The famous interview question, “What are your greatest strengths?”

In theory, it should be a straightforward question to answer. After all, we know ourselves best; we know what our biggest strengths are. So why is this question still tripping up candidates during job interviews? Because, as you’ll soon notice, it’s pretty challenging to balance your humility with the need to protect your successes and confidence. In this blog, I first highlight three things you do not want to say when preparing for this interview question. Share three actions you want to take instead and end with an example answer I gave years ago, where I made these mistakes. And what I would do differently today. So let’s get started. Dive right into the three things you do not wanna do when preparing for the “What are your greatest strengths” interview question.

Number one, do not mention a complex or technical skill as your biggest strength. You may well be an Excel guru. You could be someone who makes the most beautiful PowerPoint slides, and you can even know the Salesforce CRM system back to the front. The two most significant issues with mentioning how you’re great with a particular piece of software are that one day, your role may involve you in a direction where that product isn’t irrelevant.

And number two, the company you’re interviewing with may use an alternative solution. To give an oversimplified example, imagine if you were interviewing for a project management role, and you said your most significant strength was how familiar you are with “Monday.com,” the project management software. Little do you know, the company uses “Notion” or “Asana” for all its project management needs. Furthermore, there might be a lot of professionals in your target company who have been working with that product or software for much longer than you have. So, saying that technical skill is one of your greatest strengths might be presumptuous. Instead, you want to prepare something I call “Transferable Skills” as your strengths. Because those can be applied across various responsibilities, it can grow with you as you progress in your role. Let’s say you’re interviewing for an entry-level position as an accountant manager on the sales team. And you say two of your biggest strengths are that you’re honest and you’re respectful of others. Those are very healthy attributes for an account manager when dealing with clients daily. And when you progress to be a people manager, those are still critical strengths when managing a team. And as a bonus to you all.

Moving on to number three, do not discuss a strength irrelevant to the role you’re applying for. Can you imagine interviewing for an accounting role and telling the interviewer how amazing you are at creative thinking? I mean, no offense to all the creative accountants out there. You could prepare a great response with the correct numbers, the right story, and the perfect amount of impact you made. But the interviewer will still think, “Wow, this person did not do the research.”

Instead, mention strengths that directly apply to the job you’re applying for. Think about it this way: the interviewers know the qualities that the high performers already have, right? So, if you can see a strength that connects the interviewer’s mind with yourself and the high performers on their team, they will unconsciously think about how you’d perform on the job. And I’m going to say an unpopular opinion right now. The best way to find a relevant strength to discuss is not through the job description because they’re often too vague. Instead, ask someone who’s already working there. In today’s day and age, where everyone is so interconnected, there’s no excuse not to network and not to connect with other professionals through virtual means. Finding a relevant strength could be as simple as sending a polite message to an existing contact, with something like, “Hi, sorry to bother you, but if you could think back “to a recent hire on your team whom you enjoyed working with, “what made them stand out?” That question will prompt them to think of specific attributes they can leverage in their answer. If you’ve enjoyed this video, a like and sub to the channel would be amazing.

Finally, the third thing you want to avoid is not relying entirely on the “S.T.A.R.” answer format when preparing your story. When preparing stories to back your strengths up, you might be tempted to structure your answer using the “Situation, Task, Action, Results” format. But as I’ve mentioned in a previous video, I compare the “S.T.A.R.” and “CARL” methods for questions that require you to reflect on your experiences.

“What are your greatest strengths?” You want to include what you learned as part of your answer. The “L” in “CARL.” I made this mistake when I was interviewing a couple of years ago. So, let’s jump into my answer from back then and show you what I would do differently today. Not that I’m interviewing right now or anything. So, to prove to you, I’m not making this up.

“Why are you a good candidate?” “Why you?” “Why are you leaving EY?” I was a managing consultant with Ernst & Young before this. And here we go, “What are your strengths?” So, I followed the “S.T.A.R.” format entirely here. I said one of my greatest strengths is having strong communication skills. As for my experience, I worked with four big advertising agencies here in Shanghai, one of our large clients.

The task was to resolve compliance issues at that branch, and we were supposed to decrease that. I took action because I developed strong communication skills and a working relationship with the C.F.O. and on-the-ground staff. So, one of my proposals was less extreme than the plan we would adopt. So, I was able to influence the key stakeholders to adopt my plan. And the result instead is the fact that the number of compliance issues decreased because of my proposal. So, that wasn’t necessarily a wrong answer. But if I were using the “CARL” method, I would’ve included a “Learnings” at the end here. I summarized how I could influence the C.F.O. to go another route because of my strong communication skills. Which ultimately led to a smaller number of compliance issues. That would’ve emphasized my biggest strength in this case instead of just ending with a result to the “What’s your biggest strength?” interview question. That might sound like a tiny thing, but a slight adjustment can make quite a big difference.

All right, and there you have it. Three things not to do when preparing for the “What are your greatest strengths” interview question and what to do instead. Suppose you want to come up with solid answers to the most common behavioral interview questions.