Answering the “What’s your greatest weakness?” question in a job interview can feel like trying to impress a cat. They’re evaluating you with judgmental looks on their faces and gauging if you’re worthy of their trust.
This question is all about testing your self-awareness, honesty, and the ability to remain composed.
Here’s the key tip: skip the worn-out “I’m a perfectionist” line. Instead, offer up a genuine weakness alongside your plan to tackle it. In doing so, you showcase your dedication to growth and your authenticity — traits that are undeniably appealing.
In this article, you’ll learn:
- Sample answers to the “What is your biggest weakness?” question
- Tips for how to come up with a good answer to this question
- “Good” weaknesses to mention and how to pick them
- Mistakes to avoid when answering the greatest weakness interview question
Don’t waste days compiling overused interview techniques. Get original answers to every single question you could expect.
“What Is Your Greatest Weakness?” Answer Samples
First off, here’s a lesson on how to answer “What is your greatest weakness” from our top career coach, Pam. This will give you a few extra pointers on how to nail the answer.
Below, you’ll find answer samples mentioning the most common job interview weaknesses you can choose to discuss.
Sample answer focused on time management
Sample answer focused on public speaking
Sample answer focused on learning new technologies
Sample answer focused on giving feedback
Sample answer focused on networking
Sample answer focused on impatience
Sample answer focused on conflict resolution
Sample answer focused on decision-making
Sample answer focused on handling stress
Sample answer focused on the lack of work experience
Sample answer focused on the lack of education
Sample answer focused on employment gaps
And here’s a quick formula for answering the question so you can make awesome answers like the ones above:
How to Answer the “What Is Your Greatest Weakness?” Interview Question?
Here’s how to come up with the right weaknesses and create a perfect answer to “What is your greatest weakness?”
Reflect on your actual weaknesses
You might be tempted to pick an irrelevant weakness, like not being good at sports. Or you might want to present a strength as a weakness, like working too much and being extra dedicated.
Don’t. Interviewers will see through you. You’ll look insincere or not self-aware.
Being truthful about your weaknesses is important for several reasons:
- Demonstrates your self-awareness
- Shows you’re honest
- Shows you’re open to feedback
- Shows you’re open to personal development
Before the interview, carefully reflect on your actual weaknesses. To make a list of your weaknesses, think about:
- Past performance reviews — they are usually good indicators of areas of improvement
- Situations in which you made a mistake
- Situations when you didn’t know what to do
- Examples when you miscommunicated something
- Situations when you felt like what you were doing was wrong or just not good enough
- Any fears and doubts you have
- Any weaknesses or areas of improvement your manager has talked to you about
List them all, one below another, for clarity. It’ll help you pick the right weaknesses.
Choose a weakness that is not a deal-breaker
Once you have your preliminary list of weaknesses, it’s time to filter them out and pick the most convenient one.
For this, you’ll have to go through the job description and see what the key skills for the position are. Then compare them with your weaknesses.
Avoid weaknesses that are:
- Directly related to the key skills for the job and would destroy your chances of landing it
- Not relevant (if you’re applying for a Developer position, then, for example, marketing skills are not really relevant)
- “Strengths” disguised as weaknesses (perfectionism, working too much, being too focused, etc.)
Ideally, you should pick weaknesses that:
- Can be mitigated or improved upon
- You’re already working on improving (how you plan to improve them should always be a part of your answer — more on that later)
- Are aligned with the job description and company values
Compare the list of your weaknesses and the list of key skills from the job description. Then, pick a weakness from your list that is not instrumental for the role. In other words, don’t mention a weakness that’s in direct opposition to the job description or company values.
Put your answer into a broader context and explain how a weakness you mentioned won’t paralyze your performance. You can do this by highlighting a strength that outweighs that weakness. Or, give an example of how you, with your skill set, fit into your team and do your part despite shortcomings in certain areas.
✅ Pro tip: Imagine you’re applying for a Sales Associate role where persuasion, communication, and networking are crucial. But you find all of these hard because you’re introverted, bad at high-pressure situations, and have a limited professional network.
In this case, it would be wise to highlight a different weakness. More importantly, consider if your strengths align better with a different role. Finding a job that matches your skills and personality can lead to greater satisfaction and success.
Learn how to pick the right weakness:
Address the “elephant in the room”
Sometimes your weakness will be obvious from your resume — for example, if you don’t have work experience, lack a college degree, or if you have employment gaps.
In such cases, you can use the weakness question to explain your situation to the interviewer.
“When talking about these weaknesses, don’t be too self-deprecating about them or overly negative — it turns it into a bigger deal than it should be. Your answer shouldn’t be about how it’s been a struggle in your job search, but about how this wouldn’t be a weakness for you if you get hired. Ideally, you’ll also want to show how your other strengths balance the weakness.” — says Pamela Skillings, Big Interview co-founder and head career coach with over 15 years of experience.
