What is your greatest weakness?

Why the Interviewer Asks This Question
1st Answer Example
2nd Answer Example
Community Answers

This common interview question is an opportunity to demonstrate self-insight. Give an honest answer with a real weakness you have been focusing on and describe the plan you've put into place to work on it. Make sure the weakness isn't a core competency of the Coinbase job description. If it's an analyst role, revealing logical reasoning skills as a weakness likely won't get you far. Reflect on traits you want to work on but won't affect overall job success.

Honesty and self-awareness are key for this question. Interviewers have heard it all and will see through phony attempts to present a trait as a weakness when it's not a weakness.

"I've been working on finding my voice when meeting with upper-level management. While I know the ideas I bring to the table are valuable, I've always been on the introverted side and struggle to put myself out there, especially when talking to people in positions of authority. So I have been working on feeling more confident when I pitch ideas in these meetings. This has been my primary area of focus for improvement in the last few months, and one of my colleagues even recently commented that he had noticed a difference in the frequency of my contributions."

"I take a lot of pride in the work I do and often struggle to delegate tasks to other members of my team. Even though I trust my coworkers and know what fantastic work they do, I've gotten in the habit of seeing tasks through from start to finish. I got to a point where this was no longer feasible with the new responsibilities I had taken on, so I've been working on feeling more comfortable asking for help from my colleagues when I need it. While this weakness is still a work in progress for me, I've learned how important it is to communicate effectively with and rely on my team."

Anonymous Answer

"I have always been hands-on and as I started to take on leadership roles I wasn't great at delegating,"

Marcie's Feedback

Ok! This is an honest admission and a good weakness to mention because it can be seen in a positive light. Consider rewording your answer like below:

"I would say that my greatest weakness is being a little too hands-on at times, which makes it challenging for me to delegate. I realize that I need to trust others and that I can't do everything myself; however, it's very important to me that the job gets done right. Sometimes in my quest to ensure a positive outcome, I find it hard to delegate. To overcome this weakness, I have been asking colleagues for their feedback and input more frequently and asking questions when they do something different than I would have so I can understand and learn from them. I also frequently remind myself that if someone - a team member or even myself - make a mistake, it's an opportunity to learn. While I will always be someone who takes ownership and enjoys being hands-on, I have learned over time in various leadership roles that it's essential to delegate and trust my team members."