What is Your Biggest Weakness? (Ace this Interview Question!)

nope it's not okay to say a weakness that's really a strength in disguise and yes there are such things as acceptable weaknesses and unacceptable deal breakers in this video i'll first share three practical tips to help you with this tricky yet common interview question then walk you through a sample answer i use to land roles in management consulting and product marketing let's get started hi friends welcome back to channel if you're new here my name is jeff come for the legitimate tips and stay for the hilarious interview answers from reddit diving right into tip number

one stay away from deal breakers when it comes to answering the what is your biggest weakness interview question there are such things as wrong answers and this is because hiring managers generally expect a basic level of competency from job applicants these deal-breaker weaknesses include not being able to manage multiple projects at once not being detail oriented and not being a people person you should avoid saying these because no matter how many strengths you have or how capable you are in all other areas if you can't get the basics right it's going to be very hard

for your future manager to trust you to work independently to be a bit more blunt well good managers are always going to be there to guide you and help you grow they want to cut down on the need to micromanage your schedules double check your work and apologize to colleagues you might have inadvertently offended the good news is there's a great way to be honest about your shortcomings when faced with what is your greatest weakness while avoiding those deal breakers and that's tip number two highlight a skill expected of someone more senior a great way

to answer the question and show you the growth mindset is to mention a skill you currently lack but you see in someone in a more senior position this is a very safe option because at your current level you're not expected to have that particular skill anyways to do your job effectively so naturally it's an acceptable weakness for example the main focus of a sales representative is selling to clients right so on a day-to-day basis they might be thinking about what products would be a better fit for my clients when should i visit my largest account

what should i buy my next big fat sales bonus whereas the manager of the sales rep might need to think more strategically which verticals are performing the best right now what are some of our big bets for next year how can i get more resources to better support my team if you're interviewing for more junior position mentioning strategic thinking as a weakness is a relatively safe choice because it's not something you're expected to be great at in your current capacity if you'd like let me know what weakness you plan on sharing in your next interview

and i can give you some feedback in the comments below tip number three give a concrete example you might think giving a specific example to the biggest weakness interview question is a bad thing after all you're purposely shining a light on a mistake you've made in the past but trust me when i tell you the opposite is true by giving a concrete example you number one show the interviewer you truly understand there is an area you need to work on thus showing you have strong self-awareness and number two you get to sneak in an explanation

on what steps you're taking to improve to structure your example you should use the carl answer format which is star on steroids and it stands for context action results and learning if you're not familiar with this make sure to check out my video on async behavioral interviews putting all this together here's a sample answer you can reference when preparing for your next interview so jeff can you tell me about your biggest weakness sure i would say my biggest weakness is that sometimes i lack the confidence to present my work especially in a larger group setting

i remember a few months ago i was helping out on this qbr quarterly business review and i was responsible for the slides on market sizing and opportunity we do this every quarter and usually it's my manager who presents most of it and i add on a little bit about the projection numbers at the last minute my manager had to attend another meeting and entrusted me with presenting the entire section i had maybe like two days to prepare and i was pretty nervous so not only did i practice and memorize the entire thing i also emailed

my slides to the other teams beforehand as a pre-read to see if that any questions i could address offline luckily the cross-functional teams sent over their feedback in time for me to make changes in my slides so i didn't have to field too many questions during the presentation in real time which would have been the hardest part thankfully my manager received positive feedback regarding my performance and she even made a joke about skipping the next one as well well i can't say i'm suddenly a confident speaker i think aligning with team members ahead of a

meeting like that is a great way to avoid surprises and therefore make me less nervous and i think in the long term presenting to a large group would be less and less of a problem for me alright so that's a pretty strong answer even if i do say so myself it shows that you are aware of a relevant weakness you haven't magically addressed overnight but you are taking concrete steps to improve if you're interviewing right now make sure to check out my playlist on the most common interview questions and answers see you on the next

video in the meantime have a great one