Knowing your strengths and weaknesses before a job interview

Almost all job interviews will contain the question: what do you think are your strengths and weaknesses? As a candidate you must always arrive prepared to name your qualities before this type of encounter. The main risk is to use a very personal approach and provide the recruiter with an unprofessional and inadequate feedback. Of course, strengths and weaknesses are strictly connected to your personal life and experience, and reflect directly on your professional career, but there are ways of measuring them properly.

Assessing and knowing your strengths

Reflect on which of your strengths are related to the role you are interviewing for, because every job position brings to the surface completely different qualities. Choose two or three examples of strengths and construct your discourse around them. Objectivity, clarity and adherence to reality have to be incorporated in order to give a true sense of your previous working experiences in which you excelled.

For example, bring to the table real achievements as a result of your strengths that improve with time and experience. Also remember that in some situations a strength can become a weakness, so be sure to offer a coherent perspective.

What are the strengths that are worth mentioning? Keep in mind that a strength is not necessarily an equivalent of a trait that you consider as positive, such as: flexibility, empathy, determination, honesty. A strength is a quality that you discover to have and develop sometimes in real-time during a critical situation and allows you to contribute by providing an added value.

How about your weaknesses?

During a job interview, you will have to balance gracefully between your strengths and weaknesses. Never exceed in exposing too many weaknesses with a negative approach.

Share with the recruiter those areas of potential improvement where you know you can get better. Use your language wisely and choose your words carefully. Apply a transformative approach to the conversation, let the recruiter know how you are working in transforming your weaknesses into strengths.

Always provide a few examples of weaknesses and try to explain how you try to handle them. If you think, for example, that you lack digital skills, be honest with yourself and address this by assessing it. Find solutions to your possible weaknesses before a job interview.

In order to arrive well prepared, create a list or a matrix where you assess your strengths and weaknesses. This will help you remember everything in a precise order; it will surely impress the recruiter who will perceive your high level of awareness and well-thought approach.

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