Best answer what is your weakness

While I understand diversity in personalities makes a business strong, I tend to quiet my own ideas and opinions around louder colleagues. To combat this, I have made it a point to spend more time with colleagues I feel uncomfortable working with. By learning more about them, their communication style and motivations, I am better able to collaborate with these personality types so that we both equally contribute our strengths and skills.

While it is certainly honorable and shows a strong work ethic to spend your time and energy on work, it is also necessary to prioritize resting, going on vacation, spending time with your family and enjoying hobbies. Doing so can help you feel refreshed when you are at work and can increase motivation, creativity and support a positive outlook. If this is the weakness you choose to present during your interview, explain the ways you have learned to balance life and work and how you have seen your work improve as a result.

Before providing this as an example, you should do extensive research about the company culture. I have seen a negative impact on my motivation and focus when I ignore my personal needs.

As a result, I have made it a point to focus on creating space in my schedule to focus on volunteering and spending time with my family. Taking small actions like putting my phone on silent during dinnertime is helpful. Many jobs require candidates who are comfortable individually defining tasks and working towards goals. This means they should be experienced, thoughtful and responsible with ambiguity in the workplace.

While it is certainly a beneficial skill to closely follow detailed instruction, it is also necessary to be able to determine what it takes to achieve the desired outcome. If this is the weakness you are presenting in an interview, explain the success you have found following instructions but also your career potential when finding comfort with ambiguity. You should also explain the steps you are taking to define your workday when given ambiguous tasks or goals.

Because I became familiar with having a strong direction, I tend to be unsure when approaching an ambiguous assignment or goal.

It is a goal of mine to become not only comfortable but successful working with ambiguity. Numbers have not always been my strong suit.

Fortunately, as a copywriter, I can focus most of my time on the creative process of writing. Why It Works: This response features a weakness that isn't critical for success at this job. It also shows how the candidate has improved and upgraded her skills.

Another option is to discuss skills that you have improved upon during your previous job or that you are actively working on improving. Begin your answer by talking about where you started and the steps you took to improve, and then highlight the outcome. If you use this strategy, be sure not to mention anything that you improved upon that would be critical to the position for which you are interviewing, as you don't want your qualifications for the job to be questioned.

One area I improved on in the past is my salesmanship skills. However, since I do communicate quite frequently with the sales team, I felt it might benefit me to have a greater understanding of their strategies and tactics. I took a sales skills course online. This course also helped me build upon the skills I use to "sell" my vision for the product internally.

Why It Works: This response works well because it clearly shows how the candidate has improved upon the skills needed to do the job effectively. Another option for answering is to turn a negative into a positive. For example, a sense of urgency to complete projects can be turned into a positive; e. Or perhaps you find yourself with an attention to detail that leads you to triple-check every item on a spreadsheet and proofread every email you send twice.

Regardless of what you say, it is critical to indicate that you are mindful of this trait and capable of preventing it from interfering with your productivity. I have a very strong attention to detail. Sometimes, this can turn into a tendency to perfectionism. Why It Works: The candidate is showing the interviewer that she has the time management skills to focus on a detail-oriented project. Review more examples of answers to help you frame your own response.

Wrong Admitting to a weakness that is necessary for the job. I have anger management issues. I tend to blow up when someone makes me angry or nervous. I like people. I have a couple of regulars who are as grumpy as me, and we get along fine. I would say my greatest weakness is my writing skills. I like crunching numbers. But when it comes to words I get tongue-tied and forget the rules. The app gives the activity a tech feel, which makes the whole thing more comfortable for me as well.

Plus, she is taking measures to do better. Wrong A real weakness, but one that would affect your job performance. My greatest weakness? No matter how hard I try, no one laughs when Bobo does his clown show. Right My greatest weakness is that I am a shy and nervous person by nature. The result is that I have a difficult time speaking up in groups. Even if I have good ideas, I have trouble asserting them. Often I keep them to myself.

Here the candidate is admitting a common and real weakness. Make sure you tailor your response to the job description. Once, I suggested an idea for a project. The project manager shot it down, and I did not protest. The supervisor heard about my idea. I decided that it was time to sign up for speaking classes. I also took some acting classes. The acting classes helped me learn to separate my professional self from my shy self.

That helped me a lot. Now, the candidate talks about the steps she took to improve her weakness. She took classes that she felt would help relieve her shyness at work.

The next time I worked on a project, I stood by my ideas. I spoke up and asked the project manager to take a second look at what I had proposed. She agreed that my idea was quite good upon reflection. My supervisor noticed the improvement and promoted me to management. I now head up a team of five people despite being shy. The candidate points out how her actions have resulted in success. All you need to do is show that you are taking steps to improve now and in the future. Wrong I have terrible time management and organizational skills.

Where others would crash and burn if they leave things undone, I flourish. So, I may look like I do nothing. I may sit in the middle of a mess. This type of answer raises all kinds of red flags for the hiring manager. But she can she turn in quality work last minute?

What about that mess? She makes messes? What kind of messes? Key Takeaway. Rate my article: what is your greatest weakness. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Table of Contents Expand. Table of Contents. Why Interviewer Ask About Weaknesses. Interview Questions About Weaknesses. List of Weaknesses. Hard Skills. Soft Skills. What to Say During an Interview. By Alison Doyle. Alison founded CareerToolBelt.

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