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Declaring weakness
8

Declaring weakness

Declaring weakness

(OP)
Job application forms here generally require the applicant to declare his/her weakness. I am always in a dilemma about this. What are you guys' experience with this? Is it recommended to reveal our weakness? Actually for me controlling anger is a tough task and this issue was discussed at a great length in one of my previous interviews.

Secondly, what should we write in short term and long term goals (this includes personal ambition also). Should it relate to our job or can it be our real ambition.

I appreciate your help. (yeah...I am attending an interview tomorrow)

Regards,

RE: Declaring weakness

3
"I tend to work too hard. I have a low tolerance for imperfections. I'm generous to a fault. I'm overly modest about my many tremendous accomplishments. And finally, my handsome good looks can be very distracting to members of the opposite sex."



RE: Declaring weakness

Always put down a weakness that management looks to as a benefit to them. The one I use is: I am a workaholic.

Bradley

RE: Declaring weakness

(OP)
Thanks a lot VE1BLL. I can use atleast three of your ideas. Will the first one becomes a liability to me in future (ofcourse, I generally work for 10-12 hrs/day but I don't want it to be mandatory)

Regards,

RE: Declaring weakness

(OP)
Thanks Bradley. I think we both posted at the same time that is why I couldn't see your post prior to my reply. Can you clarify the point in my second post?

Regards,

RE: Declaring weakness

Quark,
Being a workaholic does not become a liability, because my wife will not let me work 10-12 hours a day. Of course I would not put down being a workaholic unless I am one. I love working as much as I can. When my job requires the extra effort I am there. That is why I love salary instead of hourly pay. I do not need approval to work over 8 hour days.
Hope this answers your question.

Bradley

RE: Declaring weakness

I am stubborn...  And I am not afraid to say it.  I said it in all my interviews that I ever had.  If you say stuff like: hard worker, perfectionnist, etc is not very good, simply because it is not original.  EVERYBODY tries to use those weaknesses that make him/her look good at the end.  Being stubborn is something that is not used very much, but it could be interpreted as a "good" weakness.  For example: I am so stubborn that I will find the answer to this question.  In my current job, my boss came to see me a couple of months after he hired me about my weakness.  He said that I was the only one that was honest enough and that actually impressed him.

Coka

RE: Declaring weakness

Coka,
Sounds like you are very fortunate to have the boss you have. Stubborn could be misunderstood to not being a team player.   

Bradley

RE: Declaring weakness

Quark,

First of all good luck and best wishes for your interview.

One of the weaknesses I say is as under and this is true.

I take lot of initiative in my work - i.e. I go beyond what is expected of me as regards my job role or responsibility, but something which is beneficial for the organisation I work with.  The flip side to this is - I sometimes, rather more often than not, am "used" by people or people take me for "granted" and get their work done.  I also narrate some real-life incidents - though this is a weakness in a personal perspective, the organisation benefits almost always - at least I trust so.  

As Bradley has said, indicate a weakness that the employee would treat as a strength for the organisation.  Workaholic honest, sincere, hard working, etc., are all too generic in nature.

Once again, best wishes to you Quark.

HVAC68

RE: Declaring weakness

Quite frankly, I think you would be very quickly fed up with a boss stupid enough to be impressed by the "I tend to work too hard" cliché. Stay honest. Of course there's different (more or less self-eliminating) ways of describing your weakness. If your future boss turns out to prefer slick talk rather than honesty, that's one good reason why you would not want to work for him.

RE: Declaring weakness

quark:

One thing that I always made sure I did with that question was to go on to tell the interviewer what I did to mitigate the effects of whatever the weakness is.  

Myself, I don't remember things well.  Okay, fine, there are tools out there to manage that now.  I tell them what I am using and some of the techniques that I have developed so that I don't forget things.  

I would have to agree with the above posts that indicated to be honest.  For the most part every interviewer knows the "correct" answer to the typical questions, come up with something that is really personal and be able to back it up.  It looks much better on you.

