In this comprehensive blog post, I’ll explain why I ask this question as an interviewer, what I’m looking for in a great answer, the most impressive ways to respond, as well as mistakes to avoid.
First and foremost, when I ask about your greatest strength, I want to see if you possess strengths and skills that align with the open position. I’m looking to gain insight into your abilities to determine if you'd be the right fit for this role and company.
If the job requires strong attention to detail, I want to hear if that’s one of your standout qualities. If the role demands creativity, I’d hope you speak to that talent. I’m trying to match your strengths to the strengths needed to excel in the job.
Secondly, when I pose this question, I want to see if you have a solid grasp of your own skills, abilities, and attributes. Do you know your strengths (and weaknesses)? Are you self-aware? This tells me a lot about your emotional intelligence and ability to self-reflect.
The best candidates can concisely yet accurately articulate their strengths. They know what they excel at and share strengths that ring true from my assessment of their background.
Meanwhile, candidates who ramble, get flustered, or seem confused about their strengths often struggle with self-awareness. And those who exaggerate their abilities show a disconnect between how they see themselves and reality.
Finally, when you tell me your greatest strength, I gain insight into what motivates you. Most people lean into their strengths and even organize their lives around activities and environments that allow them to use those strengths.
So if your greatest strength is leadership, I know you likely seek out management opportunities. Or if it’s creativity, you probably gravitate to artistic roles.
This helps me understand what energizes you and whether this position offers you the chance to leverage those motivating strengths every day.
Given those reasons above, it should be clear that your answer to “What is your greatest strength?” can have a big impact on your candidacy and interview performance.
With this question, you have a prime opportunity to show me exactly why you deserve this job. So I’d encourage you to use this opening to make yourself stand out.
A mediocre, rambling, or irrelevant answer, however, can raise red flags about whether you actually have the right abilities for the role or are truly driven by the aspects of the work.
So while this can feel like a “soft ball” question, don’t underestimate the power of knocking your answer out of the park. Take the time to prepare a response that clearly conveys your fit, self-awareness, and motivation.
While “What is your greatest strength?” is the most common phrasing of this question, I may ask similar questions like:
All these questions aim to uncover the same thing: your standout qualities that show your potential as a top performer should we hire you.
When it comes to answering this pivotal interview question, stick to this formula:
First, reflect on the role and company and target one standout strength that would serve you well should you get the job. As mentioned earlier, I’m looking for fit, so pick an attribute, skill, or quality you have that aligns with the position.
You may want to scan the job description and company website in advance to identify areas of alignment. For example:
Choose something you authentically excel at, not just what you think I want to hear. Backing up hyperbole with real evidence later on will prove challenging.
Next, take a sentence or two to directly connect the dots between your strength and the role/company. Demonstrate you understand why this particular standout quality would enable you to add value and drive results.
You might say something like:
Spelling out the relevance directly shows self-awareness around the role and further highlights your qualifications.
Now, provide a specific example that brings this strength to life. Vague claims about your abilities mean little. I want to see your strengths in action.
So offer a concise story of a time this attribute helped you drive impact. Focus on highlighting tangible outcomes and what you uniquely contributed rather than just accomplishments of the overall team.
An example could sound like:
The proof is in the pudding here. Backing up your initial claims with real evidence showcases your talents in action versus just empty boasting.
When it comes to the actual strengths interviewers find most impressive, these tend to top the list for various roles:
Problem-solving, Critical thinking, Pattern recognition, Data analysis, Root cause analysis
Creativity, Originality, Imagination, Artistic eye, Design instincts
Motivating teams, Delegating effectively, Developing talent, Managing up, Strategic thinking
Learning ability, Detail-orientation, Technical breadth, Coding fluency, Debugging skills
Relationship building, Communication skills, Emotional intelligence, Patient listening, Conflict resolution
Of course, these are just general guidelines. Make sure to carefully review the job description and research the company to determine what strengths they would truly prize most.
And focus on authentic strengths you actually possess over what merely sounds impressive. Anything inauthentic will come across as disingenuous fluff.
Eagerness to learn, Versatility, Diligence, Grit
Young candidates tend to have potential over a long track record, so focus on the attributes that will help you maximize that upside.
Beyond the core formula for answering, keep these tips in mind:
On the flip side, here are some pitfalls to sidestep when answering this question:
By dodging these missteps and highlighting your authentic, relevant strengths backed by proof, your answer can go a long way in boosting your chances of moving forward.
As a seasoned professional, I would expect you to have a clear understanding of your capabilities. Thus, I would want an answer like this:
“My greatest strength that I’ve demonstrated throughout my career is building trust and credibility with key business partners and executive stakeholders. For example, in my current role owning enterprise partnerships, I’ve fostered alignment across 15 cross-functional relationships driving $10M+ in annual contract value. One Global VP even complimented my ‘masterful ability for gaining allies.’ I think these partnership talents would enable me to liaise seamlessly across the many peer groups I’d engage with in this head of alliances position."
Why It’s Strong:
For junior candidates like recent grads, I would expect a response along these lines:
“I believe my greatest strength is perseverance in the face of challenges. In college, I worked part-time while taking a full course load in a rigorous computer science program. Managing both led to many late nights and close calls on deadlines. But rather than scale back obligations, I learned processes like meticulously planning weeks in advance to juggle competing demands. This grit to push through obstacles would enable me to take on any intense project timelines in my first software developer role post-graduation.”
