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What are Your Greatest Strengths - 3 Mistakes to Avoid!

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What are Your Greatest Strengths - 3 Mistakes to Avoid!

Jeff Su 04.11.2020 108 051 просмотров 2 744 лайков обн. 18.02.2026

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🎯 My free Job Search Toolkit: https://academy.jeffsu.org/job-search-toolkit?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=video&utm_campaign=023 My Premium Resume Package: https://jeffsu.gumroad.com/l/premium-resume-package The "What are your greatest strengths" interview question is supposed to be an easy question to answer, yet most people can't find the balance between modesty and arrogance. Walking into the job interview knowing what your biggest strengths are is one thing, but clearly articulating your greatest strengths in a cohesive and structured answer is a whole other thing altogether. In this video, I share with you the 3 mistakes to avoid when answering the "what are your greatest strengths" question, the 3 correct things to do instead, and share with you my own sample answer from a few years ago that actually included some of these mistakes! TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Intro 00:56 Don't mention a technical skill 01:56 Do this instead 02:29 Bonus resource 02:44 Don't say an irrelevant strength 03:10 Say this instead 04:30 Do not rely only on STAR format 04:57 Include "Learnings" as part of your story 05:14 My real answer with mistakes 06:51 Summary 💪 Support this channel by becoming a member: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwAnu01qlnVg1Ai2AbtTMaA/join RESOURCES I MENTION IN THE VIDEO 🙋👦🏻 Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1190183907995020 STAR vs. CARL Behavioral Interview Methods - https://youtu.be/gZ2354BH0a0 How to Connect on LinkedIn (the right way) - https://youtu.be/9BdbGZtnFnQ Informational Interview Questions to ask - https://youtu.be/4b2iagdHw8M Playlist on common interview questions - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLo-kPya_Ww2wLc0USlqpuN_OAtJjc6qoP 💪 LIST OF STRENGTHS: - Action-oriented/entrepreneurial - Attentive/detail-oriented - Collaborative - Committed/dedicated - Creative - Determined - Disciplined/focused - Empathetic - Enthusiastic/passionate/driven - Flexible/versatile - Honest - Innovative - Patient - Respectful MY FAVORITE GEAR 🎥 My YouTube Gear - https://geni.us/youtube-gear 🎒 What's In My Bag - https://geni.us/mybag 💻 What's On My Desk - https://geni.us/mydesk 🛩 What I Travel With - https://geni.us/mytravel MY FAVORITE SOFTWARE ✍️ Skillshare - https://geni.us/skillshare-jeff 🎨 Canva - https://partner.canva.com/jeffsu BE MY FRIEND: 📧 Subscribe to my Productivity newsletter - https://www.jeffsu.org/productivity-ping/ 📸 Instagram - https://instagram.com/j.sushie 🤝 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsu05/ 👋🏻 Clubhouse - https://www.joinclubhouse.com/@jsushie 👨🏻‍💻 WHO AM I: I'm Jeff, a full time Product Marketer. In my spare time I like to tinker with tools and create systems that help me get things done faster - or as one of my friends puts it: "Get better at being lazy" 😏 If you'd like to talk, I'd love to hear from you. Messaging me on Instagram (@j.sushie) directly will be the quickest way to get a response! PS: Some of the links in this description are affiliate links I get a kickback from 😇 Disclaimer: My opinions are my own and may not reflect that of my employer #interviewtips #greateststrengths #behavioralinterview

Оглавление (10 сегментов)

0:00 Intro 182 сл.
0:56 Don't mention a technical skill 193 сл.
1:56 Do this instead 105 сл.
2:29 Bonus resource 61 сл.
2:44 Don't say an irrelevant strength 85 сл.
3:10 Say this instead 254 сл.
4:30 Do not rely only on STAR format 93 сл.
4:57 Include "Learnings" as part of your story 49 сл.
5:14 My real answer with mistakes 321 сл.
6:51 Summary 77 сл.

Intro

— The popular interview question, "What are your greatest strengths?" should be an extremely easy question to answer, in theory. After all, we know ourselves best, we know what our biggest strengths are. So why is this question still tripping up candidates during job interviews? Because, as you'll soon notice, it's actually pretty challenging to balance your humility with the need to project your successes and confidence. In this video, I first highlight three things you do not wanna say when preparing for this interview question. Share three actions you wanna take instead, and end with an example answer that I gave years ago, where I made these mistakes. And what I would do differently today. So let's get started. Hi friends, welcome back to the channel. My name is Jeff, and if you're new here, I upload videos on practical career and interview tips. So if you're a current student or young professional, consider subscribing for more actionable content. Diving right into the three things you do not wanna do when preparing for the, "What are your greatest strengths" interview question.

