How to Answer: What are your weaknesses?
Advice and answer examples written specifically for a Netflix job interview.
31. What are your weaknesses?
Why the Interviewer Asks This Question
Your interviewer is curious whether you exhibit courage when sharing your weaknesses, without hesitation or fear of being judged. Sharing your growth opportunities with confidence reveals that you take ownership of your professional development, and are hyper-focused on your growth. So, your interviewer is looking for candidates who "manage their own career paths" and "develop themselves. High-performance people are generally self-improving through experience, observation, introspection, reading, and discussion." This question can easily be correlated to Netflix's Valued Behaviors. They want to know whether you exercise good judgment, dare to learn even when learning something the hard way, whether you exercise integrity, have a passion for Netflix's vision and mission, and how curious you are to learn and develop professionally.
Written by Kevin Downey on January 19th, 2024
What You Need to Know
Part of their business model is giving their employees the freedom to work responsibly while avoiding rules. In this model, they describe their absolute highest performers as rare esponsible persons. These individuals are "self-motivating, self-aware, self-disciplined, and self-improving. These individuals never wait to be told what to do, never say 'that's not my job,' act like a leader and behave like an owner. You make decisions mostly based on the long term, rather than near term, impact. You give and take feedback to and from colleagues at any level. You admit mistakes openly and share learnings widely. You inspire others with your drive for excellence. You learn rapidly and eagerly. You seek alternate perspectives to improve your ideas."
Written by Kevin Downey on January 19th, 2024
Experienced Example
"I'd say one of my current growth opportunities is enhancing my communication skills and learning to ask more questions. For example, I am known for identifying systemic issues with our systems and processes. I am always looking for ways to streamline and improve efficiency. I'm a firm believer that all those incremental improvements collectively can have just as great an impact as a major innovation. So, early on there were a few instances when I've just acted and made those improvements and implemented them, for the sake of efficiency. But, I was more of a stealth worker back then, and when my supervisors traced those improvements back to me, they were pleased with the improvements on most occasions, and on others annoyed I hadn't checked in with them first. So, when I noticed room for improvement, I approached my leadership and told them what I believed should be improved. I was then challenged to improve my communication skills by asking clarifying questions first to discover the reasons why things were done the way they were. My mentor told me that I couldn't be sure my ideas were a step up without knowing what they were a step up from. So now, I am hyper-focused on improving my communication in every regard, which stemmed from these challenges."
Written by Kevin Downey on January 18th, 2024