We were making our daily rounds through the internet today when we came across this article, by Lisa Seasholtz over at WetFeet, about how to answer “The Weakness Question.” We have all the respect in the world for the folks at WetFeet, but the article’s very existence demonstrates a point that we’ve been stumping for since before we were old enough to drink: that asking a candidate for her “greatest weakness” is counterproductive. We’ll give you three big reasons why
1) It Rewards DishonestyOur big problem with the question is that, by it’s very nature, it encourages a candidate to lie to the interviewer. Let’s just put the obvious out there right now: everybody has “weaknesses” that would theoretically inhibit them from doing a job. Here are some examples of extremely common weaknesses that an interviewer would almost certainly eliminate you for admitting: you prefer other activities to working, you don’t like having to get up at 6am, you enjoy using programs on your computer that aren’t designed for productive purposes, you put off doing work until it has to get done, or you like drinking on weekends. Based on typical human tendencies, it’s extremely likely that at least one of these applies to pretty much every person who’s interviewed, at least to some extent. Obviously, most/all of these are weaknesses that any professional person would never let stand in their way of being productive (a good percentage of people just flat don’t like getting up in the morning, but very few of them let that stop them from being productive) but a candidate could not
possibly hope to admit to any of the items on that list and still get the job.
This fact, on its own, is enough to undermine the claim that the question indicates that someone is “self-reflective.” Ms. Seasholtz article, unintentionally, proves that point by suggesting (as so many career centers have) that a person find an answer that’s not “too honest” but that identifies some incredibly minor problem–and explains how the candidate is working on that problem. The problem, here, is that these sorts of problems are usually the sort that a
good candidate has
already addressed. We, for example, had the same fear of public speaking that Ms. Seasholtz suggests as a possible “weakness.” We did not, however, wait until we started applying for jobs–jobs which would have required speaking in public–to start “working” on that fear. Does the fact that a candidate has already addressed weaknesses that would directly inhibit his ability to do the job he’s applying for somehow make him
less qualified than a candidate who hasn’t? The implication of putting any emphasis on a bein
g “self-reflective” is “yes.” The assumption is that not being able to list any applicable flaws (we can’t imagine admitting that we, decades after our childhood, still eat Pop-Tarts, would satisfy an interviewer) means that you’re incapable of introspection. This assumption is horridly flawed.
2) It Doesn’t Do What It’s Designed to DoAnother problem with the question is that it’s too predictable. Any career counselor worth her salt is going to prepare a candidate for this question (the article’s mere existence is sort of proof of this point). So, you’ll get plenty of people who, knowing that the question is coming, have prepared an answer that might not be truthful (eg, they might actually have no problems with public speaking) but that sounds good. As a result, you’re not going to get a question that filters out the “introspective” from the terribly pompous, you’re just installing a filter that favors people who have been taught how to game the system. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Certainly not, insofar as you could argue that a person who “cares” enough to study these sorts of questions is more likely to be a better worker. Even in this case, though, we’d argue that the question is given too much weight if it’s used as anything but a tiebreaker between two otherwise similar candidates; it’s foolish to hire a person who devoted his time to learning how to tell the right lie in job interviews at the expense of learning how to function well in the workplace.
3) It Gums Up Interviews
If you want someone to open up to you, you should try to put the person at ease. People, by our nature, are a lot more inclined to be honest when they feel like they’re talking to somebody who’s trustworthy and likable. What you absolutely don’t want to do is make a person feel confronted. Asking a person to tell you their greatest weakness is an incredibly blunt and confrontational question. No matter how “nice” you try to sound when you ask the question, you’re still asking a job candidate “please give us a reason why we shouldn’t hire you.” It puts the candidate on the defensive for (probably) the rest of the interview. There are dozens of studies that tell us that the information that you get out of people you torture is unreliable. Knowing this, why turn your interview into an interrogation? If you really want to learn about your candidate, ask questions that will make him comfortable. Ask him about where he went to college and why he went there. Ask him what he liked about it (and if there was anything that he didn’t like). Ask him about other jobs that he had, ask him what he liked about his old jobs, ask him what drove him crazy about his old jobs. Ask him, in short, questions that will tell you what you need to know about his work ethic and his personality without making him feel like you’re forcibly extracting that information out of him. You’d be amazed what people will tell you about themselves if you let them open up and tell you about themselves.
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