Don't mention a technical skill

Number one, do not mention a hard or technical skill as your biggest strength. You may well be an Excel guru. You could be someone who makes the most beautiful PowerPoint slides, you can even know the Salesforce CRM system back to front. The two biggest issues with mentioning how you're great with a particular piece of software, is that number one, one day your role may involve in a direction where that product isn't relevant anymore. And number two, the company you're interviewing with may be using an alternative solution. To give an oversimplified example, imagine if you were interviewing for a project management role, and you said your greatest strength was how familiar you are with "Monday. com", the project management software. Little do you know, the company's actually using "Notion" or "Asana" for all their project management needs. Furthermore, there might be a lot of professionals in your target company, who have been working with that product or software for much longer than you have. So saying how that technical skill is one of your greatest strengths, might come off as a little bit presumptuous. Instead, what you wanna do

Do this instead

is to prepare something that I call, "Transferable Skills" as your strengths. Because those can be applied across a variety of responsibilities. It can grow with you as you progress in your role. Let's say you're interviewing for an entry level position in the sales team as an accountant manager. And you say two of your biggest strengths are that you're honest and you're respectful of others. Those are very healthy attributes to have as an account manager when you're dealing with clients everyday. And when you progress to be a people manager, those are still extremely important strengths to have when managing a team.

Bonus resource

And as a bonus to you all, I'm actually gonna add a list of transferable skills that will make great strengths, down in the description bellow. By the way, if you liked that first tip, actually I have a Facebook group where I share exclusive weekly tips. So consider joining if you haven't already. I'll link that down bellow as well.

Don't say an irrelevant strength

Moving on to number two, do not talk about a strength that's irrelevant to the role you're applying for. Can you imaging interviewing for an accounting role and telling the interviewer how amazing you are at creative thinking. I mean, no offense to all the creative accountants out there. You could prepare a great response with the right numbers, the right story, the perfect amount of impact you made. But the interviewer will still just be thinking, "Wow, this person did not do the research."

Say this instead

Instead, make sure to mention strengths that have a direct application to the job you're applying for. Think about it this way, the interviewers know the qualities that the high performers already have, right. So if you're able to see a strength that makes a connection in the interviewer's mind, between yourself and the high performers on their team, they will start to unconsciously think about how you'd perform on the job. And I'm gonna say an unpopular opinion right now. The best way to find a relevant strength to talk about is not through the job description, because they're often just too vague. But rather asking someone who's working there already. In today's day and age, where everyone is so interconnected, there's really no excuse not to network, and not to connect with other professionals through virtual means. Watch my videos on how to properly connect with others on LinkedIn, and questions to ask during informational interviews, or coffee chats. You don't even need to hop on a phone call. Finding a relevant strength could be as simple as sending a polite message to an existing contact, with something like, "Hi, sorry to bother you, but if you could think back "to a recent hire on your team who you enjoyed working with, "what made them stand out?" That question will prompt them to think of specific attributes that you can leverage in your own answer. If you've enjoyed this video so far, a like and sub to the channel would be amazing.

Do not rely only on STAR format

Finally, the third thing you want to avoid doing. Don't rely completely on the "S. T. A. R" answer format when preparing your story. When preparing stories to back your strengths up, you might be tempted to use the "Situation, Task, Action, Results" format to structure your answer. But as I've mentioned in a previous video, where I compare the "S. T. A. R" and "CARL" methods, for questions that require you to reflect on your experiences, questions such as, "What are your greatest strengths?" You wanna make sure to include your learnings

Include "Learnings" as part of your story

as part of your answer. The "L" in "CARL". I actually made this mistake when I was interviewing a couple of years ago. So let's jump into my answer from back then and show you what I would do differently today. Not that I'm interviewing right now, or anything.

My real answer with mistakes

So to prove to you I'm not making this up, this is a document that I was using to prepare for my interviews a couple of years back. As you can see, I have input some behavior interview questions, like, "Why are you a good candidate?" "Why you?" "Why are you leaving EY?" I was a managing consultant with Ernst & Young before this. And here we go, "What are your strengths?" So, I basically followed the "S. T. A. R" format completely here. I said one of my greatest strengths is that I've got strong communication skills. And for the experience that I gave, the situation was I was working with a big 4 advertising agency here in Shanghai, one of our large clients. The task was a fact that there were compliance issues at that branch and we were supposed to decrease that. The action that I took was, because I have strong communication skills, I developed a working relationship with the CFO and on the ground staff. So, one of my proposals was less extreme than the plan we were going to adopt. So I was able to sort of influence the key stakeholders to adopt my plan. And the result rather is a fact that the number of compliance issues decreased because of my proposal. So that wasn't necessarily a bad answer. But if I were using the "CARL" method, I would've included a "Learnings" at the end here. And summarized how it was because of my strong communication skills that I was able to influence the CFO to go another route. Which ultimately led to a fewer number of compliance issues. That would've emphasized my biggest strength in this case, as oppose to just ending with a result to the "What's your biggest strength" interview question. That might sound like a very small thing, but a small adjustment like that can make quite a big difference.

Summary

All right, and there you have it. Three things not to do when preparing for the "What are your greatest strengths" interview question and what to do instead. If you wanna come up with strong answers to the most common behavioral interview questions, check out this playlist, where I break down each one and provide sample answers. Subscribe if you haven't already. Comment down below if you have any questions, and as usual-- Have a great one.

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