No the OP, but I feel the question is a catch-22 and hits the nerves on a personal level (shortcoming of the person vs an action in time). I think a better form would be a failure-lessons learned type questions, where the focus is on what caused a particular failure, how the person handled it, and what lessons were learned and applied to prevent similar failures in the future.

Edit: Also, I think most interview coaches recommend framing the personal shortcoming in a story with lessons learned/growth story as well. So, might as well as ask the question that way.

To which my response always is “My inability to answer stock questions with stock answers.”

A guy I went to uni with still answers this one with "Gluten" since he was diagnosed coeliac disease

I can't stand that one either. One time I got asked for my three biggest weaknesses.

People who haven't prepared for this one are usually stumped and don't know what to say, and you aren't learning anything interesting from people who have prepared a model answer.

Can you elaborate? I actually love (forms of) this question. It helps identify if a person has the self-awareness to be a good team member.

> It helps identify if a person has the self-awareness to be a good team member.

Beware, this could just give them the impression that you like playing the cheap psychiatrist is some sort of depressing make-believe game. Stop.

Or go full circle and ask them "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" too.

It's a bad question because it assumes that the interviewer and candidate have similar experiences and similar ways of describing those experiences. You would need to know the context in which they are judging themselves and you are not likely to get that within the time frame of an interview.

I agree the idea of seeing if a candidate has self awareness and is humble is good, but this particular question is a little cliche now unfortunately!

I would consider myself a prett honest and real person so I would probably just answer honestly. Based on the way I have heard people respond, however, do they not expect people to actually list their weaknesses?

Basically, you want to take a negative and frame it as a positive. You can respond to this something like, I spend too much time doing X, in order to limit myself and produce results faster, I set a task at the end of the project, with a fixed amount of time to update X.

An example is, I spend a lot of time in writing unit tests, in order to deliver projects on time, I set a fixed amount of time at the end of the deliverable to write unit tests, in order to provide a stable code set, and a set of tests which can help with changes in the future. Another one can be, I work in a silo mode, so in order to offset that, I send e-mails/communicate with my team members more frequently, in order for them to be aware of what I am working on and where I am in my projects, also, to be able to solicit feedback from them.

Kryptonite.

I actually had this a few years back, and this was my default response, without thinking. It got a nervous laugh, and we moved on before I realised it had slipped out.

"honesty"

"But honesty is not a weakness"

"I don't give a shit of what you think"