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If you're interviewing someone at a professional level who has more than 5? years worth of experience then commonly a problem in an interview is that the candidate thinks they should "win" by answering correctly. They've done enough interviews at this point that they know 80% of the useful questions you can ask. Sometimes it feels like 'winning' has become ingrained - since mostly people don't need the specific role ... it will be one role they are interviewing for amongst a few - instead they should be trying to understand whether the role/company will really be a good fit for them (and vice versa).

The 'what is your greatest weakness' question can be quite a good indicator of that mentality - the candidate will give you a carefully chosen weakness that they think you will think is a strength (if that makes sense). I do use it from time to time, but mostly towards the end of an interview where I've (hopefully) built up a picture of the person so have some ideas on areas I'm concerned about. If I get the obvious 'marketing' answer then I'll probably try and gently point out it will do neither of us any good to land-up in a situation where the person is in a role they can't do or won't be satisfied with. In a way the nature of the response is of interest - it should be an opportunity to discuss why it's an area of weakness and what sort of development they are considering, and for the interviewer to consider how important that area is within the role or culture.




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