Many people make the mistake thinking that the question "what are you strengths?"
is a question that's easy to answer. And therefore, they don't need to prepare.
Are you one of those people?
If you are then you might be in for a surprise
when you watch this video.
Because this is one of the questions
that you really need to prepare for.
And in today's episode I'm gonna show you exactly how to do that.
When you don't prepare properly for the question "what are your strengths?" it's
easy to come across as arrogant and especially if you give a short statement
like "I'm a perfectionist"
or...
"I'm a good communicator",
or...
"I'm great at multi-tasking".
There's nothing wrong with these replies but you're not
differentiating yourself.
These are very common answers.
Another trap that you can easily fall into when you're not prepared
is that you're too generic and humble in your answers,
that it can actually work to your disadvantage.
So much so you think you're describing a strength but it ends up
sounding like a weakness.
The reason you're asked this question is because
the interviewer wants to make sure that your strengths and accomplishments match
the requirement for the position.
They also want to get an understanding of how
you present yourself.
Are you honest?
Are you self aware?
Do you see your own growth and development as something that is
your responsibility or the employers?
So preparation is critical, so let's get right to it.
What I'm going to show you also prepares you for answering the
"what are you weaknesses?" question which is another one of those questions an
interviewer often ask.
Next week, I'll go deeper into how you give an
impressive answer to that question.
So make sure you've subscribed and turned
on the notification bell so you don't miss that video.
The preparation has two parts.
First.
You make sure that you know exactly what requirements they have for the role.
And second.
You do a self-assessment
on these requirements.
So that you know which one of your skills, capabilities or personality traits
you should highlight and what to say.
Let's do an example together.
Here we have a Customer Service Representative role that I found advertised online.
Let's start with what they've listed as the requirements for the role.
They've listed that they want someone with two years of call center and customer
service experience.
So we should write that on our list.
Then they're stating:
"strong multitasking skills and ability to toggle between multiple screens".
So we write multitasking on our list.
We do the same for the last three bullet points and
when we're finished our list looks like this.
Now we do the same thing with the responsibilities.
This because we want to see if there are any other skills
capabilities or traits they might be looking for that is not listed in the
requirements section.
Here the first bullet point says:
Coordinate services between customers
and field engineering staff.
Will conduct both inbound and outbound calls.
So we can see here that they're looking for someone that is good
at coordinating and that has excellent phone skills.
So we write that down.
The next one is:
Appropriately discuss and promote services and products
based on customer needs.
Here they're looking for someone with the ability to explain
things and to influence a customer's decision.
So we write those down.
We do this for all the responsibilities that they have listed,
so now the list looks like this.
We now have a good understanding on what they're looking for.
That will help us to know which skills to focus on
when we talk about our strengths.
And which to stay away from when we speak about our weaknesses.
But before we start our self-assessment, let's take one more look at the
job description and see if we can think of anything else that they may require that
they haven't listed.
But that we know is going to be needed to do the job well.
So looking at it again and based on our own experience of working in a call center,
we know that it's essential to have excellent listening skills so that the
customer feels heard.
And so that we can accurately assess the situation.
They haven't specified listening skills in the description but we know it's
important so we put that on our list.
What else?
Well...
We know that it can sometimes be frustrating when dealing with customers,
and that you need to have a lot of patience.
This skill is another one they haven't listed but
that we know is important.
So we add patience to our list too.
You want to continue doing this until you feel that you've identified
everything that they're looking for.
When we feel that the list is complete it's
time to do a self-assessment.
This step is one of the seven preparation steps
that I talk about in this video.
Where I also go deeper into this topic.
There's also a workbook that goes along with that episode.
I've put the link to the workbook below,
as we will be using it to do our self-assessment.
What the self-assessment entails, is you going through each of the requirements that
you've listed and write down a short answer to the following questions:
What is my current skill level? Is a low medium or high? what's an example when
What's an example when this has been a strength in my past?
What's an example when this has been a weakness in my past?
What action have I taken to improve this skill?
