What's up Explearners welcome back to my channel in this video we are talking
about how to answer the question and interviews that's about your weakness so
when the hiring manager asks you tell me about your weaknesses what are your
weaknesses you'll be able to answer that really well are you excited I am let's
get right into it first of all why do you hiring managers and interviewers ask
this question are they just trying to make us feel uncomfortable and badly and
insecure no no of course not the reason they ask this is to see how
you respond to difficulty and difficult situations what your worldview is on
dealing with an issue do you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset how do
you deal with trouble right they also try to figure out if you're a good fit
for the role for the position for the company do you fit into their cultural
and corporate ethos so this is just another way of figuring that out by
asking the question about weaknesses and honestly they also want to see what you
can't do or are you Batman or Wonder Woman unlikely the important thing to
remember about this is there is not a one-size-fits-all weakness meaning what
is considered a weakness in one job is a strength in another it really depends on
the nature of the role and on the company and what they're looking for in
an employee some examples of weaknesses include hard skills soft skills
interpersonal skills and the way you answer this will help you stay in the
game or make an early exit and the idea of the interview is to stay in the game
as long as you can in many jobs there are multiple interviews right you don't
just go in once and then get hired that would be great but the reality is that
most of the time you are doing a number of interviews so
when you're responding to this question about your weaknesses you have to do one
hundred percent all the time keep in mind the job description and make sure
that whatever it is that you're talking about is not a primary or secondary
skill listed on the job description only go after the non-essential skills that
are not listed there right if they're listed they're essential so go after the
ones that you're not really going to need for this position but are would be
nice always spin it positively say something good and then make sure that
you're not saying anything that would be para t'v to that position the reality is
if that is the case and you're lacking that imperative primary skill then it's
not the right role for you but don't worry there are other roles out there
right so don't despair but today we're talking about how to answer that
question and what to answer with so that you can stay in the game as long as
possible and then get a job offer so once you've understood what the
primary and secondary skills are then you can think about the tertiary skills
and I call them tertiary skills because they're the third tier skills that would
be important for this role so really they're not that important for this role
they're oh would be nice so it's your job to figure out what those are and
then talk about those and hopefully some of those are your weakness super
important to be 100% honest you don't want to be dishonest about your
weaknesses you want to make sure that you're being truthful because the hiring
manager can definitely tell when somebody is bluffing and you don't want
to come off as that person it's just not good practice so the tertiary skill is
something that's not essential it's not going to make or
break your success in that position and it won't render you incapable of
fulfilling your duties in that role an example of a tertiary role for somebody
applying to an engineering position would be to mention a weakness that they
struggle with their interpersonal communication skills because the reality
is in that engineering role that this person is applying to the job
description says that they're not going to be having that much contact with
people so in that specific engineering role this person can list lack of
interpersonal skills as their weakness because it is a tertiary skill for that
role now take this engineering position in another company where they need to be
interfacing with clients and other people and they need to have strong
interpersonal communication skills then obviously in that engineering role this
is not a tertiary skill meaning it should not be brought up in the what are
your weaknesses question and the interview so you see it can differ
depending on the job description which is super super vital to know and that is
why you need to do your research and figure out from what's been said and
what's not been said in the job description about the primary secondary
and tertiary skills in that specific role always mention that you're on route
to improvement right this is a great way of showing you have a growth mindset not
a fixed mindset you might not be good in one area but you are working to improve
upon that so that you can show that you have professional development interests
that you are seeking to constantly improve yourself so when you mention a
weakness I also want you to mention that you've demonstrated that you've taken
necessary steps and you've implemented in
action plan so that you can become better at that skill maybe you've signed
up for a class maybe you've sought the help and expertise of a qualified
professional maybe you are doing a self-guided study online or at the
library whatever it may be make sure that you tell the hiring manager that
you are trying to improve upon that area that needs to be improved upon and a
great way to show progress is to start off where you were talk about the steps
that you've taken and the progress that you've achieved and then where you are
now so bringing them up to date on that specific progress I always think it's a
good idea to mention the tools that actually helped you so you might talk
about implementing a project management tool or learning a data analytics tool
or using a Productivity app to work on time management's bringing up the actual
tools that you use can show that you are actually working on this and you're not
just saying that you are but it shows the actions that you've taken and
there's tangible evidence and sometimes what's really great is that the hiring
manager might want to know for themselves and so you'll see them taking
notes about that be careful here not to mention that you're improving a skill
that is actually an essential skill for that role because in the hiring managers
mind that means that you might not be ready for it if you are actually
qualified for this role and you feel confident in your ability to do XYZ
which is listed on the Job Description then that's not really a weakness of
yours anymore is it right so again tertiary skills those are
the ones to concentrate on for this question for example if you are applying
to a position as CEO and you are expected to give monthly seminars to
1,000 plus people in the audience then men
you have a lack of poet speaking skills or you're still not very confident
speaking in front of audience members even if you've done a public speaking
class in the past then that's not the role for you right let's not kid
ourselves so know thyself be cheer thy self and then talk about the weaknesses
that are tertiary the other way you can describe weaknesses and answer this
question really well is by describing a weakness that's actually a strength for
that role it's a way of showing that you are self-aware and that you keep
yourself in check for example if somebody's weakness is being a
perfectionist so that might be a weakness right because if a
perfectionist can't get the job done on time because they're too busy making it
perfect which is an unattainable reality then the truth is that they're probably
not a good fit for that role however if they talk about perfectionism instead as
detailed oriented and that could be a huge plus right because it shows that
you're fit for this role because you are aware and pay attention to detail and
meticulous about it so that when you deliver a products or finish a project
it's going to be pretty darn perfect I like to avoid using the word perfect
because again it's one of those crazy words that has so much baggage
associated with it right because there's no there's absolutely no such thing as
perfect anyway so the idea of changing something that's a weakness into an
actual strength for the role can be a really good way of answering this
question and then you show that you've done due diligence on what's expected of
this role and how you feel you can be an asset
obviously avoid the big red flag answers and by that I mean you know the obvious
ones being late being rude inappropriate conduct or
behavior these big flag no no answers that are just an oboe in any position if
you actually want to be human and interact in a social setting
appropriately one last thing when you're talking about your weaknesses make sure
to also mention your strengths spin it positively right you don't want to
undersell your strengths and then oversell your weaknesses and I
personally would end talking about my weaknesses with something positive and
maybe even pointing towards the strengths because you probably will get
a follow-up question about strengths but just in case you don't it's a good way
of mentioning that look I'm really sick for this job because here are my
strengths or I worked on a similar project in a similar setting and we were
really successful also I would personally avoid self-deprecating humor
especially if the interview is in an intercultural cross-cultural setting
some cultures don't have self-deprecating humor they don't have
sarcasm they don't have cynicism or if they do it's not necessarily appreciated
you want to avoid self-deprecating humor in an interview because sometimes the
hiring manager might not know whether to take you seriously or not instead just
talk directly in terms of what your weaknesses and what your strengths are
alright Explearners that's it for this video I hope that you find these tips
useful and insightful and make sure to practice and I wish you the best of luck
on your next interview I will catch you right back here on Explearning
communication coaching in my next video Happy Explearning