The ‘greatest strengths’ interview question is one of the most commonly quoted job interview questions, used across all job sectors.
Why is the ‘strengths’ question utilized so often? Because of the open nature of question.
Employers pick specific interview questions to help gained an understanding of the applicants knowledge, experience and potential.
Specific interview question will be directed at a key competencies:
- “Give me an example of doing X?”
- “How would you handle Y situation?”
- “Have you ever used Z?”
Competency based interview questions are easy to cross-reference against the job criteria, which is why employers favor the structured job interview.
The barrier, when asking very specific job duty related questions, is that the applicant doesn’t have the opportunity to promote their additional skills, knowledge and experiences.
This is one of the reasons why employers ask more open-ended interview questions such as the famed ‘tell me about yourself’ or the ‘strengths’ interview question.
The article will explain how to approach the ‘what are your greatest strengths?’ job interview question. How to create a high-scoring answer, and how to make the high-scoring answer relevant to the job role.
Preparing for the Job Interview.
The key to answering the ‘greatest achievement’ interview question is in the applicants pre-interview preparation.
The barrier with an open question is the high probability of the applicant going off topic.
In a structured job interview, all interview answers receive points based on the number of job criteria referenced in the job interview answer.
Research shows that the higher number of words per interview answer, equates to a higher number of job offers. But, the answers have to be relevant to the job position.
When preparing for a ‘strengths’ interview question, applicants need to plan to talk about strengths required for the advertised position: an eye for detail, for a quality control officer, or calculations expertise, for a civil engineer.
A good exercise is to list of the essential duties for the advertised position, and in a second column write down a list of strengths, that the applicant possesses, that are required for each duty.
This exercise is to generate ideas, so details aren’t required at this stage. Applicants may list skills, qualities or experiences.
Example – Project Manager Job
| Essential Duties | Strengths |
| Stakeholder management | Communication Able to influence and persuade Relationship building Having industry related connections Collaborative working |
| Project planning | Experienced in achieving project outcomes Analytical and logical approach Report writing Collaborative working |
| Cost projection | |
| Risk assessments | |
| etc |
Next, look at the common skills, qualities and experiences that have been repeated throughout the list technique, in our example this is ‘collaborative working’.
Breakdown the reason why the quality, skill, or experience is a strength:
- What do you specifically do?
- What is your approach?
- How is what you do better the a general approach?
- What is the common result from your actions?
- Does your attitude/work ethic part of the strength?
- Do you plan or use intuition?
- Is this a team effort or is the strength a personal achievement?
- If a team effort, what is your role within the team?
Finally, think about a real-life (work) example, that will be used during the interview answer.
Make the Strength question strong.
To summarise the post so far.
Employers are likely to ask the ‘greatest strength’ interview question as it is documented as one of the most commonly asked job interview questions.
The interview question may be phrased as:
- “Tell about one of your greatest successes?”
- “What can you bring to the team?”
- “How would you have an impact on the team/project?”
The ‘strengths’ interview question is open to interpretation, which requires the candidate to focus the interview answer on the essential criteria of the job role, to ensure the answer scores high.
The strength question needs to state strengths!
The applicant must talk about their unique selling point, relevant to the job role. The answer should show added value, high achieving examples, and the applicants work ethic, motivation as well as a high level of sector related knowledge and experiences.
Mistakes and mishaps.
There are three common mistakes that career professionals make when answering the ‘strengths’ question.
The wrong path.
Taking the wrong path, often comes from a lack of pre-interview preparation.
The unprepared interviewee is nervous and anxious, coming across as having an ‘incompetent’ interview identity.
When asked a question, the lack of confidence leaves the applicant pleading for an idea – anything to create an answer. Whatever random idea pops into their mind becomes the talking point, the main message of the interview answer.
In many cases, the unprepared interview answer lacks detail, is short, and most importantly doesn’t relate to the job criteria. This results in a low-scoring interview answer.
Self-disclosed weaknesses.
Consistently successful job applicants, in the main, aware of their skill set and possess a good level of confidence.
Being confident increases self-promotion.
Whereas, a lack of self-esteem, or having imposture syndrome increases the number of unprompted self-disclosed weaknesses.
When asked a question, the low self-esteem interviewee will initially list weaknesses before picking a ‘strength’. This self-disclosure, is often outside the awareness of the applicant. It is like they are externalizing their thought process:
Interviewer: “What are you greatest strengths?”
Low self-esteem interviewee: “What are my greatest strengths? Well..urm..im not vey good at IT…urm…I don’t work well under pressure…urm, my greatest strength is my ability to (strength)”.
Bragging.
Some applicants are highly confident, but lack industry experiences.
Highly confident applicants feel comfortable with communication. A high level of self-esteem increases self-promotion.
Confidence without knowledge can create a pretender interview identity, where the interviewee attempts to manipulate the employer by exaggerating their skill set.
Self-promotion is expected in the job interview, but when the applicant lacks experience and sector knowledge they rarely know what examples would meet the job criteria.
Instead of giving specific industry related examples, the candidate will self-praise using generalisations:
Interviewer: “What are your greatest strengths?”
Interviewee: “Everything!”
Other examples include:
- “My passion, my attitude, my work ethic”
- “I’m a good team player, I finish tasks and I am loyal.”
- “In all my roles I put on 100% of effort. My previous managers often tell me that I am an excellent member of staff and that I have a positive impact on the team.”
Some of the examples sound positive, and indeed they are, but they lack the specific data the employer requires to cross-reference the interview answer against the criteria on the interview scorecard.
How to answer the what is your greatest strength interview question.
A simple structure to answer the ‘strengths’ interview question is:
Barriers + strengths + summary
Relevance is key here.
Employers working in the same sector will face similar barriers. By stating the industry barriers at the start of the interview questions creates relevance. It also helps to build intrigue, as the employer will presume you are going to state a solution, which you will do by highlighting your strengths.
“As we all know, one of the biggest barriers we face in this industry is X. This barrier can lead to (add additional negative consequences)…”
The body of the interview answer will state the applicants strengths. The exercise above has resulted in a list of relevant strengths relating to the job criteria.
Don’t fall into the trap of just listing strengths, as this technique doesn’t result in a high-scoring answer.
Instead, give an example of using the listed strengths in a workplace setting.
Initially start the body of the interview answer, by stating a generic selling point. This could include the duration in the industry, a high-level sector related qualification or having worked on a well-known project that may impress the interview panel.
“…My (duration, qualification, experience on project) has taught me that (give the solution to the stated problem or an indication that you have the solution)…”
The example follow the opening statement.
Examples must include the situation, actions taken (highlighting strengths, positive outcome).
“…To give you an example of this, when working (at company/on X project) we faced (problem relating to the initial stated barrier)…
…my ability to (add first strength) allowed me to (state outcome). I achieved this by utilizing my (add second strength) which allowed me to (outcome). Throughout the task I faced (add additional barrier) but I was always able to overcome this by (state third strength)….”
“..the end result was (add positive outcome)….”
Conclude the interview answer by summarizing your key strengths.
A summary reinforces the applicants strengths, and clarifies any ambiguity from the example given.
“…To answer the question, my key strengths include (strength one, two and three).”
