Compiling Your Strength and Weaknesses List

Every job interview process will include the question in one way or another: "What are your biggest strength and weakness?"

Many candidates struggle with this. Exactly what is a good response to this interview question? Are your strengths truly strong enough for the role in front of you? Are your weaknesses more on a personal or professional level? Will mentioning them disqualify you from this job?

These are questions you should ask yourself and arrive at your interview ready to answer with strength and conviction. Honest self-criticism around your own work and personality traits will make a huge difference as you dive deeper into your professional prowess. 

Below are example answers about strengths and weaknesses for job seekers and how they should be phrased to a hiring manager during job interviews.

What is Your Greatest Strength?

• I'm think I'm a natural leader and have management skills.
• I'm punctual and detail oriented.
• I consider myself an empathetic person and can support others in my professional life. 
• I find working as a team beneficial. It sometimes takes a team to get the task done right.
• I have great communication skills, interpersonal skills, leadership skills, writing skills, computer skills, organization skills etc. (Mention any key hard skills or soft skills here.)
• I am open and able to adapt and learn new things.

What is Your Greatest Weakness?

• I struggle with anticipating the length of time to complete a task. This means I have to work hard to meet deadlines, but I always stay focused and get the job done. 
• I take on a lot of work individually. I sometimes adopt too much responsibility without delegating tasks.
• There are programs or technical skills (irrelevant to the job role) that I struggle to learn
• I sometimes have trouble asking for help from my team members.
• Sometimes I struggle with confidence because I am a shy person. I can be overly humble about by own strengths.
• Public speaking in front of large groups of people intimidates me, but I am working on it. 

How to Approach Your Strengths and Weaknesses

Give a thoughtful answer and use specific language and tailor your answers to fit the job description. Be cautious of the skill sets you choose; if they mirror the weaknesses then it will be apparent the trait may not be true. 

Include the best examples you can think of to illustrate your personal traits and give appropriate context. These can be examples of how you took initiative to correct and improve your weaknesses. 

Also, gives you the opportunity to further explain how your strengths made something in your previous role run smoother or made your more valuable as an employee. 

It can be difficult to talk about your personal strengths and turn weaknesses into positives, so self reflection will be key here. Curating a good strengths and weakness response will help put your best foot forward in all future endeavors and to build both personal and professional growth.

For additional help and insights for your job search, please submit your resume, apply for one of our jobs, or browse our career advice section.