Self-awareness

Self-awareness is a key indicator of one’s maturity. It is our ability to monitor inner state, thoughts, preferences and emotions as we evolve. It is a lifelong exercise for each of us, including those who are super successful. With this, self-awareness questions are extremely common in interviews.

Thus, we choose to cover it first. In this category of questions, the interviewers are trying to learn more about your strengths and weaknesses, working style and assess how well you will fit into the team.

Biggest Strength and Weakness

What is the interviewer looking for: The interviewer is looking for your self-awareness, your knowledge of your strengths and areas of development. She will try to assess whether you will be a good fit for the role.

Best practice to answer: First of all, this is a great opportunity to tell your story. For strengths, you can share the traits that led you to your greatest successes. For the developing areas, demonstrate yourself as a lifetime learner.

  • With your biggest strength question, it is your opportunity to leave a lasting impression with the interviewer. The best way to approach this is through concrete stories. For example, if your top strength is taking initiatives, you should tell a compelling story where you have gone above and beyond using STAR framework. Please make sure your strength stands out in this story. Even if you think you are slightly better with strength A than strength B, but if you have a more compelling story with B, you should go with B. People do not remember what you say, they remember your stories.

  • Ensure that your strengths are directly related to the role and set you apart from others. The weaknesses should be relayed in such a way that they do not have a fatal impact on your role. It’s important to show that you have taken steps to improve.

  • Sometimes, the interviewers only ask about weakness. Do not answer the question directly if you can. Share that you think strength and weakness are a great combo and ask the interviewer if you can talk about both. In most cases, the interviewer will happily agree and you will take the question to the course that is favorable to you. Of course, if the time is tight, answer the question directly, but again, emphasizing on your actions to improve.

  • Even if you are not asked to share your strengths, try to find opportunities to share your stories of successes and make connection between the successes and your strengths.

Common pitfalls:

  • Too shy to talk about what you are really good at. Do not be shy. The interviewers will not know your strengths if you do not tell them a compelling story. Before your interviews, get your strength story ready, sharp and concise.

  • Do not pick up strengths that are entirely unrelated to the job. The interviewers are here to gather information to make hiring recommendations, not for pure entertainment. So pick up strengths that are important in a professional setting, such as your ability to learn, collaborate, execute, innovate, lead, etc.

  • Ingenuine or clichéd weaknesses. A common example is that I work too hard. All interviewers know it is made up. Let us face it. We all have a few true weaknesses. Do not think your answer to this question is doomed to impact you negatively. Please have the coverage to make lemonade from a lemon. Turn this question into what you have learned about yourself and how you enriched your skills after you discovered the weakness. That will impress the interviewers a lot more, trust me.

Question variations:

  • What do you wish to be better at?
  • What are you most proud of?

Co-workers’ View of You

What is the interviewer looking for: The interviewer is looking for your self-awareness, knowledge of your strengths, areas of development, with a particular focus on others’ perception of you.

Best practice to answer: This is a moment to sing your glory using someone else’s voice. A good practice is to quote official performance reviews from your co-workers and seniors. Please make sure to use concrete examples about your contributions to the team, the impact, and the team appreciation. You can tailor your answer to what is critical for the job you are applying to increase your chance of success.

Common pitfalls:

  • Try to cover a lot of great things without specific details. Please pick up top three things that are somehow related to the job you are applying. Focus on them by giving specific and concise examples.

  • Focus too much on yourself. The interviewers who ask this question care more about how well you work with others. Please talk and exhibit your collaboration skills, and how you put the team’s interest ahead of your interest.

Question variations:

  • When I call your coworkers for reference checking, what will they say about you?
  • What will your team miss if you leave tomorrow?

Who is your role model?

What is the interviewer looking for: The interviewer is looking at your thought process about your holistic development, which is often correlated to the kind of leader you want to be. It implies the leadership dimension you value and appreciate. The interviewer will then assess whether this is a good fit for the team.

Best practice to answer: If you have a clear role model, that is great. Please give three reasons about why this person is your role model. It is also perfectly fine to have an abstract role model. Please list three dimensions of the abstract figure. This shows the kind of personality and traits that you want to embody and inspire to be.

Common pitfalls:

  • Not substantiating your role model with the traits you want to embody.

Question variations:

  • Who is your favorite athlete?
  • Who is your favorite CEO?
  • Who is your dream manager or teammate?