Biggest weakness: perfectionism

[Anonymous]

"If someone is doing something incorrectly I might swoop in and fix it when they're not looking to avoid a tough conversation. I'm working on instead making that an opportunity to share knowledge and hopefully build trust with a coworker."I said this to my current boss and she loved it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do actually have to coach people out of perfectionism at work because while we have to balance quality with speed demands at my job. So you have to learn to live with imperfection because we simply don't have time to make everything immaculate.

I rarely see someone who doesn’t let the great get in the way of the good. Way back in my grad school and law school days, professors routinely reminded us that we needed to develop the skill of knowing when enough is enough. It’s a common area of professional development. It’s not special and people who overthink and who are perfectionists have a lot of company.

If you say this in a job interview, it will make you sound so un self aware and professionally immature. I’d never give you a second look because you’d be a supervisor’s nightmare.

Also I’d never answer a question on my biggest weakness. I’d turn the question into something I want to talk about that highlights my skills or something valuable that I’ve learned, not my shortcomings. For example, I recently had a job interview and got asked a question like this. I pointed to a relevant area of law that had recently changed and said that when I get a case with those issues, I’d have to study the new law. I answered the question but I showed that I keep up with relevant issues in my field and that I recognized what I would need to do when that issue lands on my plate.

Your biggest weakness is that…..law changes? What?

I don’t think you answered that as well as you think you did.

A pp. I think it's fine because it gets you in and out with no real damage. That's how corporate bosses work.

A lot of interviewers hate to ask this question. It's fairly cringeworthy. People who are too earnestly truthful hurt themselves. Dishonest fake people also get dinged. It's tough to come up with a meaningful neutral answer. This one does okay if you say it with a straight face.

Most weaknesses are weaknesses. Let's get real. Admit to them and the boss knows what kind of problems to expect with you. You will not get the same courtesy.