How to Talk about your Weaknesses in Job Interviews

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19
Jun 2017

“What’s your biggest weakness?” is one of the most difficult questions to answer truthfully and genuinely in a job interview. It’s one of the most anticipated interview questions; there’s a strong chance you’ll be asked about your weaknesses. Yet many people feel that it’s uncomfortable and near impossible to answer this question. Why is it so hard to talk about our weaknesses?

No one wants to readily highlight their flaws to a hiring manager. But there is another motive behind inquiring about weaknesses. What the hiring manager really wants is to gauge is whether you’re aware of your own work habits and tendencies that could use some improvement. They also want to see if you know how to take the initiative to address your weaknesses.

Instead of viewing this question as the one where you throw yourself under the bus in front of your potential employer, think of it as an opportunity to show both your maturity and desire to grow as an employee. The key is to state what you believe your “weakness” to be, and then immediately acknowledge that you know how to improve upon it, and that when given any opportunity, you take the necessary steps to correct it.

Below are some examples of common workplace “weaknesses,” and Resume Yeti’s Pro Tips on how to improve these answers if the question comes up in your interview.

Your Weakness: “Sometimes I have been late on assignments because I take on too many projects at once.”

Pro Tip: I’ve always been a great multi-tasker, but sometimes I bite off more than I can chew. There are occasions when I misjudge the amount of time I need to complete a project, and that can throw off my whole workflow. I am working on my time management, though. Once I realized that I could juggle multiple projects, I started building in buffer time to my schedule so that if anything should come up during the course of a project, I have ample time to address the issue and still complete the project in time for the deadline.

Your weakness: “I can be disorganized”

Pro Tip: As a creative person, it’s always been hard for me to stay organized. I’ve been working on my organizational skills by implementing color coding in my calendars and files as well as exhaustive To-Do lists. These strategies are successful because they play into my creativity, and I’ve found that the secret to staying organized is staying consistent.

Your weakness: “I’m bad at public speaking”

Pro Tip: I think to a certain extent, everyone struggles with speaking or giving a presentation in front of a room full of people. Public speaking has always been a skill I’d like to improve, and I know one of the best ways to do that is to engage in it more often. Another way to improve is to make sure that I know the material inside and out. Each time I’m assigned with a presentation or a task that involves public speaking, instead of worrying about the speaking aspect, I pour all my energy into making sure I have everything practiced and memorized. I feel with each presentation my public speaking skills improve.

Your weakness: “I’m a procrastinator”

Pro Tip: When I was a student, I used to procrastinate on assignments. After college, this habit carried over into my work life too. However, I realized very quickly that procrastination hindered my workflow and I figured out a system to budget my time accordingly so that each project could be finished not just on time, but before the deadline.

Your weakness: “I prefer to work on my own because when I work with a team, there are always problems with the project’s final outcome.”

Pro Tip: Delegating tasks on a collaborative project has always been difficult. Yet teamwork is such a crucial part of any workplace and any workflow. To make delegating various aspects of the project easier, I started making spreadsheets to visually divide up the workflow. This visual aid helps to envision the breakdown of responsibilities on the project and also helps avoid confusion if collaborators have questions about what their specific tasks are. It also leaves room to include extra tasks so that if anyone finishes their section earlier than the other collaborators, they will know the next item on the agenda to push the project workflow forward.

Your weakness: “I’m a perfectionist”

Pro Tip: I strive to ensure that every detail on a given project is as close to perfect as I can make it. I know that perfectionism often comes at a price; to agonize over each small detail of a project can also put the project behind schedule because of the extra time it takes to go over everything multiple times. As I’ve grown as an employee, I’ve worked out a system so that I’m nearly satisfied with details the first time around, so I only must check once more before submitting the project to be sure that it’s perfect.

 

Out of these examples, the most important common element is that none of these explanations of a “weakness” are negative. The trick is to express a skill that you’ve been working on or you need to work on in the future, and explain how you plan to go about doing that.

