Interview tip: How to talk about your weakness

When someone asks you, in an interview, “What is your weakness?” do not give a bullshit answer. Saying something like, “I pay too much attention to detail” is actually a terrible answer for someone who is getting hired to do detail work. It means you have a deficit in the exact area you’re tying to get hired for.

The best answer to the question is when you tell a truthful answer, because it’s very unlikely will be hired for the thing you are most weak at doing. For example, my weakness is details. I hate them so much that I simply don’t think about them. And if you talk to me about them, I tune you out. I get hired to think big picture. I get hired to create big plans with big results. So no one cares that I don’t do details.

Someone who is a production artist could say his weakness is finance. When people start talking about budgets, he just wants to back to his cube and work on design. So what if he doesn’t like finance? He is not getting hired to do it.

If you don’t know your weakness, take a personality type quiz and the results will show you. Everyone has specific strengths and everyone has specific weaknesses. It’s pretty certain that if you are not clear on your weaknesses then you are not clear on your strengths, and your value at the office will be questionable.

I am writing this post from the Hampton Inn in Skokie, IL. It’s my favorite hotel when we have to stay overnight for my son’s cello lessons. I thought I’d wake up early and drive over to Wilmette to get his new cello. Because he’s outgrown his current cello, (which is 1/8 the size of the cello you are used to seeing). He is moving up to a 1/4 size.

But he’s not moving up because I forgot to pick up the cello yesterday and now the shop is closed. The teacher will be incredulous. We drive four hours each way to go to a cello lesson. We do it twice a week. Which means we are planning our whole lives around cello. So it seems absurd if we are thinking this much about cello that I would forget something so fundamental as getting the right instrument for the lesson.

This is what my real weakness is: mishandling hierarchies of information. Other people have the ability to sift through information faster and decide what is most important.

I don’t have shoes on to have breakfast at the hotel. It’s a buffet. Why does everyone wear shoes to breakfast? It doesn’t make sense to me. We are not going outside. It’s like eating at home. And I don’t put on shoes to eat at home. But there are about fifty people here and no on is wearing socks except me.

I have to work very very hard to look normal because I miss 90% of these moments when I’m doing something that makees sense to me but it’s totally out of step with everyone else. People do not like if you are clearly not following the rules of being with people. There are unwritten agreements that bother people if you don’t know them.

This is what a job interview is about: seeing if you know the unwritten agreements. Did you wear the right clothes for the interview? Do you know the social convention of looking at people when you talk to them? Is your hair in a style that is socially acceptable? Doing one of these things poorly is forgivable. People are forgiving. Doing a lot of them is too off-putting. People like you when you follow social rules.

I study social conventions obsessively because I know it’s the only way I’ll learn them. So when someone does something that I’ve studied, and they do it wrong, I know there is something wrong with them. There is very little variance in social skills, which is why Aspergers is a disorder.

I don’t know why, for instance, everyone is wearing shoes at breakfast, but I know it’s a disorder to not know why.

Maybe you think to yourself, “I am out of step with people all the time. That doesn’t mean I have Aspergers.”

If you think that, you’re right: no Aspergers. Because you know you’re out of step. People with Aspergers are also out of step, but have no awareness about it.

Fundamentally, I don’t care if I don’t follow rules. I don’t have that thing in my head that makes me scared of upsetting social conventions. My brain is good at other things. But it’s hard to tell people that. It’s hard to tell the cello teacher that I really do care so much about my son and his cello playing and I try very hard to remember things like the cello and the music. I know no one else would forget those two things on an eight hour car trip to a cello lesson. I want to tell her “Look, I don’t know left or right either. It’s all incredible. I know. No one can believe how dumb I am! I’m sorry! Please believe me that I’m trying!”

But in a job interview I know how to talk about my strengths and weaknesses. I am great with big picture. I can see the future clearly for ideas and for people. I know where ideas are changing the way we work, I know what people should do with their lives. I can see how everything works in the future but I can’t see what’s going on right now. The feelings people have right now are lost on me. The tasks that could be done in the next five minutes are infinite, most people can sort through them. I can’t.