What are the results I've had with this skill? and here you want to focus on something
And here you want to focus on something tangible for a business.
In my video about interview preparation, I go through this in more detail.
You answer these questions for each of the requirements
you've listed and make sure that you're honest in your self-assessment,
that you write real examples, and that you keep your answers short and positive.
We can take one of the requirements as an example.
Let's use people skills.
I've picked this as an example because it's an essential skill to have as a customer
service representative.
If you look closely at the job description, you'll
see that they've indicated this skill many times.
Go through the list of questions and write the answers.
Let's assume that you're highly skilled in this area.
So we write that here.
Then we should write an example when this has been a strength in your past.
So we may write:
Find it easy to build rapport with
clients and earn their trust. I go out of my way to make sure each client feels
that they're taking care of and assured I will do my best to help them.
Then we should write an example when this has been a weakness.
When I was new in customer service, I found it difficult to
promote additional services and products because I felt I was being pushy.
Next is the write down the actions
you've taken or are taking to improve this skill I've taken sales
I've taken sales and persuasion courses,
and I've also developed my own structure for
promoting services and products so it doesn't feel pushy.
The last step is to write what business related results you've had with this skill.
I've been the customer service representative of the months twice this year.
I also won the upsell challenge last month and I'm on track for winning it this month too.
It is up to you if you want to do this exercise for only one or two skills but
my recommendation is that you do it for as many of the requirements as you can.
And here's why:
When a company writes the requirements they want the ideal
candidate to have, there are always some that are more important than others.
An easy assumption to make is to think that the company have listed them in order of
importance on the job description.
But that's not always the case.
So it is difficult to know for certain what it is they value the most.
Not only that.
They may want the combination of skills, capabilities, and
traits so if you, like we're doing in this example,
decide to talk about your people skills,
and they also want to know more about your time management skills,
they're gonna ask you about it.
If you have done the self-assessment on all the
requirements that they've outlined, you'll be able to talk about any of them
with just as much clarity as you're talking about your people skills.
Let's continue with how to formulate the answer to
"what are your strengths?"
The best way to structure this answer is to state the skill,
and then explain how this skill benefits the business.
Using our example it could sound something like this:
I would say that one of my absolute strength is my people skills. I find it
easy to build rapport with clients and earn their trust.
I go out of my way to
make sure each client feels that they're taking care of and assured that I will
do my best to help them.
When I was new in customer service, I found it difficult
to promote additional services and products because it felt like I was
being pushy.
So I've taken sales training and persuasion courses and I've also
developed my own structure for promoting services and products so it doesn't feel pushy.
I've been the customer service representative of the months twice this
year, which means I've had the highest customer satisfied
action ranking in the company. I also won the upsell challenge last month and I'm on
track for winning it again this month.
The best part for me though, is the win-win
situation that this has resulted in. I really enjoy what I'm doing because I
add value.
My customer trusts me enough to know that the services and
products I recommend to them will help them.
See how easy that was to put together when you've done the preparation work?
If you prepare all the requirements they've listed,
and those you've identified in addition,
then you'll be able to talk about any of them with that much clarity and confidence.
And that's how you prepare and structure the answer to the question:
"What are your strengths?"
If we've never met before, my name is Petra Pearce and I'm a Career
strategist, a coach and the founder of www.thecareerupgrade.com.
I help professionals, like you, to land a job you want, build a career you deserve, and make
build a career you deserve,
and make the money you're worth.
So if you're new here, consider hitting the subscribe
button and turn on the notification, so you get notified whenever I post a new video.
That's it for today.
Now you know how to prepare for the question and how to answer it.
Next week we'll go deeper into how to to answer the
"what are your weaknesses?" question.
So make sure you hit the subscribe button and
turn on the notification so you get notified as soon as that video is posted
next week. If you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and let me know in
the comment what your biggest takeaway is from what I've just shared with you.
If you know someone that you think will benefit from seeing this video, then make
sure to share it with them. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you soon!