Remember, the best way to have a successful job interview is to practice and prepare for any questions you anticipate. Make a list of questions you think you’ll be asked, and practice answering them in front of the mirror or with a friend. Another great resource is to check www.glassdoor.com/ and see if anyone has listed the interview questions they were asked at the company you’ll be interviewing for.

 

Image source:#WOCinTechChat

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How to Write your Resume if you have little or no Professional Experience

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07
Jun 2017

Summer is heating up. For many of this year’s college graduates, the festivities are dying down, and the need to find a job is becoming more pressing. Yet many recent grads or those who have taken career breaks find themselves in a conundrum when they begin their job search: how to write an outstanding resume if they have little or no professional experience. Embarking on a job hunt is never easy, but it can seem even more daunting if you feel you haven’t had the professional experiences that hiring managers look for when screening job applications. Fear not, however, because there IS a way to frame your unique experiences and skills so that they translate in to valid, valuable bullet points on your resume. With a little research, some personal reflection, and determination, you can write your resume and begin applying to jobs within a few hours of reading this post.

1) Do your research

Decide which industries you would be interested in working in. Once you’ve picked two or three, use sites like monster.com, indeed.com, and idealist.org to peruse some job postings for entry-level positions in your chosen fields. In each posting, there should be a list of qualities and qualifications that hiring managers desire in potential entry level job candidates. Make a list of these traits and skills.

Once you have a good list with quite a few skills and traits, examine any that repeat. If you begin to notice patterns across job postings from various companies, you can get a general sense of what is expected of an entry level worker in that field. For example, if you were researching desired traits for jobs in sales, you might see that customer service, persuasion, negotiation, and diligence are among dozens of skills that are emphasized when working in that field, according to TheBalance.com. Now, analyze your findings. Do you possess any of the qualities that recur across job postings? Circle all that are relevant to you.

2) Do some personal reflection

Once you’ve got a sense of what hiring managers are looking for, you can begin to reflect on your own experiences to discover if any work you’ve done over the years would demonstrate your suitability for a position in your chosen field. The trick here is to stop limiting your interpretation of “professional experience” to solely conventional long-term jobs, which you may not have had yet. Professional experience can be anything you have done that utilized or developed your skills. Perhaps you were a TA in college or you volunteered at the writing center or as a tutor. Maybe you gave tours to prospective students or were assigned to have a visiting student shadow you one day. Maybe you worked at the library.

For recent college grads, work experience doesn’t necessarily have to be confined to your college, either. You may have worked on a catering team at a wedding, or helped take care of your neighbors’ children. A family friend may have asked you to help with a home improvement project or help fix a car one summer. Even hobby activities can be considered experiences that demonstrate your value as a worker.

It may make it easier to reflect on these experiences if you think of times when you collaborated with others to achieve some sort of end. What projects have you completed? What volunteer work have you done? Now reexamine the list of desired qualities in your industry. Focus on the ones you circled, those you possess. Try to think of how you acquired, developed, or utilized these skills throughout your past work, volunteer, or other project experiences. These experiences will be the bullet points in the Professional Experience section on your resume. For help formatting this section and others on your resume, see Resume Yeti’s “Anatomy of a Perfect Resume” Pro Tips.

3) Make your resume look the part

Since you are searching for employment with few “conventional” job experiences, it is of paramount importance that your resume be as close to perfect as possible. In an article about the most important resume characteristics for an applicant with no experience, Business Insider states that the number one way to make a resume stand out is that, “The layout is clean and easy to read.” Your resume should contain no spelling or grammar errors, no formatting inconsistencies, and it should have a clean, polished design. In order for hiring managers to take your resume seriously, it needs to be visually as good as or better in caliber than those of applicants competing for the same positions. First impressions are key!

 

Once you get over the initial anxiety of feeling like you have no work experience, you’ll be able to crank out your resume and start applying to jobs immediately thereafter. And remember, the employee profiles that hiring managers post in job listings are only desired qualities; they are usually not hard line requirements for every applicant. Show hiring managers that despite not having had conventional work experience, you have had valuable learning experiences in the past, and you are ready to put your skill set into action.

