How to Talk About Your Strong Points at an Interview
You can tell the employer why you are the best person for the job during an interview. To do this, it can be helpful to think about your personal strengths and how they make you the best person for the job. How to Talk About Your Strong Points at an Interview
This article will show you how to figure out your strengths and use them to answer common interview questions.
How important it is to pay attention to one’s own strengths
To get ready for an interview, you should do a few things. Think about your strengths, skills, and other qualities in relation to the job description. This is one of the most important things to do. During an interview, you should explain why your skills are the best fit for what they need, why you would be a good fit for the company and its team’s culture, and why you are the best person for the job.
If you don’t know what your strengths are, the exercises below may help you find out:
Write down what you enjoy.
Think for a few minutes about the things you like to do most and are good at. Then think about why these things are so much fun. Find out if they have any similar skills or habits. For example, if you like to do crossword puzzles to relieve stress, this could mean that you are good at critical thinking and solving problems.
Consider what other people have said to you.
Think about times when people told you something they liked or admired about you, like your communication skills or how well you can organize and lead a team. You could also think about the skills that helped you get a reward, a promotion, or some other kind of recognition.
Take an online test
Many colleges, universities, and organizations that help people find jobs have skill and aptitude tests that can help you figure out what you’re good at.
Think about what’s good about the people you admire.
Think about who you look up to in your life and at work. Find out which of their strengths you admire and if you have any of those strengths yourself.
When you know your strengths, you can choose which ones to talk about in an interview. This makes it easier for you to talk about what you’re good at.
How to tell an interviewer about your best qualities
Once you know what your strengths are, practice answering common interview questions using them. Here are two ways you can use the STAR (situation, task, action, result) technique to prepare a strong answer to an interview question.
This is a good way to answer almost any open-ended interview question, but the answers below are for the question “What are your greatest strengths?”
Focus on quality, not quantity
Choose three to five of your best traits to talk about in an interview. Be sure you know what to say. Think about the skills you need in your field and find your own strengths that go well with them.
“I think my willingness to take charge, my ability to talk to people, and my ability to keep things organized are three of my biggest strengths. I was able to help manage different social media accounts during my internship last summer. I wanted to make sure that everyone on the team understood our plan and agreed on how we should sound and what we should say. I sent everyone on the team a weekly email for each account that kept them up to date and asked for feedback. Since sending the email was helpful, they kept doing it and added it to the jobs of full-time workers.
Use your own stories to show how good you are at what you do.
Find stories about what you’ve done in the past that you can tell. First, directly answer the question. Then, tell something about yourself.
“I’m very interested, which is one of my best traits. When I start a new project, I like to ask clients about their hobbies and where they are from. This lets me get to know them better and makes communication easy and effective. I know how important it is for a sales program and a company as a whole to have good relationships with customers, and I think I would do well at your company.”
Take some time to think about how to answer a “personal strengths” question, plan out a few answers, and then practice giving them.
Provide original answers to routine questions
Even though every interview is different, many employers ask the same questions of the people they are interviewing to learn more about them. If you plan out your answers to these questions before the interview, you can feel more confident and calm. Here are some interview questions and what you should say in response:
1. Tell me about yourself.
This is often the first question asked in an interview, and it’s your first chance to tell the interviewer about your best qualities. Prepare a short answer that talks about your work history, what you’re most proud of, and your career goals. The person who is interviewing you has already seen your resume, so tell them something new about yourself.
“As the HR manager for a Fortune 500 company, I’ve been in charge of all HR tasks like hiring, training, and benefits for the last six years. I’ve used this time to improve my skills as a manager at Advantech Networking Solutions, where I’ve won many awards and gotten three promotions for my work. I like helping people solve problems and leading groups of people. I love my current job, but I’m ready for the challenges that come with being in charge of a large group of people. Helping other people be leaders has been a passion of mine for a long time, and as I move up in my career, I want to focus my time and skills on this.
What are the best things about you?
When interviewers ask you what your best qualities are, they want to know how those qualities can help their company do well. Read through the list of duties in the job description to make sure your answer fits.
“I’m sure that my strong work ethic is my best quality. When I say I’ll meet a deadline, I do everything I need to do to make sure it gets done well. For example, we had to turn in a proposal last month, but some of the information we needed came late from our team in Atlanta. I worked all night to finish the proposal so that I could give it to the client on time.
What’s your biggest flaw?
They will probably also ask you what your biggest flaw is. Tell the truth about a real flaw you have and talk about what you’re doing to improve.
Example: “I sometimes try to get things done quickly so I can move on to the next thing on my list. I’m learning to slow down and take a step back so I can focus more on quality than on quantity. Because of this, I’ve found ways to be both effective and efficient.”
4. How do you handle arguments?
When an interviewer asks how you handle conflict, teamwork, or leadership, they want you to give specific examples so they can see how you might handle a similar situation in their organization. Have some examples of times at work when you had to solve a problem ready. Tell what happened, how you dealt with it, and what the outcome was.
“I think the best way to solve a problem is to look at it from the other person’s point of view and talk calmly until we find a solution. An older woman asked me, as the manager of a department store, to change the size of a top she had bought. This would be easy to do even without a receipt, but the top wasn’t one of ours. When I told the customer this, she got very mad and eventually left the store.
Soon after, a younger woman came in and asked to talk to me. She said that the woman in the store was really her mother, who had dementia and was often confused. She said that her mother was embarrassed when she got home, calmed down, and figured out what had happened. I told her I totally understood and that my own mother and I had been through similar things. The mother and daughter still come to the store often and look for me when I’m working.
5. Why should they hire you?
This is usually one of the last questions interviewers ask, so it’s a chance to make a strong and lasting impression. Use the job description’s list of skills and give examples of how your best qualities will help you do well.
Example: “Based on the research I’ve done and what we’ve talked about today, I think your company needs an administrative assistant who is good with people and knows how to use technology. My communication skills will help me write emails to clients, talk to customers on the phone, and give speeches. I also know how to use a lot of modern software, like spreadsheet suites and content management systems. I think that my experiences fit well with the goals of your company and that I could bring a wide range of skills to your organization.”
Taking the time to plan your answers to common interview questions like these is likely to make you feel more confident and help you avoid making common mistakes.
