Weakness

[Sunny Malik]

What is your weakness according to technology ?

[Sandip Sankeshwar]

technology is my weakness.
and ofcourse sleep which I will be taking now as its 11:30 PM.

[Sunny Malik]

If in interview somebody ask what is your weakness in technology side then what we can say?

About strength we can say many things. But I never got answer for weaknesses.

General weakness we can say something but
what in technical side ?


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[Nicholas Jordan]

Just tell'em you are weak in Crypto. If they cannot realize that is playing their own game then you need to look elsewhere for an interviewer that has some grasp of the field you are interviewing for.

[John Smith]

Originally posted by Sunny Malik:
If in interview somebody ask what is your weakness in technology side then what we can say?
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This is the type of question that was fashionable 20 years ago. These days, if you are being interviewed by a good company, it's far more likely that they will ask you about how many quarters you have to stack up to reach the height of the Empire State building.

[marc weber]

Originally posted by Sunny Malik:
If in interview somebody ask what is your weakness in technology side then what we can say? ...

Tell them your weakest area is interviews.

[Srikanth Raghavan]

I am thinking about it for the last 10 minutes to answer this question and honestly, I do not have an answer.

May be I will put it this way. I didn't know Linux 2 years ago and I had to write a few shell scripts. At that point, "not knowing Linux" was my weakness. I worked on it and I picked it up. Now I can safely say I am good at it. I guess it depends on the kind of problem I am solving at that moment. If you ask me to write some code in Lisp now, I may not be able to do it and it may become my high-priority technological weakness. But I will surely work on it and improve. IMHO, weakness in technology depends on context.

"Context is critical." -- Anonymous

Does this seem like a good answer?

Srikanth

[Devesh H Rao]

Originally posted by Srikanth Raghavan:


Does this seem like a good answer?

Srikanth

Depends on the context.

[Sunny Malik]

Original Posted by Devesh H Rao
Depends on the context

good one

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Originally posted by Srikanth Raghavan:
Does this seem like a good answer?

Srikanth

that is good answer as per context.
But cant we have any general answer.

like if somebody ask in interview about strengths, so we used to say Hardworking, Keep on Learning, Good Grassping, blah blah blah.....
[ April 18, 2008: Message edited by: Sunny Malik ]

[marc weber]

Originally posted by Sunny Malik:
... But cant we have any general answer.

like if somebody ask in interview about strengths, so we used to say Hardworking, Keep on Learning, Good Grassping, blah blah blah...

Unfortunately, I think some interviewers ask things like this because they don't know what else to ask and are doing their own, "Blah, blah, blah..."

But if there's any thought behind this, they don't really care what your weaknesses are. They want to know if you know your own weaknesses, and whether you can acknowledge them. These are important qualities for individual development and teamwork. So frame a response in this context. Don't "blah, blah, blah" a canned response.

[Nicholas Jordan]

Originally posted by marc weber:
Don't "blah, blah, blah" a canned response.

I agree with you, but I think that might not get the poster the impression with the interviewer that the interviewer wanted the interviewee to think was the view the interviewer wanted the interviewee to have. Thinking interviewees might leave the interviewer feeling threatend in job security that might result in the interviewer being interviewed for a parking lot security job in Mongolia. Mongolia is loaded with gold, that is why you don't hear a lot of news about stacking quarter contests coming from the region. It is sort of a hush-hush thing, leaves you with the blahs.

[Sunny Malik]

Originally posted by marc weber:
They want to know if you know your own weaknesses, and whether you can acknowledge them.

But you cant say your weakness to the interviewer, Suppose I have a weakness that I cant adpot new technology quickly, but I cant tell this to interviewer,,, right?
Else he will think I am not confident.
So If I would have given good technical interview but still I can be out of interview

[Devesh H Rao]

Originally posted by marc weber:

Unfortunately, I think some interviewers ask things like this because they don't know what else to ask and are doing their own, "Blah, blah, blah..."

But if there's any thought behind this, they don't really care what your weaknesses are. They want to know if you know your own weaknesses, and whether you can acknowledge them. These are important qualities for individual development and teamwork. So frame a response in this context. Don't "blah, blah, blah" a canned response.

I would agree with marc on this. In an interview i normally pop the weakness question if i am still sitting on the fence with the decision.

