Progressive HireVue Mock Interview
Practice 30 Progressive HireVue interview questions covering digital assessments, behavioral scenarios, and video response techniques.
Question 12 of 30
Talk about your biggest weakness and the action you are taking to improve.
The Goal
Pro Tip
How to Answer
What You Need to Know
Example Answer
Community Answers
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
The hiring managers at Progressive are looking for evidence that you know your shortcomings. They also want to see that you embrace opportunities to grow and improve. The goal of your response is to show the decision-makers that you are self-aware, reflective, and can readily identify areas for improvement.
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
Avoid talking about weaknesses that are a red flag or potentially point to a more significant issue. For instance, if time management is a weakness, the interviewer might wonder if you can meet your deadlines or if you are frequently late to work. For this reason, it's best to choose weaknesses that will not impact your ability to succeed in the role.
It's also essential to give a thoughtful response. Avoid cliche or overused statements like:
- I work too hard
- I am a perfectionist
- I am a workaholic
- My weaknesses are also my strengths
- My greatest weakness is chocolate (insert uncomfortable chuckle)
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
On its careers page, Progressive states, 'We're an award-winning company with forward-thinking approaches, state-of-the-art technology, and endless opportunities to risk, learn, and grow within the organization.' The hiring managers at Progressive want you to be honest about your weaknesses. At the same time, they want assurance that you are proactive in improving yourself so that you can risk, learn, and grow within the organization.
Choose a weakness that is not a core skill for the position. For instance, if you are interviewing for an administrator role, your greatest weakness should not be your Excel skills.
Perhaps you are watching YouTube tutorials to gain skills in a particular area. Maybe you are reading the latest-and-greatest books on the skills you wish to improve, or perhaps you are taking an online workshop to bridge a skills gap. When discussing your most significant weaknesses, you must display your interest in professional growth. Be sure to maintain a positive tone, show confidence in your ability to improve, and demonstrate a desire for improvement.
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
The average HireVue interview takes approximately 30 minutes to complete. This one-way video interview typically includes 3-5 questions. Depending on the HireVue parameters set by Progressive, the asynchronous interview platform will generally give you 30 seconds to prepare a response and up to 2 minutes to answer each question. It's important to note that HireVue stops recording as soon as your time limit is up, so it's better to run under time than overtime.
Rachelle Enns is an interview coach and job search expert. She works with candidates to perform their best in employment, medical, and post-secondary admission interviews.
"When it comes to my professional weaknesses, I struggle with delegating seemingly minor tasks to my team members. If the task is quick, my default is to do it myself because it saves time explaining the task, passing it along, and following up on the completion. Quite possibly, I do this to accommodate my team members, which isn't a negative quality. Still, I can find other ways to be an accommodating manager. I also realize that this approach inhibits my team members' professional growth. To move away from this tendency, I have spent more time training employees to take a task from A to Z. Rather than jumping in, I have started coaching them more often. Since changing my approach, my team members have been much more proactive, and our overtime hours have decreased, which is a pleasant surprise. By improving my delegation ability, I have become a much better leader. When hired at Progressive, I will come with a fresh mindset ready to empower others to be the best version of themselves through growing responsibilities and new learning opportunities."
Interview Coach
Jaymie
A real coach, not AI. I read every answer myself and write back with personalized feedback.
Typically responds within 24 hours.
0 - Character Count
Anonymous Answer
Probably saying No.
A weakness is sometimes I cannot say ‘no’ to requests and take on more than I can handle.
Trying to make everyone happy adds a burden to my shoulders. To ensure I am improving in this area, I use a project management app to visualize how much work I have and know whether I can take on more work.
As someone passionate about their career and has ambitious career goals, it is hard to maintain a balance between work and personal life. I have seen a negative impact on my motivation and focus when I ignore my individual needs. As a result, I have made it a point to make time in my schedule to focus on spending time with my family. Maintaining a work/life balance has allowed me to produce more quality work and stay healthier.