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3 Creative Ways to get Noticed and Land the Job

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23
May 2017

There is a fine line between gimmicks and authentic creativity when it comes to capturing the attention of hiring managers. A stunt too outlandish will land your resume in the garbage, but there are several tricks job hunters may employ that—with finesse—just might pique the interest of hiring managers and get you in the door for an interview. Each of the following strategies requires a bit of extra time, and in some cases a little money upfront, but each is a way that has been proven to move job hunters forward in their search for employment.

1) The Unsolicited Application

The strategy of cold calling has historically been one of the most tried-and-true methods of job hunting, although it has changed a bit in the last decade. To set this strategy into motion, you need to do your research. It’s a good idea to use a spreadsheet to organize your findings. Start by making an exhaustive list of companies and organizations that interest you—be it the company’s mission, the products they make or advertise, or the ideal next step up in your career. For each entry in your spreadsheet, record the company’s name, a sentence about why it interests you, and the available contact information about the staff member most likely to be in charge.

Once you have several entries, begin contacting the companies. In an email, send your resume along with a formal, individualized message about why you’re interested in the company, your skills that you think would make a positive contribution to their staff and workplace, and a reminder that even if they are not hiring at the moment, to please keep you in mind for future opportunities. The majority of these emails may go unanswered, but sometimes, companies are looking for employees for positions that haven’t been posted yet, or hiring managers and staff members will remember your outreach efforts and might contact you in the future.

2) The Role Reversal

Some of you may have heard about programmer Andrew Horner’s website that encouraged employers to apply to have Horner work for them. While this strategy was ultimately very successful for Horner, it is not likely that everyone will achieve the same results. However, there are a few ways that you can “turn the tables” so that people solicit you to work, rather than the other way around.

One tactic is to advertise on Facebook and Google. To make a Facebook ad, you’ll have to start a business page. Once you do, you can follow these steps to create advertisements for small fees to reach specific audiences. To place advertisements on Google, you’ll have to make a Google AdWords account. Once you’ve set that up, there are many options to create Search Ads (those that appear in the list search results when you Google something), and Display Ads (those that appear as banners on websites you visit). There are also many different payment tiers, depending on your needs and the audience you want to reach. You can learn more about how to effectively use Google Adwords here.

Another “role reversal” tactic is to post advertisements for your services on sites like TaskRabbit and Craigslist Jobs**. While Craigslist tends to be a bit more of a wild card in terms of gaining actual clients, it has proved effective when used intelligently and persistently. It’s also easy to post–you can do it within 10 minutes! Craigslist uses what’s called “relay mail,” so that you can communicate with potential clients anonymously until you have reached an agreement and feel comfortable exchanging other contact information with your client.

TaskRabbit allows you to create a profile that lists your skills and strengths so that people who need work done can contact you if your skill set is a match for what they need. You can become a “tasker” here. As a tasker you can also browse work that people need done and contact them to offer your services. If they agree that you’re a match, then you’ll move forward with a contract and you’ll be on your way.

** Remember never to post personal information inside ad text, never to give bank account information or passwords, and never to send/wire money over Craigslist.

3) The Imitation Game

Maybe you’ve heard of Alexander J. Velicky’s video game resume, which he submitted to Bethesda Game Studios, where he was keen on working. Or perhaps you’re aware of Jeanne Hwang’s Pinterest CV, which she submitted to Pinterest. Or Leah Bowman, who built a Lego-themed resume to appeal to future employers.

These are three examples of job hunters who grabbed hiring managers’ attention by synthesizing and personalizing elements of the companies’ branding, mission, and work. By thoroughly researching the companies they wanted to work for, these job hunters were able to project their best qualities by imitating the characteristics they loved best about the companies. When the hiring managers saw enthusiasm for the companies mirrored in their job applications, these applicants were invited to interview.

 

All three of these creative strategies require a bit more time, research, and even money (in the case of advertising) upfront. But for jobs that you’ve got your heart set on, it just might be worth a shot!

Have you ever used a creative strategy to land an interview or job offer? Share it with us on Facebook or Tweet us @ResumeYeti!

 

Cover image provided by WOCinTech Chat

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