Some days I think I should stop writing about work because when I write about work, people say, “I hate your workplace posts. I just want you to write about you.” But I love writing about work because the rules are so clear. It’s a game that’s organized by categories and you figure out your personality type and then you go to your category. Then you follow the rules to win by getting influence or power or both. And you get those by being honest with yourself about work, starting with the interview and the question about your weaknesses.

96 replies
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  1. Kelly Donovan
    Kelly Donovan says:

    Another excellent post, Penelope. I like the suggestions about being honest, and identifying a weakness that is unrelated to the job you’ll be performing. Keep up the good work!

  2. tada
    tada says:

    Penelope, I am in Skokie, wouldn’t mind hosting you and your sons for a night when you are in the area for cello lesson :)

  3. Nick
    Nick says:

    Talking about your weakness is a real challenge. On one hand you don’t want to give away the store and hit yourself on the foot — really hard — while on the other hand you do want to share something genuine. I have seen people come up with really childish versions like “Oh, I am a perfectionist!” Well, the interviewers are seasoned and can spot the fluff from the cream. Thanks for writing about this very important topic.

  4. Haider Raza
    Haider Raza says:

    Hi
    I consider your article a really good one as it helped me understand a number of do’s and don’ts regarding self presentation in one on one interviewing. I am sure next time i am out there selling myself in an interview, I’ll be feeling more confident and will certainly not make that particular mistake of quoting poor weaknesses and or avoiding a discussion about my true weaknesses. I am better equipped through your advice. Thanks for that. For those moments when you come across a panel of interviewers, i suggest readers the following article:
    https://psychometrictestguru.com/blog/important-facts-about-group-discussions/
    It will help you get over your shyness and prepare you to handle complex situations tactically.
    Thanks a lot.

  5. Nick
    Nick says:

    I always find the personality tests overly limiting since each of the 4 MBTIs is dichotomous. I seem to recall receiving an ‘INTJ’ evaluation when I took the test two years ago, but if anything I consider myself sociable and focused on minute details rather than ‘big picture’ ideas. Speaking of which: I have never had trouble in interviews selling my ‘weakness’ (an overt focus on the smallest of details) as a strength as long as the position calls for that attribute. Since I have received some light ribbing in previous positions for my extreme thoroughness, my experience allows me to say so and that I’m excited to apply for a position where it’s a virtue, not a vice.

    I’ve also read that it’s good practice to point to a genuine weakness and then indicate something concrete you have done to rectify it. This is probably the soundest advice because hiring managers may not fall for the weakness-as-strength gambit, even if it’s true.

    Best of luck to all of the unemployed, underemployed, and unhappily employed out there–it wasn’t so long ago that I was among the ranks!

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  7. Labor Law Poster
    Labor Law Poster says:

    Learnt a lot about what to say in an interview. Honesty is very important. It is said that interviewer can tell whether to hire an interviewee or not from the interviewee’s eyes. Because honest people make direct eye contact with others. We don’t work alone, but with people. Before we become employees, we are human living in a society.

  8. William Mitchell, CPRW
    William Mitchell, CPRW says:

    Back when I was in the workforce, I hated this one as well, often giving one of those idiotic “positive” weaknesses. But it is true that as long as you don’t say something along the lines of “I never clean all of the blood off of the knives when I hack my neighbors up”, it will be fine. I believe these questions aren’t necessarily about what the weakness is, more than it is the willingness to be honest with the interviewer.

  9. Suzie Bee
    Suzie Bee says:

    You wear shoes in the hotel breakfast because it’s more like a restaurant than your house, and you have to wear shoes to restaurants.

  10. boutros boutros ghali
    boutros boutros ghali says:

    do you have aspergers if your feet smell and you are not aware that the smell of your feet is putting everyone off at the breakfast table?

  11. Rajeev
    Rajeev says:

    Great work. It’s always best to not to talk about your weaknesses related to the job profile you are applying for. Your weaknesses should represent your positive attitude and not that these effect you in bad way.

  12. Thomas
    Thomas says:

    Thats completely true, you do not want to be bullshitting the hiring manager, it shows them you are lazy, you also want to show and not tell you’re weaknesses by giving examples

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