Dave

RE: Declaring weakness

One weakness that an employer may be able to exploit is difficulty with delegating responsibility.

In a small company where there are few people to delegate to, it could mean you are willing to wear a few other hats to maintain control of a project, instead of just $ourcing the tasks.

In a large organization where i.e. engineers define the requirements and designers detail the design, an engineer with this weakness will naturally form close, collaborative relationships with his design team.

Also, this weakness will tend to keep an engineer off the management track while their individual contributions benefit the employer longer. And with all weaknesses, there is always the fact that we can unlearn them.

RE: Declaring weakness

In one of the resumes I was going through, I read this one-

"Tendency to go deep into the theory and reinvent the wheel."

Such things may go well and you can avoid them becoming the hot topics of the interview. Say something which is a genuine weakness still very human.

"I sometimes attend interesting problems first and important ones later." You can say and get away. Who really isn't the culprit of this, one time or the other?

RE: Declaring weakness

Quote:

"I have a tendency to tell people what they need to hear, instead of what they want to hear.

RE: Declaring weakness

TheTick: If you said that to me, my follow-up would be "What is it about that tendency that you consider to be a weakness?"

--------------------
Bring back the HP-15
www.hp15c.org
--------------------

RE: Declaring weakness

Glad you asked.  My "dream reply"...

Quote:

Well, Mr./Ms. Interviewer, take this particular question, for instance.  What you want to hear is a list of my potential weaknesses, and perhaps how I might convey them as strengths.  What you need to hear is that this is a completely useless question, as all it does is waste both your time and my time, and does very little to elicit information of any discernable from any of your applicants.

Maybe someday I'll work up the neve to try this one out.

Due to illness, the part of The Tick will be played by... The Tick.
http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

RE: Declaring weakness

I suppose I didn't really answer your question, Beggar.  Maybe I need to add listening skills to my list of shortcomings.

RE: Declaring weakness

I'm glad someone's come and out and said it. It's a lawyer's question, I really think that by asking it the interviewer demeans both themselves and the candidate, since an honest response is less likely to be rewarded than a dishonest one.

Cheers

Greg Locock

RE: Declaring weakness

(OP)
Thanks to all for participating in the discussion.

The interview went well and they were impressed by my experience and knowledge. I was supposed to look after a project of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients(that basically needs a chemical engineer) but my experience has been with mainly formulations. They were ready to take me in maintenance or into formulations which they are proposing shortly. There was no debate on the weakness section and I am happy too.

I actually attended this interview not for a job change but for polishing up my skills for future interviews.

Unfortunately I couldn't get anything helpful from the above link. It is still not clear to me, what the writer intended to tell us. If these questions are so stupid, how they became part of any interview? They should have faded out in time with more and more people rejecting them.

Personally I feel that we, as engineers, should come up with solutions for silly problems and intelligent problems as well. We should not loose something because we are not ready to answer some silly and quintessential questions.

I will speak to couple of our HR guys now and let you people know the outcome.

PS: I used VE1BLL's second and third ideas and I was well prepared for a debate on the contradiction(of idea no.2 with respect to idea no.3).

Thanks once again.

RE: Declaring weakness

2
To give you an idea why a good interviewer asks these questions, the following is from an email I got from a recruiting company this week.  

<<
Answering “What are your major weaknesses?” at the Interview

One of the trickier questions an interviewer might put to you is “what are your major weaknesses?”

What are you meant to say? If you list all your weaknesses, aren’t you just giving the interviewer reasons to think that you aren’t up to the job?

If you read most other interview advice guides, they will say that you should list some weaknesses that are just as much strengths. Things like “I am a perfectionist” or “I work too hard”.

But these responses are JUST PLAIN WRONG. Let me explain why.

In fact, I’ll let you in on a secret. It is my job as an interviewer to form my own opinion on what your strengths and weaknesses are and I will do so without you needing to tell me! But, if I DO ask you “what are your major weaknesses?” then I will be looking for three key things:


Self awareness
Awareness of your impact on others
Self development
So work out what your weaknesses are, and package them with the following three steps to make your interviewer know that you are the right person for the job!


