What Are Your Weaknesses

by James
(London)

This interview question on 'What are your weaknesses?' always used to be one of my biggest weaknesses.

I was told before that instead of telling the interviewer about anything that could weaken my case, I should choose something that most people would relate to.

Having tried that a couple of times I found that it was exactly what the interviewer expected and then they pressed me for a real answer, which meant that I hadn't done myself any favours answering that way.

So I got to thinking what really was my weakness?

As a departmental manager, I used to think that I needed to be able to do everyone's job better than they could do it themselves, so I could tell when they did a good job or not. When I thought more about this, I realised that I was micro-managing my team and probably not getting the best out of them for that reason.

So when I'm asked what are your weaknesses now, I say I used to be too close to what everyone in the department was doing, but now I've stepped back a bit and let them get on with their jobs. I still keep an eye on what's happening, but they seem more confident and get more done now. They also come to me when they need help, which is great because I can get on with other things too.