To sum up:
- If you don’t have work experience or a degree, or if you have a gap in your resume, the weakness question can be a great place to address the elephant in the room.
- When talking about these things, frame them in a positive way and talk about what makes you qualified for the role despite them.
- To show they won’t be a weakness if you get hired, demonstrate the strengths that balance the weakness.
- For examples of how this looks in practice, scroll up to the sample answers.
Stay balanced and positive
When answering the greatest weakness interview question, don’t shoot yourself in the foot by being too confident or too self-conscious.
Don’t say you don’t have any weaknesses. But, don’t say you have too many, and definitely don’t wallow in self-deprecation.
Keep it real and understand the balance between honesty and self-preservation.
This means being genuine, but not to the point where you become unemployable. Being too honest and negative about a minor weakness that’s not essential to the position might ruin the recruiter’s impression of you and cost you an offer.
And in reality, that weakness might not have any effect on your performance, or it could be easily corrected and improved upon through training or a course.
For example, if you’re applying for a Graphic Designer role, rather than underselling yourself by highlighting an unrelated weakness like poor Excel skills, mention a more relevant area for improvement, such as needing to enhance your skills with project management tools like Asana.
Check out this video for more info:
Describe steps taken to address the weakness
This is the key element of your answer to “What is your greatest weakness?”: you should always emphasize that you’re striving to improve your weaknesses.
Talking about proactive steps you’re taking to get better at things will demonstrate your commitment, desire for improvement, and reliability.
For example:
✔️ If your weakness is being insecure, talk about the ways you’re working on accepting your good and bad qualities, like talking to a therapist or reading relevant books.
✔️ If you lack presentation skills, talk about how you’re volunteering to present new projects in front of smaller audiences and how you’ll gradually work your way up.
✔️ If you’re lacking data analysis skills, be sure to list courses you’re taking to improve that, or mentors you’re working with to help you with this.
If you can, provide evidence of improvement (certifications, recommendations, public praises, etc.).
Be prepared for follow-up questions or pushback
Anticipate potential follow-up questions that might be uncomfortable. These might include:
- How exactly this weakness hampered you.
- Details about how you tackled the weakness.
- Questions about if your colleagues or supervisors ever pointed that weakness out to you, and similar.
Not having an answer will get you confused and nervous, you’ll stutter, and the interview might go off the course.
That’s why we highly recommend coming up with weaknesses in advance and practicing your response.
To show up fully prepared for this question (and potential follow-ups), use the Answer Builder to jot down the main points you want to cover. Don’t worry if you haven’t figured them out yet, as it’ll give you bite-sized tips on how to craft your answer.
Step 2, which makes 90% of the difference, is to use the Interview Simulator. It’ll help you practice your response once you know the weaknesses you want to mention! You can record yourself as many times as you want until you get your answer right. Then, you’ll get detailed feedback on all elements of your answer: the power words you used, your pace of speech, filler words, vocabulary, and so much more.
Check out how this practice tool helped Abby land an offer at Goldman Sachs:
Stay calm and confident
Keeping your cool during the interview is crucial. But “What is your greatest weakness” is a tricky interview question, so a lot of candidates get especially nervous.
Remind yourself you’re not being interrogated: this is one of the most frequent, standard interview questions.
And remember that everything can be learned. What matters more is the way you talk about it, what you do about it, and if you’re able to even spot it.
Common Mistakes to Avoid When Answering the Greatest Weakness Interview Question
Here’s what to avoid next time you get the greatest weakness interview question.
Providing cliché or insincere answers
- I am too much of a perfectionist.
- I work too hard sometimes.
- I care too much about my work.
All bad answers. It’s called humblebragging, it’s dishonest, and it’s an old trick that interviewers can see through.
Disguising your strengths as weaknesses will definitely make you look bad — either like you’re hiding something or just being pretentious.
Being too negative
You don’t want to focus on the negative too much. Avoid detailing how a given weakness has been hampering your career so far.
Briefly mention your weakness, say how you’re working on improving it, end on a positive note, and move on.
Failing to mention steps taken to improve
You need to address the actions you’re taking to improve your weaknesses and become better in those areas.
Failing to mention this will make you look careless and not serious about your career, as recruiters will automatically assume you’re not doing anything to improve your skills.
“What Is Your Biggest Weakness?”: Popular Opinion vs. Expert Advice
We wanted to check what people have to say about answering this question, so we turned to forums like Reddit and Quora. The topic is pretty interesting and there’s a lot of advice out there. But how good is it?
Let’s see some of the most interesting tips.
Terrified at public speaking is usually the one I go with. It’s fairly relatable but easy to brush off by saying I get past it through practice. It also has the benefit of being true.
