Office 2007 Standard Key blog strengths-and-weakne

Not long right after JobsBlog began in 2004,Office 2007 Standard Key, Gretchen answered a reader who wanted to understand what he will need to say when an interviewer asked him to describe his strengths and weaknesses. Six years later, that post is nonetheless among the most well-known content articles on this web page. Gretchen’s advice remains relevant, of course, and we encourage you to read it – but we thought we’d give you an update from varying viewpoints. Check out what Kenji, Lisa and Matt have to say about this infamous interview question! I used to ask this question as part of my regular morning interview, though it has mostly faded from my rotation. My best advice is to be up-front and honest. When I asked this question, I was primarily looking for three things: confidence (What are you proud of?); self-evaluation (What do you want to improve?); and desire (What do you plan to do about it?). Sometimes candidates became agitated, maybe because they thought I was trying to trick them or get them to self-select out of consideration. In these cases, I tried to rephrase and provide context: Nobody’s perfect, but I want to know what are you good at, and where you think you could improve. On the flip side, the worst responses are: Not saying anything, giving a canned response, or changing the subject and trying to avert the question. I’ll admit; I used to ask this question. For me, the “greatest strength and weakness” question determines whether you can give an honest assessment of your skills and yourself. What I looked for in the answer was a true weakness, however, I also was looking to see if the candidate was working on the weakness or found a way to overcome their weakness. For example, a weakness could be that you’re afraid of speaking in front of a large audience. A couple of ways to mitigate it might be that you’ve been taking public speaking classes or presenting at brown bags to build your confidence. Remember though, you don’t want to sell yourself out with the position, so be sure the weakness is something that, when worked on, can turn into a strength. I’ve had a lot of heated debates about this question as its one of my least favorite to ask or answer. Nonetheless, since not answering is a less than ideal option, I recommend for your strength, to come up with the one word that best personifies your personal “brand” – what makes you who you are – and share an example of how you’ve delivered that. For weakness, my advice would be to mention a past challenge you have long since overcome. As lengthy as you address any weakness with “and this is what I did to overcome that” you’re showing growth – and awareness!