Interview questions for a job often include common questions about your weaknesses. This could come in the form of "describe your greatest weakness" or "describe your areas of improvement".
Most people never know how to answer these interview questions without raising serious red flags in the interview. You have to remember that the goal of this job interview question is to uncover your level of personal awareness.
You see, top performers have a very strong understanding of their personal strengths and weaknesses and are always looking for ways to improve. This is what you want to get across in the job interview. That you understand what you are good at and you are taking steps to improve in the areas where you are not.
Here are three tips to approach this question:
Tip #1 - Once you know what key skills they need for the job, you should prepare a list of your weaknesses that are not crucial to that particular job and will not actually impact your performance on the job. For example, if it's a job that requires a lot customer service but little data analysis, you should highlight the fact that you are not the best with numbers and reporting data. So even though you provide a weakness in the interview, this shortcoming will not affect your ability to deliver the results they really need from you.
Tip #2 - For this job interview question, you really want to demonstrate that you truly understand what you are great at and not so great at and you know how to minimize your weaknesses so that you still perform on the job and meet their needs. When you describe your weaknesses, you should also point out where they could be benefits to them in the job. For example, "I tend to take a little longer than most people when I create my reports because I am so detail oriented...". If accuracy is a critical part of the job, this weakness will not be a problem.
Tip #3 - As you prepare for the job interview, be sure to prepare a good story to tell from your past detailing how your weakness actually proved beneficial to the company. For example, if you tend to take too long to review your data, describe a time when you discovered an accounting error that saved the company thousands of dollars.
Interview questions for a job like "describe your areas for improvement" have the ability to derail many job seekers. But with the right strategy, you can prepare your answer to still outshine your competition.
Most people never know how to answer these interview questions without raising serious red flags in the interview. You have to remember that the goal of this job interview question is to uncover your level of personal awareness.
You see, top performers have a very strong understanding of their personal strengths and weaknesses and are always looking for ways to improve. This is what you want to get across in the job interview. That you understand what you are good at and you are taking steps to improve in the areas where you are not.
Here are three tips to approach this question:
Tip #1 - Once you know what key skills they need for the job, you should prepare a list of your weaknesses that are not crucial to that particular job and will not actually impact your performance on the job. For example, if it's a job that requires a lot customer service but little data analysis, you should highlight the fact that you are not the best with numbers and reporting data. So even though you provide a weakness in the interview, this shortcoming will not affect your ability to deliver the results they really need from you.
Tip #2 - For this job interview question, you really want to demonstrate that you truly understand what you are great at and not so great at and you know how to minimize your weaknesses so that you still perform on the job and meet their needs. When you describe your weaknesses, you should also point out where they could be benefits to them in the job. For example, "I tend to take a little longer than most people when I create my reports because I am so detail oriented...". If accuracy is a critical part of the job, this weakness will not be a problem.
Tip #3 - As you prepare for the job interview, be sure to prepare a good story to tell from your past detailing how your weakness actually proved beneficial to the company. For example, if you tend to take too long to review your data, describe a time when you discovered an accounting error that saved the company thousands of dollars.
Interview questions for a job like "describe your areas for improvement" have the ability to derail many job seekers. But with the right strategy, you can prepare your answer to still outshine your competition.
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