How To Answer What Are Your Biggest Strengths

How To Answer What Are Your Biggest Strengths On this blog, its fair to say that our Interview Advice section is our most popular section Now, although you cant plan for every aspect of the interview, there are some areas you can prepare for. Were talking of course about those common job interview questions which are probably going to crop up at some point in the process, regardless of which company youre interviewing with or which role youre being interviewed for. On this blog, weve covered a lot of the common job interview questions (and how to answer them!) before but theres one which we definitely havent covered the What are your biggest strengths? question. Now, this ones a tricky one because it involves essentially boasting about your skills and attributes something which doesnt necessarily come naturally to a lot of us. With that in mind; Ive come up with some top tips to bear in mind when this question rears its ugly head. Pick Three Strengths OK, so you probably have more than three strengths but its important to just pick three and explain them fully. Why? Because the employer has asked you this question to see if you can identify your own strengths, in particular your greatest strengths, so if you start listing a million, not only will you show the employer that youve failed to identify your greatest strengths as a candidate but you also risk coming across as overconfident and arrogant not good! Be Honest Just as with any interview question, its important to answer this question as honestly as you can. While you want to impress the interviewer and come as a viable candidate, you dont want to lie and name a strength which you dont have but which you know theyre looking for. Remember, lies always come back to bite you, particularly if youve said youre strong in something like data analytics or sales but actually have no experience in them whatsoever. Keep It Relevant When considering your greatest strengths, its a good idea to try and keep them as relevant as you can to the role youre applying for. Look at the job spec/advert, in particular the skills/experience area and consider what strengths you have which are relevant to the role. Dont think you have any? Think again most jobs call for candidates with strong communication and team work skills so these are two you could definitely considering naming, even if theyre not mentioned on the job ad. Back Up With Stories When youve named your strengths, its important to try and back them up with real world examples. Why? Because it helps to give these strengths more substance and it also helps to give the interviewer more of an insight into who you are as a candidate and the experiences youve had so far in your career. It goes without saying that you need to pick experiences which shine you in a good light and which demonstrate how relevant you would be to the role youre being interviewed for. Dont Waffle Following on from that last point, while its important to back your strengths up with stories, you need to be careful not to waffle. As with any answer, the more you talk, the more likely it is that you could end up talking yourself out of the role. If in doubt, keep things short, sweet, succinct and relevant!