I’ve been on a lot of interviews and I’m sure you have as well.

I’ve also been on the other side – the one giving an interview, but I’ve never had a set of “personality test” questions to ask. I prefer to just start with some very open-ended questions such as:
• Tell me about the last project you worked on.
• What did you find interesting in your work for X?
• Why did you decide to leave Y and go to Z?

To me, it always seemed pretty easy to get the feel for a developer or an architect – to see their approach to work and tech – just by letting them talk. And guess what, the personality stuff just leaks out.

But it is clear from experience that a lot of interviewers do have “personality test” types of questions. And frankly most of them are pretty useless.

My absolute favorite question (read with thick sarcasm) is the following:

“What do you think is your greatest weakness?”

This is an idiotic question. I don’t care how or when you ask it, there is no way this is going to lead to any useful information – and here’s why:

There are only two ways to answer this question.

#1 – You can answer the question honestly – and of course this would be a mistake.

You just met this person.

• “I have a pretty serious anger problem.”

Of course, you wouldn’t say that. But even if you keep this in a professional context, what are you going to say?

• “I sometimes have a real problem working in a team because I lack the patience to see problems from other people’s point of view.”

This is an interview – not a therapy session.

#2 – The second way you can answer this is how everyone does. You can turn it into a sappy answer.

The standard choice is, “I care too much.”

I’m sure there are interview coaches and sites that tell you to do this. Clearly every politician has been coached this way.

• “I think I’m probably too honest and sometimes this gets me into trouble.”
• “Sometimes as a developer I care too much about the job and spend way too much of my own time after hours trying to make sure I’m staying on top of whatever I need to do.”
• “You know, I think I’m too loyal to the companies I work for.”
• “As a manager, maybe I’m too forgiving – I always give people a second chance, because, well, I think I just care too much!”

Somebody get me a barf bag.

But I’ve been thinking about this and I finally came up with the perfect answer to this question.

And yep – I’m going to give it to you – free of charge.

Here it is…

Next time someone during an interview makes that dramatic pause, leans forward, looks straight into your eyes as if to say, “Hey, let’s get real”, and they say, “What would you say is your greatest weakness.”

You just look right back at them and say:

“My greatest weakness is that when a person asks me a stupid question, I actually try to answer it instead of telling them it’s a stupid question.”

Of course, if you really want the job… you might just tell them you care too much.