Best Examples of Strengths and Weaknesses for Job Interviews

When you are preparing for a Job interview, it is important to do your homework in terms of understanding the Company for which you are applying, its vision and goals, services and products offered, geography, and leadership team. It is also important to be able to articulate your skills, technical or non-technical, relevant to the position you are applying for and why you would be a best fit for the role.

While a lot of emphasis is given to the skills relevant to the job, it is equally important to evaluate competence on soft skills and interpersonal skills. When it comes to the question of Strengths and Weakness for Job interviews, it is important to state what traits best relate to you, honestly. In the end, these are a reflection of yourself, and will be exhibited knowingly or unknowingly in every action of yours.

Examples of Strengths

Listed below are some of examples of Strengths. Ponder over them and do a self-evaluation and assessment to determine which of these best relate to you:

Examples of Weaknesses

Try to relate these personality traits to the role you have applied for and narrate your story relevant to the job role so the interviewer can relate how good of an asset you will be as part of their team.

Narrate a Relevant Example

While answering questions related to Strengths and Weaknesses, make sure you narrate a relevant example or situation based on your experiences that best describes the trait.

Being Proactive

While working on a critical project in Company XYZ, we had to change one of the implementation dates for our production roll out. While all plans related to the change were updated, an important aspect of informing the other dependent teams was missed out. I proactively highlighted this gap and we were able to inform other teams and accordingly update our plans to ensure a smooth roll out.

Attention to Details

I always make sure to understand my role and tasks on the project thoroughly, and ask questions appropriately to get any necessary clarifications. I maintain a detailed check list and plan on all deliverables to ensure they are delivered on time.

Innovative

In one of my projects at Company ABC, there was a manual task of uploading data to a folder everyday and the process took 2 hours to complete. I suggested and created an automated upload process that could complete the process in 30 minutes.

Over-commitment

Sometimes in my eagerness and excitement to work, I tend to overcommit and take on more work than I can get done and sometimes this may impact timelines. I am working on improving this, by consciously evaluating efforts I can put in for each task before committing to something.

Public Speaking Skills

I am an introvert and shy person and take time to interact with people. I am working on improving this aspect. I plan to join public speaking courses to develop confidence.

Lack of Experience in Certain Skills

While I have great working experience on "xyz", I have theoretical knowledge only on skill "abc". I have enrolled in to an online course to enhance my skills in "abc" to better support my role in the project.

Unable to Say "No" When Needed

I tend to be nice with colleagues and at times do not say "no" when asked of any request, even if I know that I won't be able to handle it due to my current workload. I am trying to improve on this.

Conclusion

It is easier to narrate your strengths. When it comes to explaining weaknesses, narrate the trait in a positive manner by acknowledging that you are aware of this weakness and are taking steps to address it. Be prepared with an action plan on how you will handle each of the weaknesses you state and more importantly how you will showcase the results of the effort.