It goes like this in my mind, the person in front has been able to give a fair representation of himself/herself but is weak in certain areas say communication, initiative, will to learn from mistakes, team play all soft skill related stuff. So to help jump the fence I throw in something like if you were to work on your weakness in the next 3 months or so what would you like to put on top of your list.
The abilility of the person to prioritize on the self development aspect helps me decide whether to pass on the candidate to the HR interview (which normally is a clear in our case), a hold for a second opinion (to nullify bias for a not clear case) or reject(not upto the mark).

So my suggestion would be, if the question is asked answer it as it were normal question, you never know if the person asking it may be genuinely interested in having you on board and just wants you to help him/her make up the mind.

[Srikanth Raghavan]

OK.. Having successfully answered the question, I will rant about it now. The people who ask such questions are, *clearing my throat*, morons. This is such a vague question which can only have vague answers.

If I am the interviewer, I would ask specific questions. I will try and find out your weaknesses, I *DON'T* expect you to tell me honestly about your weaknesses because I know you are liar.

I won't trust the candidate's answer anytime. And from the candidate's point of view, tell me who would like to say "Hey, I am a loser. I can't understand things very quickly. Pointers scare the shit out of me. Oh no.... But you know, I am such a honest person. If you hire me, I will do anything to improve it. I promise. I swear on my children, I will improve." I think these are *stupid* interview questions that are still being asked. Any sane person will not ask these kind of questions. And of course, it's my point of view.

And if you know for what kind of position you are interviewing, you would easily get the feeling whether the candidate can or cannot do that job. If you failed to do that, they you have failed as an interviewer. I know, sometimes you will have some doubts in your mind and you won't be able to say "Inclined" or "Declined" to the HR. But remember what good old Josh said?

"When in doubt, leave it out."

Phew!

-- Srikanth
[ April 19, 2008: Message edited by: Srikanth Raghavan ]

[Ulf Dittmer]

Originally posted by Srikanth Raghavan:
This is such a vague question which can only have vague answers.
...
I won't trust the candidate's answer anytime.

The point in asking such a question is not so much in what exactly the answer is (you're right that a candidate might not be open about it, even if he knows what his weaknesses are), but to learn how he approaches answering it, and whether he's capable of acknowledging that he (like all human beings) isn't perfect.

I prefer to ask vague and open-ended question in interviews (not this particular one, though), because they provide a chance to let a conversation start. A real discussion tells me more about a candidate than a question-and-answer situation. I do some of that too about technological fundamentals, but there, too, will be few questions that have a short, succinct answer.

Also, I might be deliberately vague in what I'm asking, because I want the candidate to ask for clarification - recognizing missing information, and dealing with it, is an important skill for a developer.
[ April 19, 2008: Message edited by: Ulf Dittmer ]

[Srikanth Raghavan]

Ah, thanks Ulf!

I actually forgot to write what I wanted to say after quoting Josh Bloch. I will say it now, even though you pretty much said it better than how I would have put it.

A better open-ended question would be, the innocent killer question, "Tell me about yourself." If the candidate goes about saying, "I have a family which includes a cat. Cats are cute but cunning. They eat rats. I'm scared of rats. Some people who are scared of rats kill them by poisoning... and so on." You get the point. This is a better vague question than "Tell me your strengths or weaknesses or the like." The golden rule of interviewing would be not to let the candidate drive the interview. I hate when candidates don't stop their never-ending-and-boring answers when I hint them, like "alright", "OK that sounds good", etc.

I may not be convincing here, but Ulf's answer was better and useful.

-- Srikanth

[marc weber]

Perhaps the best tactic would be to respond with a question, "Why are you asking me this?"

[Sunny Malik]

Originally posted by mark weber:
"Why are you asking me this?"

This is the answer of all questions asked in the interview.

[Devesh H Rao]

Originally posted by Srikanth Raghavan:
"Hey, I am a loser. I can't understand things very quickly.

Knowing your weakness is not being a loser, it actually is your strength.

aaah never mind... you wont know anyways...

[marc weber]

Well, since you asked, I have to admit that driving a wooden stake through my heart...

[Arvind Mahendra]

I suffer from the bad smell of balls. I mean I play alot of tennis and... sometime I ok...I like to sniff the balls... MMMMMMM is that? is that CK-1 cologne you are wearing...can I come a little closer....Ahhhh...VERY NICE you smells....DO YOU LIKE ME SIR???