Interview tip How to talk about your weakness

Interview tip How to talk about your weakness When someone asks you, in an interview, What is your weakness? do not give a bullshit answer. Saying something like, I pay too much attention to detail is actually a terrible answer for someone who is getting hired to do detail work. It means you have a deficit in the exact area youre tying to get hired for. The best answer to the question is when you tell a truthful answer, because its very unlikely will be hired for the thing you are most weak at doing. For example, my weakness is details. I hate them so much that I simply dont think about them. And if you talk to me about them, I tune you out. I get hired to think big picture. I get hired to create big plans with big results. So no one cares that I dont do details. Someone who is a production artist could say his weakness is finance. When people start talking about budgets, he just wants to back to his cube and work on design. So what if he doesnt like finance? He is not getting hired to do it. If you dont know your weakness, take a personality type quiz and the results will show you. Everyone has specific strengths and everyone has specific weaknesses. Its pretty certain that if you are not clear on your weaknesses then you are not clear on your strengths, and your value at the office will be questionable. I am writing this post from the Hampton Inn in Skokie, IL. Its my favorite hotel when we have to stay overnight for my sons cello lessons. I thought Id wake up early and drive over to Wilmette to get his new cello. Because hes outgrown his current cello, (which is 1/8 the size of the cello you are used to seeing). He is moving up to a 1/4 size. But hes not moving up because I forgot to pick up the cello yesterday and now the shop is closed. The teacher will be incredulous. We drive four hours each way to go to a cello lesson. We do it twice a week. Which means we are planning our whole lives around cello. So it seems absurd if we are thinking this much about cello that I would forget something so fundamental as getting the right instrument for the lesson. This is what my real weakness is: mishandling hierarchies of information. Other people have the ability to sift through information faster and decide what is most important. I dont have shoes on to have breakfast at the hotel. Its a buffet. Why does everyone wear shoes to breakfast? It doesnt make sense to me. We are not going outside. Its like eating at home. And I dont put on shoes to eat at home. But there are about fifty people here and no on is wearing socks except me. I have to work very very hard to look normal because I miss 90% of these moments when Im doing something that makees sense to me but its totally out of step with everyone else. People do not like if you are clearly not following the rules of being with people. There are unwritten agreements that bother people if you dont know them. This is what a job interview is about: seeing if you know the unwritten agreements. Did you wear the right clothes for the interview? Do you know the social convention of looking at people when you talk to them? Is your hair in a style that is socially acceptable? Doing one of these things poorly is forgivable. People are forgiving. Doing a lot of them is too  off-putting. People like you when you follow social rules. I study social conventions obsessively because I know its the only way Ill learn them. So when someone does something that Ive studied, and they do it wrong, I know there is something wrong with them. There is very little variance in social skills, which is why Aspergers is a disorder. I dont know why, for instance, everyone is wearing shoes at breakfast, but I know its a disorder to not know why. Maybe you think to yourself, I am out of step with people all the time. That doesnt mean I have Aspergers. If you think that, youre right: no Aspergers. Because you know youre out of step. People with Aspergers are also out of step, but have no awareness about it. Fundamentally, I dont care if I dont follow rules. I dont have that thing in my head that makes me scared of upsetting social conventions. My brain is good at other things. But its hard to tell people that. Its hard to tell the cello teacher that I really do care so much about my son and his cello playing and I try very hard to remember things like the cello and the music. I know no one else would forget those two things on an eight hour car trip to a cello lesson. I want to tell her Look, I dont know left or right either. Its all incredible. I know. No one can  believe  how dumb I am! Im sorry! Please  believe  me that Im trying! But in a job interview I know how to talk about my strengths and weaknesses. I am great with big picture. I can see the future clearly for ideas and for people. I know where ideas are changing the way we work, I know what people should do with their lives. I can see how everything works in the future but I cant see whats going on right now. The feelings people have right now are lost on me. The tasks that could be done in the next five minutes are infinite, most people can sort through them. I cant. Some days I think I should stop writing about work because when I write about work, people say, I hate your workplace posts. I just want you to write about you.  But I love writing about work because the rules are so clear. Its a game thats organized by categories and you figure out your personality type and then you go to your category. Then you follow the rules to win by getting influence or power or both. And you get those by being honest with yourself about work, starting with the interview and the question about your weaknesses.