Hey all,
Have you ever been asked the dreaded question "What's your greatest weakness?" during a job interview?
I used to struggle a lot with that. Eventually, I learned how to tackle it and turn it into an advantage.
In my case, my greatest weakness is that I'm a bit of a scatterbrain. Being on the ADD spectrum is a double-sided knife. I see ideas everywhere so I'm super creative. But because of that, every two minutes my brain goes "SQUIRREL!" and runs off after the next shiny idea, which makes it very hard for me to stay on track.
However, over the years, I've developed an arsenal of tools and techniques to keep me focused and on task, and make sure nothing slips through the cracks. So I started using that to my advantage.
Whenever an interviewer asked me, "What's your greatest weakness?" my response would be, "My creative nature makes it very hard for me to stay focused. So I have to depend on a number of tools, strategies and techniques to stay the course. The upside is that now I can be creative without getting derailed."
Then I would go into a couple of tools that I use, for instance:
- Google Tasks to record ideas that pop into my head at the wrong time, so I don't forget about them
- Gmail snooze to get reminders for emails that I need to follow up on
- Text Blaze to automate tedious/repetitive work so that it doesn't drain my mental resources, which in turn allows me to stay focused for longer.
Have you had any experiences with these kinds of questions while interviewing for a job? Did you ever manage to find a great response for them?
Share them here and let's discuss!