Why It’s Strong:
If interviewing for a customer-facing service job, a standout response could sound like:
“My greatest strength in delivering customer support is empathy. I’m extremely skilled at seeing issues from the customer’s perspective, which strengthens my ability to resolve complaints. For example, when handling an escalated call from a frustrated loyalty program member last month, I leveraged empathy and patience to uncover their actual root frustration that our point redemption process was too complicated. This enabled me to escalate to product teams to simplify that program. Hiring managers note how this strength makes me stand out when cooling heated conversations into productive outcomes.”
Why It’s Strong:
When evaluating creative candidates, I want to hear about strengths like this:
“My greatest strength is creativity, especially when it comes to concepting breakthrough campaign ideas for global brands. For example, for a recent beautycare account challenge to drive conversation on TikTok, I conceived an original “flip the beauty stigma” campaign that harnessed irony to critique societal standards through a comedic lens. This eventually garnered 125M views in weeks alongside press coverage in Teen Vogue. The client especially appreciated the imagination to see possibilities others overlooked with such socially forward-thinking content.”
Why It’s Strong:
For analytical job functions, an impressive strength to highlight would sound like:
“My greatest strength is pattern recognition given my knack for spotting trends and anomalies in complex data sets. For example, while analyzing subscription retention datasets spanning 5 years at my last company, I uncovered seasonality thresholds by plan type that no other data scientist had flagged. This enabled tailored incentive programs during high-risk churn periods that reduced cancellations by 31% year-over-year. Leaders consequently tapped my unique gifts for sniffing out critical insights others missed.”
Why It’s Strong:
Given frequent interactions managing teams, standout strengths for leadership roles should resemble::
“My greatest management strength is cultivating talent by developing employees’ skillsets tailored to their interests and abilities. For example, on my current team of 15 search marketers, I’ve had 5 direct reports promoted externally and 2 profiled internally as emerging VP-track leaders after just 18 months of coaching. Direct reports especially praise my individualized growth planning while executives compliment these unexpected pipelines I’ve created.”
Why It’s Strong:
Given frequent intricate problem-solving, top strengths for technical roles include:
“My greatest strength is creative problem-solving, figuring out unique solutions to complex coding challenges. For example, our lead engineer tasked me with optimizing mobile response times for one of our core financial risk analysis algorithms that was underperforming. In just two weeks, I conceived an original algorithm redesign leveraging probabilistic machine learning that ultimately quintupled response speeds– a company record 10x faster than our engineers anticipated possible. I have a knack for questioning traditional thinking to unlock game-changing technical innovations.”
Why It’s Strong:
Due to frequent objections faced closing deals, strong sales role strengths include:
“My greatest strength in sales is perseverance through hearing rejection day in and day out. For example, last month I set revenue records for cold calls into retail chains landing net new logos like DSW and affiliates of Office Depot. Despite countless daily rejections, I leverage discipline around personal health habits to stay positive, knowing fortunes change quickly with just one breakthrough yes. My resilience through years of early “No’s” that eventually became wins is why managers describe me as our team’s most tenacious elephant hunter closer.”
Why It’s Strong:
Given frequent employee conflicts, HR strengths should exhibit:
“My greatest strength as an HR Business Partner is conflict resolution, unifying opposed parties into shared progress. For example, last quarter two Directors on our retail operations team reached an impasse on shift scheduling protocols that halted store manager hiring. Through 1:1 listening sessions, I unpacked core friction points and identified solutions both sides felt good about. This broken deadlock enabled swiftly filling 15 manager vacancies by Q4-end – a first in years. My natural harmony-building talents could enable similar culture-mending here.”
Why It’s Strong:
As you can see from these samples, effective responses clearly call out relevant, differentiated strengths backed by stories with tangible details proving out those standout abilities delivering tangible results.
This crystallizes why you’re qualified while also giving me confidence you can replicate such impact in this open job.
Avoiding common mistakes when answering this question is crucial. Getting flustered or lacking confidence when put on the spot misses the chance to highlight your value. Similarly, making claims about strengths without evidentiary examples makes the response ring hollow and unconvincing. Furthermore, failing to explicitly connect your abilities to precise role needs dilutes relevance to the open position. And both rambling endlessly or exaggerating about strengths undermine credibility in misguided attempts to oversell your fit. By proactively dodging these pitfalls and showcasing honest self-appraisals directly backed by proof points, your answer can positively sway hiring managers.
In summary, it is vital to deeply understand why employers ask for your greatest strength - seeking signals of strong match between your skills and those demanded from high performers in the role, gauging your self-awareness of capabilities that motivate you, and determining what drives you to succeed. Come prepared to interviews ready to crisply articulate your 1-2 standout qualities proven through past experiences and results to add value. Back up any stated claims directly with concise yet compelling stories that bring to life examples of those strengths excelling in previous positions. Take time before interviews to thoughtfully connect how these superpowers could be leveraged to propel the performance of this specific company given their strategy and role requirements. But remain authentic and honest without veering into exaggeration or misrepresenting actual self-assessed abilities.
Get this high-level formula right – relevant strengths, backed with proof, explicitly linked to role needs – and your answer can impress hiring managers by spotlighting exactly how you’d drive outsized impact if brought onto the team.
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