While acing the interviews, the applicants very often hear the same questions from their potential employers, regardless of the position and company. As a rule, they want to know much about the candidate’s personality and especially about their weaknesses and strengths. Why do the employers or HRs ask such the inappropriate, at a first glance, questions?
They just want to know about the features that can help or, on the contrary, interfere with the work. For example, follow-through is highly regarded in the construction industry, as well as decision-making autonomy, teamwork experience, and skillful people management. Nobody is going to ask you about your inner world that is not relevant to a job.
How to Describe Your Traits during the Interview
The employers’ motives for asking such questions are clear but another one raises. What to answer during the interview? The fact is that there is no right or wrong answer when dealing with your personality. Even the most experienced psychologists can’t develop any versatile strategies or invent precise formulas.
However, one should keep in mind the direct connection between personal and professional characteristics. For example, a sales manager should be able to find a common interest with other people. And yet, the applicant’s story about the most helpful features in his/her career building is expected first. Here are some examples of the strengths in demand?
Knowledge-based skills:
- Close contacts with other companies in a certain niche.
- Detailed knowledge and understanding of the market.
- Language spoken.
Transferable skills:
- The ability to analyze large amounts of information.
- Increased resilience to stress situations.
- Planning skills.
Personal features:
- A gift for persuasion.
- Heightened sense of responsibility.
- Creativity and flexibility.
It may seem, you’re bragging about your advantages. To remove this false impression, try to put the real experience behind the words – tell about some situation where your strong points helped benefit your company.
What about weaknesses? Certainly, it is impossible to keep quiet about them. That’s why you should turn the weaknesses into strengths. In other words, let your drawbacks be touching and contain hidden profit for the employer. Let’s list some of such “flaws”.
- Dependability.
- Inability to sit still for anything.
- Frankness.
- Drive for formalism.
- Inability to deceive.
- The heightened activity.
- Incredulity.
- Willingness to compromise on contentious issues.
- Integrity.
- Modesty.
All mentioned above is just a foundation to build your own strategy but not a guide to action. No sense to tell about all the weaknesses you’ve heard about but to inform the employer about your real features. Now, it’s time to deal with the methods of your presentation.
How to Describe Your Strengths and Weakness Correctly?
During the interview, never forget about the job description, including the company’s requirements and desires and all the open information about it. Being informed about the key skills required, you managed to pick up the right answer. For instance, if you want to take the position of a marketer, stress on your ability to delve into the client’s business fast. However, some patterns of conduct are the taboos at any interview.
- Excessive criticism of yourself.
- The desire to please everyone.
- Not being aware of the latest software.
With regard to your shortcomings, don’t mention them until hearing the relevant question. Moreover, don’t lose a moment to attract the employer’s attention to the fact that you work on yourself constantly in order to get rid of your weaknesses. Demonstrate the practical examples from your professional life as evidence. Don’t be alarmed even to show the employer the advantages of your weakness in term of the job’s specs.
Be frank but not over-familiar, you should remain within the professional ethics. Besides, the answers should be accurate and on the theme, try to avoid getting into a protracted discussion. When visiting jobsora.com, you’ll find out more answers to the most painful questions about the career building, useful tips, bright practical samples and awesome job offers.
