What are your Strengths & Weaknesses?

What are your strengths & weaknesses?

This is a common question during an interview but how you answer it can take many different forms. It is a question which is designed to make you think on your feet and provide an insight on how self-aware you are as a person.

Preparing in advance for this question is invaluable. You can in essence script an answer, sharing how your personal strengths align with the needs of the career opportunity in a relevant, distinct and proven way. By having several examples in mind, you can quickly provide an answer and ensure you don’t lose your flow during the interview.

When approaching these two questions, it is important to think about your personality traits, your skillset and previous experiences. This is where a job description will help prepare your answer, as you can contextualise how your skillset and work experience tie in with the requirements of the job opportunity.  The key is avoiding a typical, classical answer which is unoriginal and just listing traits and providing no grounding or support.

How to structure the answer?

The STAR technique provides a logical process to create and deliver your answer. It is a simple format which allows you to deliver your strength or weakness, providing context and an examples in relation to the job requirements.

S = Situation (What are the circumstances?)

T = Task (What was required?)

A = Action (What was it that you did to influence the result?)

R – Result (What is the end result?)

You can read more here.

So, what are your strengths?

Focus on the job description, look for the key attributes and required skills to begin centring on how your strengths align with their requirements. It is important to then demonstrate these with examples. Below are some very basic examples:

Communication skills → Speaking with clients or presentation

People skills → Team management or completing 1-to-1 appraisals

Attention to details → Reviewing documents or keep updated with legislation

After you have provided your strength, explained how that is a strength, it is critical to back it up with evidence essentially, and provide context as to how that is a personal strength, but most importantly, why that is beneficial for the job opportunity.

E.G. “I possess excellent communication skills. I liaise with clients regularly whether that be face-to-face or over the phone to gather information, provide advice or answer any of their queries. I also enjoy presenting the findings to clients and get personal fulfilment in helping them in any way possible. Recently, I completed a twenty-minute presentation for a client about new technical legislation to which the client was able to adhere to their statutory requirements.”

This is slightly cliché and basic, but it is more to give you an idea of how you have gone from stating communication is a strength right through to proving why that is the case and explaining how this would align in relation to the vacancy.

Other strengths could also include:

• Creative
• Detail-oriented
• Technically strong
• Go above and beyond

What are your weakness?

Being asked your weaknesses is not easy, and then answering it without digging yourself into a hole becomes a challenge. You want to formulate an answer which does highlights limitations, but at the same time you want to present the answer in a positive and progressive manner.

Employers ask candidates about their weaknesses to assess their self-awareness, honesty and ability to improve. Framing your weaknesses positively can be challenging, but when you combine self-awareness with an action plan, you can quickly stand apart from other job candidates.

The weakness which you decide to discuss as part of your answer should be linked back to the job description, similar to your strengths. Most of the time, the weaknesses question often links back to skills, habits or personality traits. When planning for your interview, select two or so weaknesses which provide you the opportunity to demonstrate growth and the enthusiasm for learning.

The example below is linked to a practice accountant.

E.G. “I tend to be a perfectionist and can linger on the details of an assignment which can threaten deadlines. Early on in my career, that’s exactly what happened. I was labouring over the details and in turn, caused myself to be stressed when I almost missed the deadline on my deliverables. I learned the hard way back then, but I did learn and created an action plan in terms of managing clients. Today I’ve learnt to be aware of how what I’m doing affects quality of and being timely and adhering to deadlines.”

Again, this example is slightly cliché, but it shows self-awareness and provides an example of an action plan, demonstrating commitment to your own professional growth. It is important to end on a positive note when answering this question and presenting the answer with a growth mindset which shows how you have taken steps to address your weakness, it shows maturity and the drive which is attractive to employers.

Other weaknesses could also include:

• Disorganised
• Not skilled at delegating
• Self-critical
• Don’t take risks

Final Thoughts…

It is important to plan this answer as part of your interview preparation as it is such a common interview question. The example is the most important element of the answer, so utilising the job description is crucial to determine the strengths and weaknesses you decide to discuss and then formulating a real working example provides great context.

Avoiding answering either of the strengths or weaknesses questions is not recommended, as the interviewer is assessing your self-awareness. It’s best to prepare two answers for each question, even though you’ll probably only use one.