what is your greatest weakness with a sample answer that's what i'll be sharing in this video
so stick around if you struggle with this question i'm Amri Celeste an interview coach and hr
recruitment specialist with over 11 years hiring experience so let's jump straight into this one
now this is a behavioral interview question it's explorative and gives the interviewer
insight into you your areas of improvement your self-awareness and how aware you are of your
own areas of self-improvement so because that gives an indicator of your emotional awareness
and maturity so if you struggle with behavioral interview questions then you can check out this
video there should be a link popping up at the top here and that is a link to my
behavioral interview questions and answers video with lots of example answers included
and i'll also link that in the description box below this video now you might be asked
this question in multiple formats such as what are your weaknesses name your biggest weakness
what would your previous boss or colleagues say your biggest weaknesses are so look out for this
question in different formats so you don't get caught out the best way to answer this question
or the question like this is always to ensure that your answer is not in direct opposition
to a key duty responsibility or essential skill set in the role and i'll run through how to make
sure you do that so first let's break down what a strong answer looks like and i'll show you how to
structure your answer and how to answer what is your weakness in the first part of your answer
you're picking a skill set personality trait or character trait that you've struggled with
and you're explaining how it affected you and towards the end of your answer you can show the
journey that you took to overcome that or how you're still working on it today so an example
answer is as a sales executive i've always focused on results and delivery i really struggled with
being organized for some time so the great thing here in this first part of the answer is it states
your weakness in a past tense which indicates that is something you used to struggle with
and it's a really good pretext to set up the story of the journey of how you overcame it
and an answer in story format is significantly more engaging and memorable and that's really
what you're aiming for in your interview you want to be remembered by your interviewer
so the weakness here is lack of organization skills in terms of structuring your answer i
would recommend using the star method also known as the star technique what is the star method
start stands for situation task action result and in this answer you've already described the first
part the situation the reason i highly recommend the star method for answering this question
is because it automatically puts your answer in story format without you having to think about it
which i mentioned earlier is one of the most powerful ways to answer and this ensures that
your answer is comprehensive and it covers all the points that the interviewer will be looking for
now the next part of this answer should show how this weakness affected you
and it's also the task part of the star method the task explains something that you need to
address solve or take care of so the second part of this answer is i get motivation from hitting
or exceeding my targets and always being able to deliver and although i had regular success
initially i found that my lack of organization affected my ability to maintain that success
due to poor organization skills i wasn't tracking my sales my progress or even things
like which clients i'd spoken to because i didn't keep systems or notes up to date
now lack of organization might be a good example weakness to use in a role such as communication
based roles like sales or customer service or maybe complaints handling for example because
being organized would not generally be seen as more important than communication skills
or something like sales skills in those cases whereas say an admin role or a team management
role or secretarial or pa role being organized is more likely to be something that is considered a
typically essential skill set if it was something like an admin role or any role where being
organized is critical then a weakness that is based on say communication like struggling to say
no or fear of public speaking might be examples of things that wouldn't necessarily be in direct
opposition to the job you can use something that is in opposition to the job but then you just need
to make sure that you back it up with a really strong example answer of how you overcame it
if you are getting value from this so far then do like subscribe and leave a comment below
it's good for the youtube algorithm but it also is immensely helpful for this channel
and there are also other ways to support this channel in the description box below this video
now the best way to make sure that your answer does not trip you up is to pre-prepare an answer
and a couple of examples you do this by looking at the job description here's an example job
description under essential and desirable skills on the job description you'll see what skills are
critical and what duties are involved so your example weakness can be based around something
that still positions you as suitable for the role the communication example that i gave earlier
would be a good example for a role like this because it's not in major opposition to anything
here if you want to be fully prepared i do go through the interview prep process in this guide
and i also have example answers in this guide both of them are free and you can download them
in the description box below this video now the next part of this answer is the action and
the example is i decided to change that by setting up reminders and making sure i kept our systems
and notes up to date that shows the actions you took and then next you want to share the result
which shows the journey of how you improved or addressed the weakness and results over time
i found that my sales increased by 30 percent over the next year because i tracked who i had
spoken to and when their contract was due to renew which meant i could resell to the same clients as
opposed to having to search for new clients every time i was also able to see the times during the
year i made the most sales and double down my efforts during those periods in the following year
now in this results section here it shows the improvement in a percentage any number
percentages or otherwise that you can include in your answer will be exceptionally powerful
adding numbers or specifics to your answer contributes authenticity to your answer so now
you can see how the star method is super powerful in helping you to structure your answer you can
check out this video on star method interview questions and answers for more example answers
that are specific to the star method because it doesn't necessarily apply automatically to every
interview question or answer now i'm going to show you how to supercharge your answer and demonstrate
self-awareness to your interviewer which will put you above other candidates in the process
to do this you can add a learning or a takeaway from the situation so here's an example of that i
learned this was a much more mature and effective approach to my work and i implemented pre-planning
and organizing in other areas of my working life because it was so effective i also plan and
organize more in my personal life and i now feel like i'm ready to move into a senior sales role
which is why i applied for this position so this last part here shows major reflection and how you
continue to improve and apply powerful skills and techniques that you learn to improve yourself as
an individual and it's also a great cheeky segue into explaining why you'd be a great
candidate for the role at the end here even though that wasn't the question now i hope you found this
helpful like subscribe and leave a comment below if you did and i will see you in the next video