Rest assured, I was neither ignoring nor overlooking anything. Here's what you said up top: "Why do people hate the greatest weakness question? I have never mi

Rest assured, I was neither ignoring nor overlooking anything. Here's what you said up top: "Why do people hate the greatest weakness question? I have never minded receiving it, and I often ask people the same." After receiving an answer, your story changed a little. Now it was about "one" weakness. And a bit further down, you complete the reversal by asserting that asking about the greatest weakness is pointless, since people's answers can't be verified. So you often ask a question you don't ask because it's silly. Got it. I think what this exchange demonstrates is that you don't need to explicitly ask "what's your greatest weakness" to get some idea about the problems you may encounter in working with an individual. Indeed, you can get solid information about a person from a conversation about the whether if you're paying close enough attention to what they actually say. Conducting the interview at a restaurant and watching how they treat the waiter is an especially good way to to get a reliable quick-read. Observations like these won't tell you who is perfect for the job, but they will tell you who is to be avoided. The key to these revealing moments is that the person you're considering isn't feeling on the spot at the time. That's why anxiety-producing questions are so unproductive. The interview situation provides enough nervousness on its own. Far better to relieve some of that pressure, allow people to be themselves, and just see what happens next.