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Ask the Experts: What Is Your Biggest Weakness?

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Ask the Experts.jpgMany otherwise talented professionals are not good interviewers. When particularly busy or having a bad day, it is not unusual for an interviewer to lose sight of what is at stake for the person they are interviewing and consider the whole thing to be a waste of their time. Some interviewers see their role as weeding out candidates who “can’t take the pressure” and are purposefully challenging, and still others–especially if they will not be working directly with the person hired– just don’t care.

Bad interviews happen, and over the course of a job search, tough interview questions are likely to be asked. As a candidate you are not in a position to control the situation, but what follows are some tips to help you leave a good impression from the other side of the table.

Guidelines

* Do your homework . Anticipate obvious questions, such as “What do you know about the company?” and “What did you think of that article in the Times yesterday?” and do research that lets you answer them. Beyond reviewing the company’s website, Google them and the names of prominent clients to see if they have been in the media recently.

* Prepare fallback answers. It is of course always best to answer an interviewer’s question directly, but if that’s not possible, answer the question you wish they’d asked. (The presidential candidate debates provide a model for this strategy.) Bullet out points in advance about your skills and experience that you want to be sure you make, and segue to talk about what you bring to the table.

More guidelines after the jump.


* Maintain eye contact and body language . While many people are uncomfortable doing “role play,” mock interviews can in fact be a big help. If you say “uh” frequently or have a nervous tic, you want to be aware of that and address it before any interviewer notes it. Similarly, even though a half hour can be a long time to look at someone directly, keeping eye contact is critical in any interview. Practice looking away occasionally but not for long.

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* Stay calm and don’t take it personally. Remain professional even if the interviewer does not. Your handling a potentially volatile exchange calmly may impress the interviewer in retrospect. In a series of interviews, one interviewer’s opinion can often be seen as an outlier so long as you don’t respond inappropriately. Getting confrontational gets you nowhere.

* Remember that there are other jobs out there . If the questions are particularly obnoxious or more than one interviewer is surly or distracted, you may want to seriously reconsider whether you want to work for that employer. Take your time making a decision, talk to people who know the organization, and recognize there will be other opportunities.

Sample Q&A

Challenging interview questions range from ones that are reasonable and related to future job performance to those that seem obnoxious and beside the point. You need to be able to respond appropriately no matter where they fall along that spectrum.

• “Why are you leaving your current job?”

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This question is often asked to test your judgment. Obviously, you never want to bad-mouth a former employer. It indicates that you’ll turn around and do the same to your next one and raises concerns about your judgment when interacting with clients. Stay positive and give a reason relating to what you’re looking for, such as “opportunities for advancement,” “to do more transactional work,” “to expand my practice,” etc.

• “Why do you want this job?”

While the truth may be “the paycheck,” or “because I need to pay off debt,” clearly that is not what the questioner wants to hear. Typically the interviewer is testing to see what you know about the position, wants to hear why the company is better than its competitors, and/or thinks you’re overqualified. Walk into any interview prepared to address all of the above.

• “What would the impact of Section 501(d)(4) of the Act be on the following transaction?”

Interviewers often pose a complicated hypothetical for you to analyze, particularly if they consider you to be arrogant. Use the opportunity to show how you think on your feet and include enough qualifiers to demonstrate that you are aware that you can’t be sure without consulting specific resources. Don’t try to out-expert an expert in the content area.

• “What is your biggest weakness?”

You need to prepare an answer in advance to this question; regardless of how obnoxious you think it is. You can’t say you have no weaknesses, but you also do not want to talk yourself out of a job. Instead, list a negative that also shows a positive characteristic and specify how you’ve addressed the issue. For example, “I have trouble delegating (i.e., you take ownership over your work). As I increasingly was given more responsibility, I took a management course to help me supervise others more efficiently. In fact, several junior associates recently requested to be assigned to my cases.”

• “What would the impact of Section 501(d)(4) of the Act be on the following transaction?”

Interviewers often pose a complicated hypothetical for you to analyze, particularly if they consider you to be arrogant. Use the opportunity to show how you think on your feet and include enough qualifiers to demonstrate that you are aware that you can’t be sure without consulting specific resources. Don’t try to out-expert an expert in the content area.

• “You seem to have moved around a lot. Do you have trouble keeping a job?”

Having a number of different jobs over time has become much less of an issue than it once was, although some employers remain concerned that it indicates a lack of commitment or troubled working relationships. In response, you do not need to explain why you left each position. If you have been asked to leave a previous job, don’t say so explicitly. You can mention that the market for the type of work declined, you were offered a broader role elsewhere, or you moved for personal reasons, but be brief. Instead, focus your response on how your range of work experience has given you valuable insight and perspective, speak concisely about what you learned in each position, and emphasize that your experience has confirmed that this is the position/employer for you.

• “Who else are you talking to?”

This question indicates an employer’s interest in knowing their competition to hire you, which is a good sign. Though it can seem awkward to put your cards on the table, it often proves best to just answer this one directly and name names of other places you’re interviewing. A few exceptions: if you’re interviewing i) to work in a number of different practice areas, then only list employers in the same area; ii) with every firm in town, then come up with a reputable subset; iii) in other cities, there is no need to mention that; or iv) nowhere else, then reiterate your interest in this specific employer and how you chose to apply.

• “Where do you see yourself in 10 to 15 years?”

Although you may see yourself working in a different sector, at your own firm, or in another part of the country by then, an interview is not the time to explore that. You never know what life will bring, so it doesn’t hurt to say that you hope to still be working for that particular employer (though not necessarily in the interviewer’s job). You can also reply more broadly that you want to be in a challenging job working on complex issues confronting this field where you can leverage the skills and experience you will have gained.

Bottom Line

Throughout the interview process, it’s important to keep a sense of humor, at least privately. In the moment, it helps to put yourself in the interviewer’s shoes. What would you want to hear, assuming you were professional, courteous and paying attention?

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This article was written by Kate Neville, a graduate of Harvard Law School and founder of Neville Career Consulting, LLC in Washington, DC. Kate offers Lateral Link members a complementary initial consultation.

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