What is your greatest weakness? What are you doing to improve it?

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The interviewer wants to see if you ware able to reflect on your weaknesses as an engineer. This is a very important personality trait for effective professionals. Being able to recognize your own weaknesses allows you to work on them or seek out help from other members of the team to guide you through a task that is difficult for you. Answer the question with an honest answer and offer examples of how you have worked on your weak areas to help complete a project successfully.

"I know that I can struggle with time management when juggling multiple projects at once. I can have a hard time settling on which tasks to work on first when I have two projects with due dates coming up at the same time. To help myself work on this weakness, I try to outline a schedule for myself every Sunday night before starting the work week."

Anonymous Answer

"My greatest weakness is my difficulty speaking up in groups. Even if I have good ideas, I have trouble asserting them and often keep them to myself. At the beginning of my previous job, my team leader noticed that I often didn't assert my ideas during team meetings and didn't try hard enough to defend my ideas when they were challenged. So I took some public speaking classes and volunteered to teach in a public school on weekends. This helped me a lot. Later, when I was leading engineers on the team, I made sure to present the ideas that I wanted to implement."

Marcie's Feedback

This is a great answer because you identify a weakness but then discuss how you have largely overcome it. Nice! It was also very brave of you to subject yourself to speaking classes and teaching when this was an area you struggled in! The interviewer will undoubtedly be impressed by your courageousness and dedication to improvement.

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How to Answer: What is your greatest weakness? What are you doing to improve it?

Advice and answer examples written specifically for a Structural Engineer job interview.

9. What is your greatest weakness? What are you doing to improve it?

How to Answer

The interviewer wants to see if you ware able to reflect on your weaknesses as an engineer. This is a very important personality trait for effective professionals. Being able to recognize your own weaknesses allows you to work on them or seek out help from other members of the team to guide you through a task that is difficult for you. Answer the question with an honest answer and offer examples of how you have worked on your weak areas to help complete a project successfully.

Written by Josh Sadlock on February 12th, 2021

Answer Example

"I know that I can struggle with time management when juggling multiple projects at once. I can have a hard time settling on which tasks to work on first when I have two projects with due dates coming up at the same time. To help myself work on this weakness, I try to outline a schedule for myself every Sunday night before starting the work week."

Written by Josh Sadlock on February 12th, 2021

Anonymous Interview Answers with Professional Feedback

Anonymous Answer

"My greatest weakness is my difficulty speaking up in groups. Even if I have good ideas, I have trouble asserting them and often keep them to myself. At the beginning of my previous job, my team leader noticed that I often didn't assert my ideas during team meetings and didn't try hard enough to defend my ideas when they were challenged. So I took some public speaking classes and volunteered to teach in a public school on weekends. This helped me a lot. Later, when I was leading engineers on the team, I made sure to present the ideas that I wanted to implement."

Marcie's Feedback

This is a great answer because you identify a weakness but then discuss how you have largely overcome it. Nice! It was also very brave of you to subject yourself to speaking classes and teaching when this was an area you struggled in! The interviewer will undoubtedly be impressed by your courageousness and dedication to improvement.

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