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Home: Sample Interview Answers: Job Interview Strength And Weakness Questions

Top Answers To Job Interview Strength
And Weakness Questions

"How do I answer job interview strength and weakness questions?" is the most common interview question we're asked as interviewers.

And questions about your strengths and weaknesses are also common job interview questions so you're right to want to be prepared for them.

Few people are so here's your chance to get ahead of the game.

We interview for a living and here's our advice:

Job Interview Strengths

To do well here you simply have to show how well you match the job role. That you are exactly what the interviewers need.

So you must understand the job requirements and responsibilities. If you've not prepared for your interview and done your research now's the time. Because if you don't know the requirements of the job, how can you show that you match them?

Your strengths can be your knowledge, skills, experience or personal characteristics, or a combination of these.

Here are some example job interview strengths answers.

Weaknesses In Job Interviews

It's harder to talk about weaknesses than strengths but good interview answers are still possible!

Note that some interviewers (like us) don't use the term 'weakness' or 'weaknesses' as it implies something negative and the question "please describe your weaknesses" often gets a poor answer and sometimes no answer at all.

We tend to phrase the interview question like this:

"What qualities do you admire in others which you would like to develop in yourself?"
Or
"What are the areas in your work that you'd like to improve upon?"
Or
"What could you do better in the next 12 months to improve your performance?"

Try to think of something which either you've perceived as a 'weakness' but worked to overcome or something which you find harder than others but cope with using some strategy or another.

And make sure it's not something key to the role! One interviewee told us that she 'wished' she could be more like her colleague who was organized and had a good memory. She was applying to be a personal assistant so both qualities are pretty important in this role.

Although (when pushed) she said she used a diary, this wasn't sufficient to recover her answer and win us over.

As you answer job interview strength and weakness questions, always have the role in mind.

Here are some example answers to questions about weaknesses in job interviews.