How to talk about your weaknesses in a job interview

Attending a job interview is a situation that normally tends to make most people tense and nervous. people, since we know that we are going to be valued and that this first impression may determine whether or not we are selected.

For this reason it is important that you prepare well for such an event, to increase your confidence and security and to get an idea of ​​what they may ask you.

A typical question that the interviewer often asks is what we believe to be our weaknesses, or our greatest weakness.. The need to answer such a question can be scary, since we are expressing a negative or not well valued quality in us, but if we know how to express it this can play in our favour, increasing our credibility and benefiting us in the selection process compared to others applications.

In this article we present some questions that you should take into account before attending a job interview and How should you prepare yourself for the possibility of being asked about your weaknesses?.

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How to talk about your flaws in a job interview?

Who has not gone through a job interview? It is normal that when we are looking for a job we have to interview a recruiter or an employee of the company or place where I want to work, so that they assess whether we are valid and have the characteristics they are looking for for the position vacant.

In itself a job interview is already impressive and tends to create anxiety and tension, it is normal for us to feel nervous, since it is presented as a situation where we will be evaluated and judged. It is the first contact with a subject who works in the company where I would like to join and it will also be decisive to be able to get the job or not. For this reason it is important that we face the situation safely and prepared for the different issues, questions, that may arise.

Although in the interview some question or topic may arise that we did not have with him, normally this type of selection interviews follow a fairly similar pattern among them, that is, they tend to be raised in a Similary. For this reason, It will help you to prepare how you would respond to some of the points that will surely arise, in order to increase your security and self-confidence and adopt effective strategies. and try to make sure that we say everything we want to communicate to the interviewer.

Even so, by preparing the answers to the possible questions we do not mean to propose the answer in a concrete way, with this we want say that we should think how we would like to answer what points we want to make in our answer, but not what our answer will be answer as is, with semicolons, since it is better to leave room for flexibility and to be able to give the answer according to the question that pose us. As we do not know for sure what the interviewer will ask us, it can be good for us to think of different points that we want to highlight and adapt to different possible formulations.

Not just in job interviews; in our life in general it is difficult for us to express our weaknesses, to make our weak points known, since We believe that if we show or make our negative or less valued traits known, these will cause a rejection in the other person.. But contrary to this belief, if we know how to properly communicate our weaknesses, they can help us and benefit us even when we want to get a job.

Acknowledging our weaknesses increases our credibility, since everyone has weak points and therefore knowing how to express them and raise them does not harm us but on the contrary, we We present ourselves as someone who is aware of their traits and gives truth to the other answers given, that we are not hiding information, since as we have said we all have negative traits and not saying them means that we want to hide them or worse still, that we are not aware they.

Thus, in order to get to know each other better, it is very likely that in a job interview they will ask us about our greatest weakness, to try take us by surprise and see how we respond to this question, but since we have already anticipated this question, this question can also play to our favor.

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Recommendations to communicate your weaknesses in a job interview

Below you will find some recommendations to prepare yourself and know how to face the typical question of "what are your weaknesses?" in a job interview.

1. Ask yourself what your weak points are specifically in relation to the job

It is obvious that in order to adequately answer the question of what is our greatest weakness, we must first know what our weak points are, but always having as reference the job that is offered. The answer must provide relevant information in the context of personnel selection, because in case of doing so will denote problems to offer information that adjusts to what the company asks, and that detracts from us as candidates.

We must not lose sight of the fact that we are in a job interview and that, therefore, what the interviewer is interested in is knowing how we are in the workplace. So when you answer regarding your strengths and weaknesses it is important that you refer to questions or traits that you can apply or that are linked to the work, since otherwise it will not make sense answer.

We must go further and look specifically for a quality or characteristic of ours that is specifically related to the job we are applying for, given that it thus acquires more relevance.

If you are not sure what these points are, It can help you to write in a notebook situations or events in which you think you did not act well and see why such a circumstance occurred.

In this way, apart from getting to know ourselves better, we can also take the opportunity to propose what actions we could do to improve our weaknesses and how to adapt so that they do not affect us as much or have no consequences negative. Which brings us to the next tip.

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2. Turn around the weaknesses

Knowing your weaknesses also gives you the option of being able to propose how to improve them or how you have evolved and progressed positively, making sure that they do not harm you or stop you. In this way we also show the interviewer that apart from recognizing all our traits, we have solutions so that the negative or weaker aspects improve or do not affect us so much, do not harm the work.

Showing that we are resolute and that we can have good ideas to be able to solve possible problems will play to our favor and will help to get a better assessment, since the important thing is not not to have weaknesses, but to know how handle them. We are taking advantage of the weaknesses to publicize a strength such as knowing how to face and solve problems.

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3. Mention your weaknesses without skipping the question

When we raise our weaknesses it is much better not to lie or try to hide them by answering the question with a trait that is actually a strength. It is common to use answers such as "I am a perfectionist", with which you are really avoiding the need to talk about own weaknesses expressing a strength as if it were an imperfection, doing with this fact that we lose credibility.

It is better that you truly indicate what you think is your most relevant weakness, giving an example and context in which it is expressed this feature in the workplace and, as we have said before, take the opportunity to suggest what solution you have found so that you do not affect.

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4. Know the position to which you aspire

Being honest and expressing your weaknesses does not mean that you have to self-sabotage. It is important that you know what values, characteristics, traits, they seek and prevail in the company or position to which you choose, since in this way you make sure that your answer does not suppose your elimination as candidate. For example, if you want to get a position where order is very important, having everything organized, it may not be the best option to say that you are very messy.

Be skillful and pose a sincere weakness, but without this being able to harm you, for this reason, apart from knowing yourself, it is also recommended that you know the site you want to achieve and that you can combine both criteria.

5. First weakness, then strength

It is advisable that if you are asked about a strength and a weakness of yours, you first raise the weakness and then the strength. In different psychology studies about how memory works or functions in different situations, it has been observed that when it is relevant that information is remembered in the present moment, right after it is given, it is better that we give the important information last, since a recency effect is produced; we better remember the last thing that was said. In this way we ensure the message that has more strength, worth the redundancy, is that of our strengths.

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6. Be careful not to use too strong words

Another point to consider when you express your weaknesses is to try not to use words like "always" or "never", since they are totalitarian words, that is, they They express that something happens or does not happen continuously in a certain way.. Therefore, it is better that you use expressions such as "sometimes" or "from time to time", that is, they do not mean that such behavior always appears.