Declaring weakness 8

[quark]

Job application forms here generally require the applicant to declare his/her weakness. I am always in a dilemma about this. What are you guys' experience with this? Is it recommended to reveal our weakness? Actually for me controlling anger is a tough task and this issue was discussed at a great length in one of my previous interviews.

Secondly, what should we write in short term and long term goals (this includes personal ambition also). Should it relate to our job or can it be our real ambition.

I appreciate your help. (yeah...I am attending an interview tomorrow)

Regards,

 

[VEBill]

"I tend to work too hard. I have a low tolerance for imperfections. I'm generous to a fault. I'm overly modest about my many tremendous accomplishments. And finally, my handsome good looks can be very distracting to members of the opposite sex."

;-)

 

[Standing]

Always put down a weakness that management looks to as a benefit to them. The one I use is: I am a workaholic.

Bradley

 

[quark]

Thanks a lot VE1BLL. I can use atleast three of your ideas. Will the first one becomes a liability to me in future (ofcourse, I generally work for 10-12 hrs/day but I don't want it to be mandatory)

Regards,

 

[quark]

Thanks Bradley. I think we both posted at the same time that is why I couldn't see your post prior to my reply. Can you clarify the point in my second post?

Regards,

 

[Standing]

Quark,
Being a workaholic does not become a liability, because my wife will not let me work 10-12 hours a day. Of course I would not put down being a workaholic unless I am one. I love working as much as I can. When my job requires the extra effort I am there. That is why I love salary instead of hourly pay. I do not need approval to work over 8 hour days.
Hope this answers your question.

Bradley

 

[COKA]

I am stubborn... And I am not afraid to say it. I said it in all my interviews that I ever had. If you say stuff like: hard worker, perfectionnist, etc is not very good, simply because it is not original. EVERYBODY tries to use those weaknesses that make him/her look good at the end. Being stubborn is something that is not used very much, but it could be interpreted as a "good" weakness. For example: I am so stubborn that I will find the answer to this question. In my current job, my boss came to see me a couple of months after he hired me about my weakness. He said that I was the only one that was honest enough and that actually impressed him.

Coka

 

[Standing]

Coka,
Sounds like you are very fortunate to have the boss you have. Stubborn could be misunderstood to not being a team player.


Bradley

 

[HVAC68]

Quark,

First of all good luck and best wishes for your interview.

One of the weaknesses I say is as under and this is true.

I take lot of initiative in my work - i.e. I go beyond what is expected of me as regards my job role or responsibility, but something which is beneficial for the organisation I work with. The flip side to this is - I sometimes, rather more often than not, am "used" by people or people take me for "granted" and get their work done. I also narrate some real-life incidents - though this is a weakness in a personal perspective, the organisation benefits almost always - at least I trust so.

As Bradley has said, indicate a weakness that the employee would treat as a strength for the organisation. Workaholic honest, sincere, hard working, etc., are all too generic in nature.

Once again, best wishes to you Quark.

HVAC68

 

[epoisses]

Quite frankly, I think you would be very quickly fed up with a boss stupid enough to be impressed by the "I tend to work too hard" cliché. Stay honest. Of course there's different (more or less self-eliminating) ways of describing your weakness. If your future boss turns out to prefer slick talk rather than honesty, that's one good reason why you would not want to work for him.

 

[dporte17]

quark:

One thing that I always made sure I did with that question was to go on to tell the interviewer what I did to mitigate the effects of whatever the weakness is.

Myself, I don't remember things well. Okay, fine, there are tools out there to manage that now. I tell them what I am using and some of the techniques that I have developed so that I don't forget things.

I would have to agree with the above posts that indicated to be honest. For the most part every interviewer knows the "correct" answer to the typical questions, come up with something that is really personal and be able to back it up. It looks much better on you.

Dave

 

[liberty]

One weakness that an employer may be able to exploit is difficulty with delegating responsibility.

In a small company where there are few people to delegate to, it could mean you are willing to wear a few other hats to maintain control of a project, instead of just $ourcing the tasks.

In a large organization where i.e. engineers define the requirements and designers detail the design, an engineer with this weakness will naturally form close, collaborative relationships with his design team.

Also, this weakness will tend to keep an engineer off the management track while their individual contributions benefit the employer longer. And with all weaknesses, there is always the fact that we can unlearn them.

 

[flamby]

In one of the resumes I was going through, I read this one-

"Tendency to go deep into the theory and reinvent the wheel."

Such things may go well and you can avoid them becoming the hot topics of the interview. Say something which is a genuine weakness still very human.

"I sometimes attend interesting problems first and important ones later." You can say and get away. Who really isn't the culprit of this, one time or the other?

 

[TheTick]

"I have a tendency to tell people what they need to hear, instead of what they want to hear.

 

[Beggar]

TheTick: If you said that to me, my follow-up would be "What is it about that tendency that you consider to be a weakness?"

--------------------
Bring back the HP-15

http://www.hp15c.org

--------------------

 

[TheTick]

Glad you asked. My "dream reply"...

Well, Mr./Ms. Interviewer, take this particular question, for instance. What you want to hear is a list of my potential weaknesses, and perhaps how I might convey them as strengths. What you need to hear is that this is a completely useless question, as all it does is waste both your time and my time, and does very little to elicit information of any discernable from any of your applicants.

Maybe someday I'll work up the neve to try this one out.

Due to illness, the part of The Tick will be played by... The Tick.

http://www.EsoxRepublic.com

 

[TheTick]

I suppose I didn't really answer your question, Beggar. Maybe I need to add listening skills to my list of shortcomings.

 

[GregLocock]

I'm glad someone's come and out and said it. It's a lawyer's question, I really think that by asking it the interviewer demeans both themselves and the candidate, since an honest response is less likely to be rewarded than a dishonest one.

Cheers

Greg Locock

 

[TheTick]

<

http://www.dreamjobs.tv/tips186.html>

 

[quark]

Thanks to all for participating in the discussion.

The interview went well and they were impressed by my experience and knowledge. I was supposed to look after a project of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients(that basically needs a chemical engineer) but my experience has been with mainly formulations. They were ready to take me in maintenance or into formulations which they are proposing shortly. There was no debate on the weakness section and I am happy too.

I actually attended this interview not for a job change but for polishing up my skills for future interviews.

Unfortunately I couldn't get anything helpful from the above link. It is still not clear to me, what the writer intended to tell us. If these questions are so stupid, how they became part of any interview? They should have faded out in time with more and more people rejecting them.

Personally I feel that we, as engineers, should come up with solutions for silly problems and intelligent problems as well. We should not loose something because we are not ready to answer some silly and quintessential questions.

I will speak to couple of our HR guys now and let you people know the outcome.

PS: I used VE1BLL's second and third ideas and I was well prepared for a debate on the contradiction(of idea no.2 with respect to idea no.3).

Thanks once again.