Hellobee Boards

My learning style and retention is a weakness. So often people don't want to put things in writing for fear of a paper trail, but that's exactly what I need. Either I hear it and read it or I hear it and write it down myself. I also ask a lot of questions because the worse thing for me is to go back to my notes and not understand them. I have learned to compensate for my weakness. In a way this has become a strength because people rely on me to fill them in and provide context to otherwise forgettable situations and I have also become the authority on wether something was communicated.

For those questions I think a good answer is one that shows how you don't let weakness hinder your success and even better if you can make it an asset.

Procrastination .............. !

Mine would be procrastination and confidence. I beleive I procrastinate because I'm not confident in the best way to do something so I put it off until it absolutely needs to be finished.

I just went through the interview process and instead of asking me my biggest weakness, they asked what my boss or coworkers would say it was. I thought it was interesting. I said public speaking is something I am good at when I have to do it but it gives me a lot of anxiety and I don't like having to do it. Then said that I would like to be more comfortable with it and hope for the opportunity to do more of it my new role because even though it makes me uncomfortable, I think it's important to put yourself outside your comfort zone to learn and grow. I think you can spin pretty much any negative into positive light. Side bar, my position doesn't require a lot of public speaking and if it did I obvioislu would have answered differently, even though my answer was 100% honest!

I once had an interview where I had 5 minutes with a bigwig (can't remember if it was the CEO or a VP) and he asked this. I answered honestly and said I'm not good at being political. He told me that answer was BS and no one was good at that except politicians and to give him a different answer! I don't even remember what I said after that.

The one that consistently comes up on my reviews is communication style. I don't adapt to all my much older coworkers to the point that they want me to. And I'm 100% ok with that. I like an email trail to cover my ass and to avoid any sort of misinterpretation (it's happened before.....blackbird said X, and in reality, I DID NOT). I usually send one after an in-person or phone conversation. But some of the old guys around here just prefer you talk to them and that be it and feel email is bothersome and aggressive and potentially over-the-top.

My biggest weakness currently is that i'm not a good schmoozer/ass kisser/coddler with the inventors. I'm not going to sit there and stroke your ego. My boss wants a little more "customer service". It just feels yucky to me because it's fake.

At my last interview I talked about how I often lose track of what I'm doing- which I really do. But that I've found by taking notes it helps me remember everything I'm doing while I multitask. So although maybe I BSed it a little- it really is a weakness in my work, I just found a way to combat it!

I was just asked this in an interview and I basically said doing the menial/redundant tasks for my job. Like entering my marketing visits in 3 different places just because we dont have a sustem where my manager, home office staff and our regional president can all pull reports to see where i've been. It's one of those things that doesnt help the company achieve goals and takes away from my productivity.

I've heard from some friends who do a lot of hiring that they don't even like when people try to spin a positive as a negative (e.g. the classic "I'm a perfectionist" thing). It's obvious and seems a bit like they're sucking up. So I think it's good to say a real weakness, though of course not something that will keep you from being hired!

I'd say my for real weakness is procrastination. I always get stuff done by the deadline, but I often do it riiiiight before the deadline I'm working on it! It's hard because I'm a writer and my creative juices just flow better when I'm in a time crunch, haha.

People have told me I can be intimidating. In the last few years I've definitely worked to soften that.

I get overly enthusiastic about things and tend to bite off more than I can chew, causing myself unneeded stress.

And I have a bad case of bitchy resting face and tend to be a pretty intense person when Im concentrating on something..... which can come off unfriendly and intimidating.

@Maysprout: awesomeness!

If I was asked this question in an interview, I would say that I am not good at cold-calling or upselling. I hate trying to sell someone on something that they don't want or necessarily need, just because it will benefit my business.

If I was asked what others have identified as my biggest weakness, it would be that I need to better control my temper at times when I'm overwhelmed. I tend to get mean when asked to do too many things at once.

@reyorra: haha whoops I just reread what I wrote, I didn't mean it as a real answer for me. Someone else gave me that as a reason people kept not wanting to work with them. They sucked at the work but somehow still obliviously thought everyone else was just jealous haters. It was a terribly awesome answer.

It's hard for me to delegate because it's hard for me to trust that others will complete the task in a satisfactory manner.

I don't have a lot of patience for lazy. I really am a hard worker (I've never used perfectionist or workaholic as a weakness though, sounds too fake) and I can't stand working with people who aren't. Unfortunately I landed in the wrong field and have run into this everywhere I've worked, and I can get kind of bitchy about it. I think I might intimidate the newer employees. I've been working on this. I have no problem with people needing training, I actually like to teach, but when they're not doing a task because they know someone else will end up doing it eventually, it drives me crazy! I was asked this in an interview recently and gave an honest, if somewhat abbreviated answer.