The Weakness Question

There is the person you are when you interview for a job and the person you are when you get the job. If your new employers have been canny or lucky there isn’t much of a difference between the two. When they ask you, “What would you say are your weaknesses?” you can be a politician and wrestle the question to the ground and render it inert and harmless. Or you can rub your magic frontal lobe, lull your questioner into interview hypnosis, and slyly insert a strength where a weakness should appear.

For my last job I said: “I have trouble staying after work to help my coworker’s when they haven’t been able to complete their assignments.”

My answer should have been: “I tend to embarrass my employers by crying on the job, often in public.”

During their interviews I asked the members of the Being & Nothingness Cam Team the Weakness Question even knowing how fruitless and pathetic it was. I had never interviewed someone for a job before, so I panicked and pulled out that sad old weenie question. Here are their (paraphrased) answers to the question and the answers they should have given me:

Tom’s answer: “I am very dedicated to my family, but frankly, now that my daughter’s nearly grown, I’m looking forward to the intellectual challenges I know this job will bring.”

Tom should have said: “My daughter is a wild teenager and my wife and I spend every waking moment worrying about her and hating each other. I will both fall asleep on the job and leave suddenly without telling you.”

Sia’s answer: “Sometimes I’ll spend a little extra time at work writing down the intelligent and original thoughts of my coworker’s, so that on the weekends I can research the unique perspectives that they share with me.”

Sia’s answer should have been: “I can be unstable, get crazed, come to very strange conclusions based on no information whatsoever, and then insist unto my dying breath that I am right.”

Phaye’s answer: “I am young and have a lot to learn, but sometimes people are nonplused by my sharp insights and strong and concise debates.”

Phaye’s answer should have been: “Confusion, incidents, and injury cling to me like cologne, and I tend to embarrass my employers by crying on the job, often in public.”