Interview Mode

I am now in full-scale job search mode. For years, my most dreaded interview question was “What is your greatest weakness?”

I completely choked on that one at my last job; luckily, it wasn’t a deal breaker. From my background in HR, I hate it when someone gives a positive trait for that question. Fortunately, I recently came up with a perfect-for-me answer.

Depending on how the interview is going, I have a fun answer that I can give first: I have had a job in which my biggest weakness was that I streaked every car window I cleaned.

My real answer is that I think in terms of black and white. It doesn’t take long on a job before I learn that I can call certain shades of grey “white” or “black” so things fit neatly into their categories. When many of the situations I face seem to fall in the muddy grey middle, I take a step back and see if there is a different perspective that I could take that makes things fall better into definite categories. There are some jobs, however, where workers are expected to make something white fit into the black criteria. That is not for me. If my wanting to properly classify things is a negative and would mean that I wouldn’t be good at the job, I want to know that up front.

Of course now that I have my answer all set, I haven’t been asked it yet in this round.

What is your most dreaded interview question? or Am I the only one who thinks it is cheating to give a positive answer to the weakness question?