

Have you ever been asked “What is your biggest weakness?” - boopsie
http://petdance.com/2012/02/have-you-ever-been-asked-what-is-your-biggest-weakness/

======
PaulHoule
I've been asked that one.

It's a tracer for one of two things: an interviewer who doesn't know what he
or she is doing or an organization that's more interested in rejecting
candidates than in hiring candidates.

In the typical small company, the hiring people are hiring somebody because
they need a job done. This is true about a startup, but it's also true about a
web design shop or a coffee shop. The sooner the person is hired, the sooner
the job gets done -- this is really the preferable situation for the
interviewee. If you're (1) able to do the job, and (2) really want the job,
(3) act that way, and (4) interview at your level (most people don't) you'll
probably get an offer at the end of the interview.

In big companies and, say, support positions in academic organizations, hiring
is usually triggered by the addition of a line item to a budget. Unfortunately
there isn't a very strong relationship between the addition of a line item and
an actual need. It might take three years of haggling to add a line item after
the need is identified, for instance. Jobs like this also get a large number
of applications from people who are more interested in collecting dental and
retirement benefits than they are in getting a salary or making a
contribution.

As a result of those factors, that kind of organization has little urgency in
the hiring process plus it has an extreme fear of taking on freeloaders -- or
alternately, the people interviewing you could be freeloaders who are deathly
afraid of hiring somebody who would hold them to account.

In the big picture, most hiring people don't know what they're doing and most
interviewees interview a few steps below their level. If you can interview at
your level, you're interviewing well above your level compared to your peers.

~~~
lbotos
Can you clarify what you mean "Interview at your level?"

~~~
PakG1
It means that your interview performance is reflective of your real-life work
performance. That being said, I think this is a far too cynical way to
interpret the question for reasons I think other people have already answered
in this thread quite well.

------
boopsie
It is indeed the lamest question ever.

The funny thing is that if you ask someone (as both interviewer and
interviewee), "In 6 months, what will I love about working with you? And what
will I hate about working with you?" you will get actually useful responses
that approach the honest intent of the question.

(And by the way: My new boss once answered the latter question, "You won't
hate anything about working with me!" -- and he turned out to be the biggest
asshat ever. It's just one data point, but my conclusion is that anyone who
thinks he does nothing annoying is to be avoided.)

~~~
eli
I'd also encourage interviewees to ask some variation of, "What do _you_ think
my weaknesses are?"

~~~
boopsie
I also encourage interviewees to ask the hiring manager, "What are _your_
strengths and weaknesses?"

First, it'll help you find out if the person you'll be working for thinks it's
a bullshit question too. Or if she answers honestly. And since you're going to
be reporting to her, so doesn't it make sense to know what you're going to be
dealing with?

~~~
eli
I'd love it if an interviewee asked me that!

I actually find it weird sometimes how uncurious people seem to be about where
they'll potentially be working and who they'll be working with.

~~~
boopsie
Me too. After all, the employer is likely to hire lots of people. But I have
only one life to live and I'm going to spend most of it at work... so doesn't
it make sense for me to ensure that I choose the job I most enjoy?

------
Gazler
Go for the reddit classic:

Print a business card that says "Sometimes my overpreparedness comes across as
arrogance." Hand it to the interviewer when asked.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jidho/what_is_the...](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jidho/what_is_the_correct_answer_to_what_is_your/c2cd7ae)

~~~
troels
I know that's what the upvote button is for, but man that's funny.

------
lukes
I was once asked "What's the worst thing about you?". Fortunately I had
prepared for it and said something about not being a confident presenter and
then outlining how I was fixing that.

The only thing the interviewer learned was that I knew how to answer that
question. However I learned that the interviewer was not someone I wanted to
work for.

The downsides to asking that question far outweigh the benefits. An
interviewer should be trying to give a good impression of themselves as well
as finding out about the candidate and this question does the opposite.

------
brnstz
I actually don't mind this question, even though it's a cliche. I've also been
asked a slightly different version, "What is something about yourself you've
improved in the past 6 months?"

I see it as a two part question.

1\. Do you realize self-improvement is a life-long pursuit? What are you
currently working on to improve yourself?

2\. Do you have the ability smooth over a negative point when talking to a
stakeholder? "Yeah, we released a week late, but on the plus side we found
some bugs that would have been deadly in production."

Maybe the question would be less abrasive if it was phrased, "What is _a_
weakness that you have?" (Which is really what they're asking, they're not
asking for your biggest, darkest secret.)

The answer can be simply something like, "For someone working on internet
apps, I don't know as much about socket programming as I'd like to. So I've
been reading/working on a project to learn more about it."

------
cfinke
Here's the secret to answering "What is your biggest weakness?" I've used it
several times with great success. Are you ready for it?

.

.

.

Tell the interviewer what your biggest weakness is. Be honest with yourself,
and then be honest with them. I don't mean that you should blurt out, "I stay
up all night watching Gossip Girl reruns," (unless that affects your
productivity at work in a non-trivial way), but do an honest assessment of
yourself, decide what your biggest work-related weakness is, and tell them.

If you end up working with them, they're going to find out what it is anyway,
and if they're aware that you're aware of it, they can help you overcome it.
If you just grin and say something like "I work too hard" or "I'm too much of
a perfectionist," you've only succeeded in wasting yourthe interviewer's (and
your) time.

