“What is your biggest weakness?” is a gotcha question, that if not handled with skill can ruin your chances of landing a job.  But if you know the right techniques, you can flip this question to show how you proactively acknowledge and overcome your weaknesses or you can use it to reverse a subconscious bias against you.  The best way to answer “What is your biggest weakness?” is to flip the question in your favor.  

How to flip “What is your biggest weakness?” to show how you proactively acknowledge and overcome your weaknesses:

When the hiring manager pulls this question out of the hat, you can tell a story of a time when you discovered a weakness earlier in your career or along your educational path, actively overcame it, and became a stronger asset in the process.  This also gives you the opportunity to deeply connect with the hiring manager through the use of storytelling and to show that you are not set in your ways but are able to grow your own value.

Let’s say you are interviewing for a position as a software developer and the manager asks “What is your biggest weakness?”  Respond with a story of how you overcame a weakness early in your career.  For instance “When I was starting out as an entry level software developer I had trouble writing algorithms which run efficiently.  I would get the application interface right, would optimize page load speed, create pixel perfect renderings of mockups and was able to launch features within sprint cycles.  But I noticed whenever I wrote an algorithm, the processing took too long.  So I signed up for a class on algorithm optimization on Coursera and contacted the professor about my problem.  He talked me through several different techniques for writing algorithms.  I learned that in college I had picked up the habit of writing brute force algorithms, but that quicksort algorithms are more efficient.  So I switched my algorithm writing technique from brute force algorithms to quicksort algorithms.  That solved the problem and I became the goto guy in my company for algorithms.”

You’ve dodged the question which leads to a pitfall and reverted it to show a character strength.  

Do you feel more comfortable addressing the question more directly and actually answer it rather than redirecting the conversation?  There’s a great way to do that too.  The way to actually answer this question is to address a weakness which is already apparent and not related to job performance.  For instance “I don’t have very good hair,” or “I’m 7% overweight for my height, and studies show that people who are overweight are less likely to get a job offer, even if they are the most qualified for the position,” or “I wish my voice was stronger.”  The hiring manager can already see that you are overweight or that your hair is frizzy or thinning.  They can already hear and make their own opinion about your voice.  They already know these things or will soon very soon.  So by addressing the elephant in the room, you put the hiring manager at ease.  You also address something that they may be subconsciously discriminating against you for and trigger a reflex for them to reverse their subconscious discrimination.   And you don’t give away any performance related flaws that they may be trying to tease out, which would impact a hiring decision.