Discover Your Biggest Weakness

As much as we would all like to portray ourselves as the infallible intern, interviewers seek out our imperfections in a daunted and predictable interview question: “What’s your biggest weakness?”. How in the world do you impress the shiny employee behind the lengthening interview table that you are intern-of-the-year when he or she bluntly wants to know what’s wrong with you?

No need to fret. This question serves the purpose of adding humanity to your impressive work portfolio. The interviewer is not actually judging you on your biggest weakness, but simply looking to see if you have developed the maturity to realize that everyone makes mistakes and have grown from your experiences.

Now that the psychology behind such a straightforward question has been unearthed, here is how to answer this weighty question with class and stature:

Search yourself

While we all know (or should know) that we aren’t perfect, it can be difficult to pin-point what exactly our flaws are. It’s a thinker… If long bouts of pondering don’t deliver results, try taking a personality quiz online. It’s super fun and can, now, serve a purpose.

Beat around the bush

While you do want to express your status as a human being, you’re still trying to impress the company, so select your weakness wisely. Instead of saying you tend to skip over details while applying for a marketing position, opt for a more elusive flaw to the field like thinking on your feet or finance.

Be a conquerer

The key to nailing this question is not selecting the perfect flaw (as oxymoronic as that sounds), but revealing how you have overcome your weakness. Having a brief anecdote prepared is splendid.

Get real

You’re not perfect. Face it. As hard as it is to believe no one, not even Anna Wintour, is perfect. So, saying your only weakness is you work too hard or you’re a perfectionist makes you look like a conceited fool. Honesty is the best policy.

Go discover what is wrong with you! It will do wonders for your future.