Career expert comments:
On the face of it, it seems fine. It’s mostly true for a lot of people and it indeed is easy to brush off by saying you’ll practice. But what happens when public speaking and presentation skills are important for the role? I don’t think this answer would be fitting for a role in sales, PR, leadership, consulting, or education.
On the other hand, if you list this weakness when interviewing for a role in software development, data analysis, or any other role/industry that doesn’t require this skill, it’ll be irrelevant and won’t tell anything about your ability to do the job well.
But it will show that you’re using scripted answers, you’re not being honest, and you’re incapable of being authentic.
Which is the main reason I don’t recommend using this and similar answers.
You might think you’ll be able to outsmart interviewers, but chances are you’re the third candidate that day who used the same answer. So I suggest taking ten minutes of your time and coming up with an honest and meaningful weakness and then saying how you’re working on it. As with everything else in life, taking shortcuts will get you nowhere.
AussieHyena said that hyperfocusing on issues is their weakness, and jeffreywilfong agreed:
This literally is my weakness. No one ever wanted to pull their weight in school on group projects, so I learned that if I want something done right, then I need to do it myself. It’s hard to trust someone when it directly impacts you/your work, especially when your priorities are not necessarily their priorities.
Career expert comments:
This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it showcases your dedication to quality and your willingness to take responsibility and meet high standards, which is awesome.
On the other hand, delegating tasks and teamwork are two crucial abilities for many roles. And if you emphasize your difficulty in trusting colleagues to carry their weight, it might say a thing or two about your inability to work collaboratively (or manage a team efficiently, in the future).
The trick here would be to frame it in a way that shows you’re aware of the importance of delegation and teamwork, and that you’re actively working to improve in this area. For instance, you could talk about the steps you’re taking to build trust with your colleagues, like learning to trust their capabilities, setting clear expectations, seeking feedback, and holding each other accountable. This approach would demonstrate self-awareness, a commitment to personal growth, and an understanding that effective collaboration is key to success in academia or at work.
Your best bet is to not talk about what you think your weakness is. Reference people who you trust as great mentors, whose advice you listen to, who have pointed out to you things they think would make a better you. Talk about why they gave you that feedback, talk about why you believe them, and talk about what you’ve done and continue to do to be better at those things.
Career expert comments:
Yup, this is a great piece of advice, especially if you’re struggling with coming up with a good answer. Speaking to others will help you discover your blind spots and make sure you’re being objective in your self-analysis. You can openly ask your mentor or a team leader about your areas of improvement, or try to remember what you talked about in your performance reviews. Plus, your friends and family might have interesting insights about your skills like communication, patience, problem-solving, and adaptability.
Taking this approach will show your self-awareness, a desire to listen, and the will to grow and be a successful, functional member of a team.
Summary of the Main Points
- “What is your greatest weakness” is a question recruiters ask to gauge your level of self-awareness, to identify areas in which you need improvement, and to check if you’re honest.
- To give the right answer, be truthful and reflect on your actual weaknesses.
- Don’t try to present strengths as weaknesses — you’ll come across as suspicious and pretentious.
- Always describe the steps you’re taking to improve your job interview weaknesses.
- Prepare for this question in advance! 9 out of 10 other candidates won’t do this, so showing up prepared (and ready for follow-ups) will make you stand out.
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FAQ
What are some good weaknesses to mention in an interview?
It’s good to mention weaknesses that are not directly related to key requirements for a position and that are easily fixable. This will depend on the role you’re interviewing for, but some common weaknesses that are ok to mention are handling stress, conflict resolution, time management, assertiveness, public speaking, or delegating tasks.
Can I lie about my weaknesses in a job interview?
No, the greatest weakness interview question is a common one that recruiters are trained for; they will spot a fake answer from a mile away. Be honest, choose your real weaknesses, and don’t try to disguise strengths as weaknesses.
Should I be concerned about additional questions regarding my weaknesses?
Additional questions about your weaknesses, such as how great of an impact they had on your performance, or if your managers already spoke to you about them, are completely normal. Recruiters just want to get to know you better and see the bigger picture. The key is to practice your answer so you’re prepared for these questions.
What weaknesses should I avoid mentioning in an interview?
Avoid speaking about weaknesses that could directly affect your performance in a particular position. Instead, focus on fixable weaknesses that will not be a threat to your performance. List actions you’re taking to improve them, too.
What’s the best “What is your weakness?” answer for freshers?
If you’re fresh out of school and hit with the “What’s your biggest weakness?” question, a good way to go is saying something like, “Honestly, my main weakness is not having a lot of practical experience yet. I’ve got the theory down from my studies, but I know there’s a difference when it comes to actually doing the job. That’s why I’m jumping into internships and volunteer gigs to get some hands-on experience, and I’m always up for feedback to learn and get up to speed fast.” This keeps it real but also shows you’re not just sitting around waiting for the experience to magically happen — you’re out there making it happen.