Marcie's Feedback
Nice! This is a good weakness to cite because it can also be seen in a positive light. It's great that you mention how you're trying to improve in this area. Also, the interviewer will no doubt appreciate that you find it important to strike the right balance between work and your personal life. Great answer!
Anonymous Answer
I have a type A personality and that leads me to take on extra workload when my plate may already be full. I have started working on self-awareness. Evaluating what my workload is and if I could efficiently take on another project or if I could offer my co-worker guidance on how to manage their workload.
Marcie's Feedback
Nice! This is a good weakness to discuss because it can be seen in a positive light. The interviewer will want to know what you're doing to improve yourself in this area. Discuss in more depth what you're doing to overcome this. How exactly do you evaluate your workload every day? What do you do if you are too busy to take on additional tasks? Do you take steps to alleviate stress and practice self-care? The more details you can provide, the better!
Anonymous Answer
When it comes to my biggest weakness I tend to take on too much at a time because I am a hard worker. Over the years I am slowly learning that delegating usually ends up getting a lot more done. I try to share my knowledge so that the whole department wins.
Jaymie's Feedback
Great example. If there are other ways you're improving in this area, share that as well. For example, evaluating your workload, prioritizing, learning to say no when necessary, communicating with your manager, etc.
Anonymous Answer
My biggest weakness is multitasking projects a little at a time instead of spending more time completing one or two tasks at once. I will often times start something, such as a project around the house, and then stop doing that one and start another, and sometimes another. This causes me to have multiple projects I'm working on at one time and can cause some clutter or unnecessary waste of space. While most get done in the end, some lose their importance and sit in the closet for months. I'm working on teaching myself not to start a new project until the previous one is done, or I get rid of the previous project that did not get finished.
Jaymie's Feedback
Depending on the role you're applying for, this may not be the best example to use if being an expert multitasker is required to be successful in this role. Letting the interviewer know that it's an area of development is good, so if this is the example you use, you may want to elaborate more on the strategies you're using to be more successful. For example, making a list and prioritizing by order of importance and creating deadlines to have each completed, along with milestones to stay on track. If the job description requires you to multitask, consider giving another example that would be less of a concern to the interviewer.
Anonymous Answer
I am someone that enjoys being seen as useful, knowledgeable, and helpful. I also have an A-type personality which can be a difficult combination. When people come to me for help, I immediately want to take the task, add it to my plate, and accomplish it in the best possible way. This results in me spreading myself thin, and overloading myself. Realizing this, I have been much more selective in what I accept on my own task list and, instead, try to educate my colleagues rather than take the task over.
Jaymie's Feedback
Excellent! This is a common area of development for many and shouldn't be a red flag or deal breaker for the interviewer. They want to know that you're self-aware, can identify gaps, and take action to overcome and it sounds like from your response, you've done just that!
Anonymous Answer
My biggest weakness is public speaking. Over the years, I've slowly tried to become more comfortable with speaking to a large crowd by attending more events that allow me to meet various people so that I can become more comfortable with speaking in public.
Jaymie's Feedback
This is an appropriate area of development to share that likely won't be a deal breaker for the interviewer. You did a great job speaking about a strategy you're using to grow and develop to overcome this weakness.
Anonymous Answer
Professionally speaking, I sometimes struggle with delegating minor tasks. I often conclude that by the time I explain what it is that I need, I could’ve just done it. I have gotten better at catching myself in the act, and when I do think of how I could use delegating the task at hand to someone else as a growth opportunity.
Jaymie's Feedback
This is a common weakness and one that likely won't be a red flag or deal breaker for the interviewer. The most important part of the response is how you are addressing and working to overcome this area of development, which you covered nicely in your response. Great job!
Unlock All 30 Progressive Questions
Master video interview questions that Progressive recruiters use to evaluate candidates.
Get StartedJump to Question