what are your weakness/Streathens

[shawn peter]

if interviewer ask what are your weakness/Streathens what are the possible answers?

[Henry Wong]

aruna sameera wrote:if interviewer ask what are your weakness/Streathens what are the possible answers?

IMO, your "strengths" should be a prepared answer. There should be lots of them, and should be backed up.

As for "weaknesses", this one is much harder. I don't think that it is possible to say anything that doesn't feel like you made it up. After all, do you really think anyone is going to say something bad? Regardless, no matter what you choose, you'll need to back it up too (with reasoning and/or ways to improve).

Henry

[John de Michele]

I think these questions are pretty hackneyed, although I think what they're really getting at is "can the candidate do some self-analysis?". I agree with Henry that you probably should have thought of this ahead of time, and have some prepared answers.

John.

[Gabriel Claramunt]

aruna sameera wrote:if interviewer ask what are your weakness/Streathens what are the possible answers?

hmm... a weakness: I get mildly peeved by inane interview questions

[Kj Reddy]

I am not quite sure if the interviewer really beliefs about your reply on Strengths and Weakness

I feel you should respond with your Strengths and Weaknesses which can make you qualify for the job or at least don't make you disqualify.

A simple example: Your new job demands a customer interaction where as in your current job(or previous jobs) you never done that and every thing done by your project manager(or your boss). So that can be your negative point(or weakness). And you should cover up this weakness by adding I am looking for an opportunity where I can interact with client directly.

Other example: I get panic sometimes when I am not in a position to complete given task in time. But most of the times I will make sure to complete the task in time and trying not get panic and will inform to my boss ahead of time if things are out of my control.

or

I am too focused on my job and don't spend much time to relax. -> This is your weakness and strength to the company.


Just think about it for some time you will get more ideas

Good luck

[Bear Bibeault]

John de Michele wrote:I think these questions are pretty hackneyed...

And usually the sign of a poorly prepared interviewer. A clever interviewer might be using the question to see how you handle it, but usually it's a sign the the interviewer isn't very good at interviewing.

I'm fortunate to be at a point in my career where I can answer:

"My weakness? Round Rock Donuts. Next question?"

Related, perhaps: I've been fortunate enough to recently be interviewed by people good enough that they didn't ask any questions; hackneyed or otherwise. Rather, we had a conversation in which we were able to find out everything we needed to know about each other.

I wish that happened more often.

[John de Michele]

Bear:

I agree. My latest interviewing experience (on Wednesday) was like that, for the most part. I definitely enjoyed it a lot more than the previous round (March - June) where I had a lot of questions but not enough conversations.

John.

[Mark Herschberg]

I ask these questions very frequently. For strengths I usually get, "I'm smart, a fast learner, and work hard." Then I ask "given that 90% of the candidates give me that answer, can you tell me something that would make you stand out from the crowd?" Most can't, but the few who do often stand out.

As for weakness, that's a much more useful question. The strengths question as noted above usually yields a hackneyed answer. The weakness question is much more insightful. A number don't have an answer, which demonstrates a lack of self awareness. Some have trite answers for this too, but it's obvious when they are. The ones who are aware of weaknesses, truly aware of them, speak to those issues; the especially good ones not only mention weaknesses but also discuss how they are working on improving. It speaks volumes about them.


--Mark

[Bear Bibeault]

Yeah, but you're a more astute interviewer than most, and as I mentioned, a clever interviewer can use these questions effectively. But the weakness question being met with trite answers is usually what the majority want to hear. It's old.

[arulk pillai]

Here is an excerpt from the interview companion.

Q :What are your strengths and weaknesses?
A :[Hint]

Strengths:

Taking initiatives and being pro-active: You can illustrate how you took initiative to fix a transactional issue, a performance problem or a memory leak problem.

Design skills: You can illustrate how you designed a particular application using OO concepts.

Problem solving skills: Explain how you will break a complex problem into more manageable sub-sections and then apply brain storming and analytical skills to solve the complex problem. Illustrate how you went about identifying a scalability issue or a memory leak problem.

Communication skills: Illustrate that you can communicate effectively with all the team members, business analysts, users, testers, stake holders etc.

Ability to work in a team environment as well as independently: Illustrate that you are technically sound to work independently as well as have the interpersonal skills to fit into any team environment.

Hard working, honest, conscientious, etc are the adjectives to describe you.

Weaknesses:



Select a trait and come up with a solution to overcome your weakness. Stay away from personal qualities and concentrate more on professional traits for example:

I pride myself on being an attention to detail guy but sometimes miss small details. So I am working on applying the 80/20 principle to manage time and details. Spend 80% of my effort and time on 20% of the tasks, which are critical and important to the task at hand.

Some times when there is a technical issue or a problem I tend to work continuously until I fix it without having a break. But what I have noticed and am trying to practice is that taking a break away from the problem and thinking outside the square will assist you in identifying the root cause of the problem sooner.

[James Ward]

These Strengthes and Weakness Questions - are usually - asked by Human Resource kind of people.

Other questions that may be tricky:
1. Why did you leave this job, that job.
2. Where do you think you will be 5 years from now.
3. What are your short-term and long-term goals.