How to best answer the interview question ‘What is your greatest strength?’

What do you think is your greatest strength? This is a question that is fairly common to expect in an interview. A mistake that people often make with this question is giving answers that are too personal or unrelated to the nature of the job. For instance, an answer like “I’m a good cook.” is inappropriate in a job interview (unless you’re interviewing for a culinary job!) as it relates more to your personal sphere and does not fulfil any purpose or convey anything of substance to the interviewer.

The answer should be specific to the job. Rather than giving a generic, boring response like ‘I’m disciplined’ or ‘I’m goal-oriented’, mention how you’re more disciplined or goal-oriented than an average candidate. You could say: ‘I believe that I’m very disciplined as I maintain detailed spreadsheets of all my ongoing and future projects and associated tasks to monitor progress.’ Or ‘I maintain a vision board for work every year to visualise my career goals and ambitions for that specific year and how to make them come true.’

Here are a few examples of answers that will help you stand out in an interview:

- I am very sociable and love working with people. I am a natural networker.

- I highly value communication and attention to detail. I pride myself on writing emails that will answer all your questions!

- I place a high value on learning. I am a quick and eager learner and aim to improve my potential through constructive criticism and guidance from superiors and others.

- I have a good eye for design and, therefore, can make engaging presentations for clients.

- I can think well on my feet and, therefore, can work well under pressure and in fast-paced environments.

- I believe myself to have good emotional intelligence and empathy and can manage people quite well.

- I am exceptional at conflict resolution and can work well in group settings.

- I can handle complaints effectively and quickly and have the ability to sound professional and jovial. I am also extremely patient and can deal with difficult-to-manage clients or callers (most appropriate for customer-service-oriented jobs).

- I am a resilient worker and am not easily derailed by failures. I am usually able to overcome challenges and quickly streamline my focus on coming up with answers. I am highly solution-oriented.

- I have a high level of adaptability and can adjust to most circumstances quite well. (This works for jobs that would potentially include travelling and/or some level of instability. For instance, startups.)

Remember that when hiring managers are asking for your biggest strength, they are not just measuring you up on the strength itself but want to know what value you will add to their organization. Your answer will give them a fairly good idea about your perception of yourself and your self-esteem and confidence levels, so make sure not to sell yourself short. Be confident but not over-confident, and don’t get carried away.

For more interview questions and answers, click here.

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