Each person has her own weakness. It could be technical skills, leadership, interpersonal skills or other areas affecting job performance. Your aggressive opinions at meetings shrivel to zero performance in sales. You create antagonism around the workplace by appearing to take on extra tasks when the truth is you don't know how to say "no." Maybe you have a hard time grasping the latest software application. If you have a weakness that could affect your job performance, acknowledge it.
During an Interview
If an interviewer asks you what your weaknesses are, be prepared to give a minor weakness and then talk about what you have done to change it. For example, you could say, "I tend to get lost in thought when I'm working and talk to myself. It irritated people around me. I've learned to speak quietly so that others can't hear me." Your response should always relate to work and not personal challenges like food allergies or health issues.
Analysis
You might think you're good at just about everything in your job. The truth is everyone has a weakness. To know the weaknesses that could affect your job performance, take the time to brainstorm about your challenge, such as unorganized paperwork, repeating the same mistakes, impatience or being overly sensitive. You could use a numbering system to break your weaknesses down from high to low in terms of how they affect your job performance, or how easily you can resolve the issues. Those weaknesses that aren't unduly influencing your job performance and easy to resolve are the ones you should share if you were asked about your weaknesses during an interview.
Examples
If you are a secretary, a weakness in spelling or keyboarding could affect your job performance. Similarly, if you are in the position of customer service, trouble dealing with difficult people will most definitely affect your job performance. Instead turn your weaknesses into a positive demonstration of your abilities. As a secretary, you might not be a good speller, but who needs to know. You could say, "I am careful to proofread my work and use the spell-check feature for quality results."
Turn Weakness Into Value
Some weaknesses can be turned to positive traits for value on job performance. For example, your weakness could be that you miss minor details. On it's own, that could be detrimental, especially for an analytical position. However, position your weakness to present yourself as someone who sees the bigger picture, working well in a team with others who are detail-oriented. Together your team misses no details. In this way you will have successfully turned a weakness into value.
