5 ms·

Have you ever been asked “What is your biggest weakness?”

27 points by boopsie 15y ago

ferrofluid 15y ago
I work too darn hard, sir.
pors 15y ago
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.
- mhurron 15y ago
  It's useful for filtering companies. Last time I was looking for a job I had decided that stupid questions like this would be the end of my considering that company. Thankfully the place I'm at didn't ask stupid questions.
- salvadors 15y ago
  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.
boopsie 15y ago
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 15y ago
  I'd also encourage interviewees to ask some variation of, "What do you think my weaknesses are?"
  - boopsie 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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 15y ago
        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?
lukes 15y ago
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.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
PaulHoule 15y ago
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 15y ago
  Can you clarify what you mean "Interview at your level?"
  - PakG1 15y ago
    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.
T_S_ 15y ago
The correct answer is: "I am too kind to children and dogs."
cfinke 15y ago
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.
- simonbrown 15y ago
  On the other hand, it's not exactly fair or useful for an employer to use such a question. As far as the candidate is concerned, the employer may actually be looking for a bullshit answer.
- true_religion 15y ago
  Working too hard is a big deal. It leads to burn out. Being too much of perfectionist means that you can't deal with it when others just want to slap a bandaid on issues to get the job done for now. Sure you might put a shysters grin on it, as if you're really revealing a positive trait but the reality is much different I think.
- MattRogish 15y ago
  +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.
- ranit8 15y ago
  What if he thinks honest people are dangerous? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3581662 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3581662
dustingetz 15y ago
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 http://careers.stackoverflow.com/dustingetz >
berberous 15y ago
"Lying in interviews"
silentscope 15y ago
"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 15y ago
  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.
- petdance 15y ago
  > it doesn't really matter if your opinion of them drops Of course it matters, unless you don't care who you work for. You're interviewing the company just as much as they're interviewing you.
huggyface 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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?
    - 15y ago
scottm01 15y ago
Kryptonite.
prtk 15y ago
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.
Gazler 15y ago
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_correct_answer_to_what_is_your/c2cd7ae http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jidho/what_is_the...
- troels 15y ago
  I know that's what the upvote button is for, but man that's funny.
skarayan 15y ago
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." :)
brnstz 15y ago
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."
NathanKP 15y ago
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.
Natsu 15y ago
Yes. It was 7 years ago. I said "answering stock interview questions" ... and still got the job.
eli 15y ago
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.

27 points by boopsie 15y ago

I work too darn hard, sir.

pors 15y ago

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.

mhurron 15y ago
It's useful for filtering companies. Last time I was looking for a job I had decided that stupid questions like this would be the end of my considering that company. Thankfully the place I'm at didn't ask stupid questions.
salvadors 15y ago
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.

boopsie 15y ago

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 15y ago
I'd also encourage interviewees to ask some variation of, "What do you think my weaknesses are?"
- boopsie 15y ago
  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 15y ago
    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 15y ago
      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?

lukes 15y ago

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.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

PaulHoule 15y ago

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 15y ago
Can you clarify what you mean "Interview at your level?"
- PakG1 15y ago
  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.

T_S_ 15y ago

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

cfinke 15y ago

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.

simonbrown 15y ago
On the other hand, it's not exactly fair or useful for an employer to use such a question. As far as the candidate is concerned, the employer may actually be looking for a bullshit answer.
true_religion 15y ago
Working too hard is a big deal. It leads to burn out. Being too much of perfectionist means that you can't deal with it when others just want to slap a bandaid on issues to get the job done for now. Sure you might put a shysters grin on it, as if you're really revealing a positive trait but the reality is much different I think.
MattRogish 15y ago
+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.
ranit8 15y ago
What if he thinks honest people are dangerous? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3581662 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3581662

dustingetz 15y ago

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 http://careers.stackoverflow.com/dustingetz >

berberous 15y ago

"Lying in interviews"

silentscope 15y ago

"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 15y ago
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.
petdance 15y ago
> it doesn't really matter if your opinion of them drops Of course it matters, unless you don't care who you work for. You're interviewing the company just as much as they're interviewing you.

huggyface 15y ago

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 15y ago
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 15y ago
  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?
  - 15y ago

scottm01 15y ago

Kryptonite.

prtk 15y ago

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.

Gazler 15y ago

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_correct_answer_to_what_is_your/c2cd7ae http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jidho/what_is_the...

troels 15y ago
I know that's what the upvote button is for, but man that's funny.

skarayan 15y ago

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." :)

brnstz 15y ago

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."

NathanKP 15y ago

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.

Natsu 15y ago

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

eli 15y ago

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.