~~~
MattRogish
+1

I think it's also important to follow up with how you've been improving it
over the last few months. "I sometimes do #{bad_thing}" is a good start, but I
want to know what you're doing to work on it. If it truly is your "biggest
weakness" and you're doing nothing to overcome it, nohire.

------
T_S_
The correct answer is: "I am too kind to children and dogs."

------
silentscope
"I realized that I don’t think I’ve ever actually been asked the question in a
real job interview. I know that if an interviewer did ask me, my opinion of
him would drop considerably."

I feel like this person has not been through enough job interviews. This
question is standard fare, so you better be prepared for it.

Also, it doesn't really matter if your opinion of them drops--they're
interviewing you. Just take on the questions as they come and knock em out the
box.

~~~
alex_c
_Also, it doesn't really matter if your opinion of them drops--they're
interviewing you._

Unless you're desperate to take any job you can, any interview is a two-way
process.

------
NathanKP
I've never been asked this question in an interview but if I ever am I know
what my answer would be: When I'm coding something I have a bad tendency to
code everything myself rather than using readily accessible libraries or
solutions that are known to be secure and effective.

I blame this on teaching myself coding as a kid with no Internet. I couldn't
look up libraries so I wrote my own solutions for all my coding challenges.

These days I recognize this in myself and force myself to look up any
libraries that I can import rather than coding the whole stack myself.

------
eli
I've asked this question of interviewees in the past. (Though I don't much
anymore.)

It's sort of a stupid question, but so what? I don't think I've ever
disqualified anyone based on their answer, but for sure there were candidates
who answered it really well and it helped them.

I notice the people who can't answer this question also tend to be the people
who have a hard time explaining why someone would choose Rails over Java, or
identifying strengths and weaknesses of PHP, or expressing a strong opinion
about anything.

------
berberous
"Lying in interviews"

------
Natsu
Yes. It was 7 years ago. I said "answering stock interview questions" ... and
still got the job.

------
prtk
I've been asked that one. I got the job.

My answer was: Facebook. When I get stuck many times instead of solving the
problem I find myself on Facebook.

------
skarayan
Years ago at an interview, I answered this question with "Sometimes I get so
excited about what I am working on that it gets counterproductive." :)

------
pors
I can be a useful question to see if someone prepared for the job interview.
But for the rest it is a pretty shitty question.

~~~
salvadors
How does it show if someone prepared for _this_ interview, rather than just
having prepared for generic interviews?

Being prepared for a particular interview (i.e. knowing about the company
you're interviewing with and having relevant questions) is probably a good
sign that the person wants that particular job, which is generally a good
thing. But simply being prepared for 100 Common Interview Questions doesn't
tell you that — and might even be more a sign of the opposite.

------
dustingetz
the question probes self-awareness. I certainly want the people I work with to
be self-aware, and be interested in continuous growth.

FWIW my answers are built-in to my resume: <
<http://careers.stackoverflow.com/dustingetz> >

------
ferrofluid
I work too darn hard, sir.

------
scottm01
Kryptonite.

------
huggyface
I ask this question of interviewees. I do it knowing exactly what most of the
comments in a story like this will be. Indeed, I ask it _because_ it seems to
elicit the sort of typical response.

It is actually a perfect testing question of attitude: Does the candidate get
a sneer? Do they answer with attitude, or with zero creativity or interest? "I
work _too_ hard. I care _too_ much."

Awesome, they've weeded themselves out as no hires. I thank sites like Reddit
and HN for engendering such a sense of attitude among so many that it allows
you to filter them early in the process: No need to get to the technical
questions if you can't answer a simple question of a professional peer.

It is not a difficult question. Further, people who say that it's to "test for
self-awareness" don't get the point of it. You can actually ask almost
anything of an interviewee and discern knowledge about how they think, how
they reason, and how they communicate. This is just such a question, with
loads of information delivered by the response. Because when I'm interviewing
we're looking for someone to work closely with us -- minus the attitude -- for
hopefully years. If we just want to ask technical questions we'd hire a
consulting company.

~~~
boopsie
With respect... What sort of answers do you get that encourage you to hire the
interviewee? What do you actually learn from the answers?

The reason I've always disliked it is that it's just begging for a silly
response. Sure, I have weaknesses; but you are asking someone to brag about
the things they do poorly at the same time they want to make the best
impression. That does not encourage or reward honestly.

It also feels like a "cheater" question, and makes me feel the way I do when a
sports news person asks a team member, "How big is this victory for you?" What
the heck does she think he is going to say: "I really don't care that we won"?

~~~
eli
Two candidates have Javascript skills that are a bit weaker than you'd like.
All other things being equal, you would prefer the candidate who already knows
they need to work on their Javascript over the one who doesn't, right?

~~~
boopsie
Okay, that's fair.

But does the question really elicit the information you're looking for?
CandidateA may know that her JavaScript could be better, but the (real)
weakness she may trot out is that she's really nervous as a public speaker.
It's not that she is hiding her JavaScript weakness, just that she's bothered
less by it. CandidateB tells you that his JavaScript could be better, but he
doesn't tell you that he yells at coworkers when they disagree with him.
You're not necessarily going to get the info you asked for... for good or ill.

Why not ask, instead, "In which languages do you feel most and least
confident? Why do you think that is?" or "We each learn differently: books,
classes, hands-on experimentation. How do you go about learning a new
language?" In the latter case, for instance, there's no obvious right or wrong
answer which the candidate is motivated to "guess"; it's simply a matter of
learning how this person operates.