Self awareness
As an interviewer, I want to see that you are aware how your ‘weakness’ really is a weakness.

For instance, your reply may start along the lines of “One of my weaknesses is that I can be a perfectionist which sometimes means that I need to work long hours in order to get things done to the high standards I set myself.

As an example, I needed to complete a proposal for a new client, and I was up until 2am the morning before the presentation getting it finished, which I realise could make my work suffer the next day."

Okay, so you’ve established the fact that you are TRULY AWARE that you have a WEAKNESS. You’re already scoring well now. Time to go on to the next stage.


Awareness of your impact on others
Your weakness may also be impacting others in a negative way, so it is good to show that you are aware of how your behaviour rubs off on other people.

(By the way, strong candidates, especially in an environment where teamwork is important, will ALWAYS be demonstrating that they are aware of their impact on others.)

So, to continue our example, you might say something along the following lines:

“I am aware that people who work with me can find it tiring to work with someone who will push themselves to deliver such a high standard on every piece of work that they do.”

Okay, so now you’re showing that you’re really on top of this weakness, and that you’re not trying to show it off as some kind of strength.

Now it’s time to go in for the kill! I will be putty in your hands if you go on to step 3!!


Self development
Finishing your response off in this way will truly show that you understand that you have a weakness and THAT YOU ARE DOING SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!

Remember, everyone has weaknesses. They are not something to be hidden, but something to be FIXED. So show your interviewer that you have set about FIXING your weaknesses. Again, examples are useful.

The response may finish something like this:

“I am now making a conscious effort on every piece of work I do to ask myself whether pushing myself to the ‘perfect’ solution is really being efficient or whether I would be better off putting some time into other things. I am also involving my team to give me advice on when they think I am over-doing things, and I am also asking my manager to let me know when I have done too much.

I think that I will always strive to over deliver – that’s just the kind of person I am – but I am also trying to make sure that I work more efficiently and without tiring out people around me”

Wrap-up

So, now do you see how you should REALLY be answering the ‘weakness’ question?

Follow the three steps above, and your interviewer will know that they are talking to a high quality candidate who will continue to grow and flourish in their company.

-Jonathan Lewis

Jonathan Lewis has extensive experience of selecting, recruiting and retaining exceptional

personnel in a variety of professional roles.
>>

This makes a lot of sense to me, but I'm guessing from the majority of my interviews that the people asking this question really don't understand the full impact of it.


RE: Declaring weakness

Hmm, any interviewer who wants to hear "Just So" stories like that deserves the recruits he gets.

Being an arrogant SoB I'd be more inclined to explain that that was the exact process I was going to use to answer the question, so, does the interviewer want to hear the pretty little story with its cute little moral, or does he want to ask another question?

I /enjoy/ interviews.

Cheers

Greg Locock

RE: Declaring weakness

Funny--that's exactly what I was thinking. Of course, by doing so, I'd reveal what some might consider to be one of my weaknesses, the tendency to say what I'm thinking when others are more likely to hold their counsel. Which could then be a springboard to discussion of that "weakness", how I manage it, why I don't really want to cure it...

Hg

RE: Declaring weakness

I have yet to see a person who was hired because he knew his weaknesses, let alone impact of his weaknesses on others and desire to work on his weakness.

All the people surround me were hired on their strenghts.

RE: Declaring weakness

Sure, but a definite strength is knowing where your weakenesses are.


TTFN

RE: Declaring weakness

I have yet to take the question seriously.

Depending upon  how the mood takes me in the interview, I usually declare an extreme weakness for chocolate cake.

Tom

RE: Declaring weakness

My weakness is an inability to find fault in my self, of course by stating that I've found fault in my self.... so I guess I have no weaknesses.

What I've heard from interviewers is that a perfectly acceptable answer is - none. Many throw that question out there to get people to expond on their bad habits and self doubt.

**If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the precipitate.**

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