you for the next several years, it's time well spent.
Short answer: Yes, but it's not about your weaknesses. It isn't about your strengths either. It's about your self-awareness.
Long answer: Jason's answer is practical: What's more important is not your weakness but how you overcame it and how you are currently dealing with it. Ideally, the question should be: "Tell me about how you overcame one of your weaknesses"; not, "What is your biggest weakness?" This eliminates any possibility of misunderstanding between both parties at the table, and is clear and honest. This shows that the interviewer is self-aware, and has the ability to actually process an honest answer.
Sadly, that's not how usually the question is asked.
Because of the way the question is phrased, the burden of understanding the true intention behind the question is on the candidate, but not on the interviewer.
So, how do we use this opportunity for a win-win scenario?
If you are a candidate and you are asked to share a weakness, don't tell them any weakness that you haven't figured out how to deal with or overcome. Honesty about an open weakness in such a situation can backfire, and you will tend to think that you should never share a weakness in an interview again. Why would you put salt on your wounds? Dress them up first. If you have a weakness that you know how to deal with, emphasize your strategy and explain how you overcame it, and focus less on what the actual weakness is.
If you are a recruiter or an interviewer asking this question, understand that you must phrase it differently. Tell the candidate that you want to know the strategies they use to deal with their weaknesses, and are not interested in knowing what their weaknesses are. You can't demand to know a weakness without showing that you can process and respect honesty. If they tell you a weakness, it would be morally presumptuous of you to end the interview right there, because it indicates that you are looking for someone who doesn't have a weakness — which is unreasonable and unrealistic. [The best course of action is to] immediately move on and ask how the candidate is dealing with this weakness or plans to overcome it.
Find the full article at: http://mashable.com/2014/10/13/job-interview-weaknesses/
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