Strengths and weaknesses: how to name yours honestly

What is this question really asking?

Two things: whether you know yourself, and whether you fit the situation. Neither is answered by a list. A strength that matters in one job is noise in another, and the person asking cares less about your words than about whether they match what they will see in six months.

Self-knowledge has a shape. Among 165 people rated by friends, by strangers and against behavioural tests, the self was the best judge of traits that live on the inside, such as anxiety and what effort costs you. Friends judged evaluative traits such as intellect more accurately, and on traits in plain view the two were about equally accurate (Vazire, 2010). So you are on firm ground describing your own worry, patience and persistence, and on soft ground describing how impressive you are. Pick accordingly.

This is why asking someone else is not cheating. Across 263 samples and more than 44,000 people, observer ratings predicted academic achievement and job performance about as well as self-ratings, and better for some outcomes, with accuracy depending more on knowing a person well than on seeing them often (Connelly & Ones, 2010). Two colleagues will name a strength you stopped noticing.

Which of your strengths are character strengths?

One useful frame is a classification of 24 character strengths grouped under six virtues: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance and transcendence. It was assembled as a counterpart to the classifications of what goes wrong with people, and it aims to measure character across a lifespan (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Curiosity, perseverance, kindness, fairness, prudence and gratitude are strengths in that sense: valued ways of behaving, not abilities.

The idea people borrow most from it is signature strengths, the handful at the top of your own ranking that feel like you rather than like effort. They are not equal in what they relate to. In a survey of 5,299 adults, hope, zest, gratitude, love and curiosity were consistently associated with life satisfaction, while modesty and the intellectual strengths were only weakly associated with it, and an excess of any one strength was not associated with less satisfaction (Park et al., 2004). That study is cross-sectional, so it shows which strengths travel with a satisfying life, not which ones produce one.

There is experimental evidence for using them. In a randomised, placebo-controlled study of six groups, three of five tested exercises lastingly raised happiness and lowered low mood, and two did not (Seligman et al., 2005). The lesson is narrow: naming a strength changes nothing, and using one deliberately sometimes does. Character strengths test covers all 24.

Why does every strength have a weakness on the same trait?

Because a trait is a setting, not a virtue, and a setting that helps in one situation costs in another. Someone high on Conscientiousness catches problems early and struggles when a plan changes late. Someone low on Agreeableness says the unwelcome thing, and says it before checking whether it was wanted. Those are not two facts about the person but one fact seen from two sides, which is the subject of positive and negative personality traits.

Read the table both ways. Left to right it turns a strength into the weakness that comes with it; right to left it turns a complaint into the strength it is the price of, which is how the lower Extraversion and lower Emotional Stability rows got here.

This rules out one popular answer. A weakness that is really a strength, such as caring too much or working too hard, is heard as an evasion, and it costs you the credit an honest answer earns.

How do you phrase a strength and a weakness?

Three parts each: the tendency, one example, and the step you take. The example makes it checkable, and the step makes a weakness safe to admit.

• A strength. "I am the person who writes things down. On the last project I kept the decision log, which is how we noticed in March that two teams had different launch dates."
• A weakness. "I commit to things faster than I should. I now hold requests for a day before answering, and I keep a running list of what I have already said yes to."

Pick a weakness that is real and not disqualifying: slow to delegate is fine for most roles, unreliable is not, and never pick the core requirement of the job. Offer no more than two of each, because a long list reads as a search for the answer that lands. How to describe your personality applies the same method to the broader question.

What do interviewers mean by the question?

Mostly they are testing self-awareness and fit, and listening for whether the answer survives a follow-up. It helps to know which traits have evidence behind them at work. A meta-analysis across five occupational groups and three performance criteria found that Conscientiousness predicted performance consistently for every group, Extraversion predicted it for managers and in sales, and both Openness and Extraversion predicted training performance (Barrick & Mount, 1991). Other links were small.

So naming follow-through, planning or persistence as a strength is defensible almost anywhere, and naming sociability is defensible where the job is persuading people and thin where it is not. What the evidence does not support is a hiring decision built on a trait score, and the honest use of a profile here is preparation rather than proof. Wellington is not designed for hiring. The Big Five and your career goes further into this.

The version interviewers remember is the weakness you have already started on. "I am slow to delegate, and since January I have handed over the weekly report" closes the question. A weakness with no step attached sounds like one you have decided to keep.

How does a measured profile help you name them?

Wellington is a science-based personality assessment from Therabot Labs LLC. It measures personality as continuous traits, built on the Big Five and HEXACO models, and writes the results back as a personal report rather than a type.

The free Snapshot asks 60 questions, takes about 7 minutes and covers six dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, Openness to Experience, Honesty-Humility. The first ten questions are answered before anything is asked of you; after question ten you sign in with an email so answers are saved and results can be shown. No card is needed. Each trait is the average of several statements rated on a five-point accuracy scale, placed against a reference sample as a percentile and reported in one of three bands: Quiet below the 30th percentile, Balanced to the 70th, High above. Norms are provisional until the norming sample is complete. The bands and the Portrait names exist to make the result easier to talk about; the percentile is the measurement, and it is always shown alongside. In the written report, every trait has three pages, one per band, and none of them has a villain in it.

Strengths themselves arrive with the Wellington Membership, $4.99 a month, which adds 336 questions and reaches 90 traits, including every Big Five facet and all 24 VIA character strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). From that pattern it draws a strengths constellation, showing which of your strengths cluster together, and names the growth edges where the same settings cost you something. That is the shape this question wants: a few strengths you can evidence, and a few edges with a step attached. It carries the method on toward 255 traits.

A profile describes tendencies, not a verdict on a person and not a prediction about any single day. Wellington is a wellness tool for reflection, not a medical or psychological diagnosis, and it does not replace care from a qualified professional. It is not designed for hiring, and you can export or delete your data at any time.

Questions people ask

What are good examples of strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths: follow-through, staying calm under pressure, spotting problems early, being direct, working well alone. Weaknesses: taking on too much, struggling with late changes, carrying worry after a problem is solved, agreeing early to keep the peace. The two lists are the same traits. Pick one of each, give an example, and say what you do about the weakness.

What weakness should you not name in an interview?

The core requirement of the job, anything that reads as unreliable or dishonest, and the disguised boast. "I am a perfectionist" and "I care too much" are heard as evasions. A real, bounded weakness with a step already taken is the strongest version of this answer.

Are character strengths the same as personality strengths?

They overlap without being identical. The 24 character strengths describe valued ways of behaving, grouped under six virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004), while personality dimensions describe tendencies without judging them. Hope, zest, gratitude, love and curiosity were the strengths most associated with life satisfaction in a survey of 5,299 adults (Park et al., 2004).