Show Me Where on the Doll the Interviewer Hurt Your Ego

Most hiring managers use a number of different interview tactics in order to judge your candidacy. Knowledge based interview questions are designed to see how much you know. Wild card interview questions are used to see how well you think on your feet. Logic based interview questions are designed to see if you have problem solving skills.

The type of interview question most candidates dread, however, are questions that ask you to look at yourself in a negative light. These questions come in two forms:

• Weakness Questions
• Stress Questions

Stress questions are considerably less common. They are designed to literally insult you to see your reaction. The interviewer will listen to an answer, then respond with “Really? That’s your answer? Are you sure you don’t want to try again?” The interviewer may love your answer, but asks it in that tone to see if you get flustered. Stress questions are uncommon enough that we will ignore them for the purposes of this post.

Weakness Questions

Weakness questions are far more common. The interviewer asks you to point out flaws about yourself, in order to see what you can come up with as a response. Examples of weakness questions include:

• What is your biggest weakness?
• What is your fatal flaw?
• If we choose not to hire you, why do you think that would be?

As implied, the interviewer wants to hear you say something negative. Or at least, they want to see how you handle a question designed to make you look like a worse candidate. Answering these questions seems difficult, but is actually fairly simple.

What the Interviewer Wants to Hear

Any time you experience a weakness question, the goal is not to provide them with any information that would cause them to want to seek out another candidate. Rather, the goal is to give them something that no interviewer is going to hold against you. Also, you must always be confident about your candidacy. At no time should you act as though you are not the person for the job. You need to be confident that you are the right candidate. Modesty is not acceptable.

How to Answer

Each individual question is going to have its own type of answer, so rather than provide a general “how to” for answering weakness questions, let’s look at good answers for the examples above, and show what they have in common.

Q: What is your biggest weakness?

A: “My greatest weakness is probably that when I have a great idea, I sometimes do not feel free to share it in a public forum. I’d prefer to bring it up separately to my supervisor in private, and by doing so I make it harder for others to build on my ideas. I am currently working on being more open during company meetings with my thoughts and strategies.”

Q: What is your fatal flaw?

A: “I am always looking to improve myself, so I do not believe any flaw can be truly fatal, because that would imply that I cannot learn to do the tasks successfully. However, I would say my greatest weakness is that I sometimes do not feel free to share my great ideas…” (etc.)

Q: If we choose not to hire you, why do you think that would be?

A: “I am confident that I am a great fit for the position, so if I am not hired it would likely be because I did not do an adequate job explaining why I am right for the role.”

Commonalities

All of these answers have the following in common:

• They are all positive.
• They are all confident.
• They are all of minimal importance.

None of these are going to harm your candidacy and you are showing off the confidence that the interviewer wants you to have.

Whenever you face a question about your weaknesses, or a question that asks you to say something negative about yourself, don’t give them an answer they can use or act as though you might not deserve the job. Show them you deserve the job and only supply them with information that is barely considered a flaw, if at all.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Be confident.
• Give them nothing they can hold against you.

3 Steps Towards Answering Negative Behavioral Questions

Perhaps the most difficult type of behavioral question to answer are those that ask you to say something negative about yourself, such as a weakness or a mistake or a period of poor judgment. You cannot pretend that you are perfect. If you do, the interviewer is going to find themself annoyed with you, and possibly distrust your other answers.

You need to give the interviewer an actual answer, and though you should never pick a negative that will drastically affect your employment (“I once stole ten million dollars”), even a small negative may harm your chances a little bit if supplied incorrectly. So when you are asked to say something negative about yourself, use the following three step process to answer the question and minimize the damage it does to your chances.

Step 1: Background

First you should set up the story for the interviewer without focusing on the negative aspects of your decision. For example “The company had recently gone through some layoffs, so I was placed in charge of the responsibilities of many of the open positions. While working on one of their projects, I was asked to…”

Step 2: Brief Mistake

Next, mention the mistake briefly, without focusing on your error or trying to defend yourself. If you picked a non-egregious error like you should have, it shouldn’t be too hard to simply mention it briefly, like “I did not realize the person the phone was a client, so I quickly hung up when they appeared to rude.”

Step 3: Minimize

The third step in any negative behavioral interview question is to make it appear as though the negative thing may not happen again if they give you employment. You do this by talking about what you have done since to ensure it does not happen again, such as “Since then, I have treated every unknown phone call like they may be a client, because you never know who is on the other end of the phone.”

Following these three steps will ensure that the mistakes you made will not seem as terrible to the interviewer, and since you explained what you have done since to minimize the damage, it is less likely the interviewer will hold these negative items against you.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Give non-negative background information.
• Briefly state the negative item.
• Follow it up with information that minimizes the damage.

Difficult Interview Question – What Types of People Do You Find it Hard to Get Along With?

No two people are alike. When you walk into the workplace for the first time, you are going to be surrounded by individuals with all different types of personalities. Some of them are going to be amazing people. Others are going to be boring. Still others are going to be nothing short of infuriating. There is no way you will like everyone, because as hard as most businesses try to hire likeminded individuals, no two people have the same mind.

You’re going to dislike some people, and barely tolerate others. So employers are going to ask “what types of people do you find it difficult to get along with?” with the hopes that you will feel so strongly about this answer that you will start complaining about the types of people you disagree with.

Bad Answer

“I don’t like whiners. People that complain constantly about life around them get on my nerves. People need to learn to take responsibility for their lives. If they’re not happy with something, go out and find a new path.”

No one likes whiners. This seems like a good answer. However, do you see what you are doing with an answer like this? You are whining. You are complaining about people without them around to defend themselves. Remember, the rule about job interviews is that you make an effort not to complain about anything, ever.

Good Answer

“On a personal level, I enjoy all types of people. On a professional level, I have respect for all individuals that work hard and maintain a professional work environment. Provided both of those are met, I will always get along with my coworkers without any personal disagreement.”

You are still answering the question. Yet rather than complaining, you are actually talking about all of the individuals that you enjoy working with, and implying the individuals that you prefer not to work with. This makes you appear positive and friendly, as someone that likes the vast majority of all people. This is a much better way to answer this type of difficult question.

Take Away Interview Tips

• Always remain positive.
• Focus only on the people you disagree with professionally.
• Discuss what you like to see in people, implying what you don’t like to see.