I've said something similar for a while. That dual interview question "what is your greatest strength? what is your greatest weakness" is a very bad question.
Your strengths and weaknesses are joined at the hip, and they are the two sides of the same coin which is your personality.
In some contexts, your personality becomes a strength. In other contexts it becomes a weakness.
The trick is whether you are able to recognise under what circumstances your personality becomes a strength, and what you then do to allow you to play to your strengths, and maximize its effect, or obversely, whether you are able to recognise under what circumstances your personality becomes a weakness, and what kind of external mitigations do you or have you then put in place, to minimize the effect of that weakness.
So in that sense, the typical "I work too hard" passive-aggressive response is a bad response. A good response would be that you tend to be a hard worker, which is good when you need to be relied upon, but bad in terms of having work-life balance and getting easily burnt out. Hence the external mitigations should be a clearly negotiated work package which insists on sticking to work hours and allocated holidays.
Or, another example, adaptability. Adaptability is great if the role requires it. But it's a curse if you find yourself becoming the "go to" man for all bunch of unrelated things, which then distract you from your number 1 task and opportunities for growth. So the mitigation strategy is a clearly defined role and responsibilities.
Yes. Pointing out that strengths and weaknesses are the two sides of the same coin, as above. And then proceeding to talk about your strengths while identifying when they can turn into weaknesses, and how you mitigate those situations.
Your strengths and weaknesses are joined at the hip, and they are the two sides of the same coin which is your personality.
In some contexts, your personality becomes a strength. In other contexts it becomes a weakness.
The trick is whether you are able to recognise under what circumstances your personality becomes a strength, and what you then do to allow you to play to your strengths, and maximize its effect, or obversely, whether you are able to recognise under what circumstances your personality becomes a weakness, and what kind of external mitigations do you or have you then put in place, to minimize the effect of that weakness.
So in that sense, the typical "I work too hard" passive-aggressive response is a bad response. A good response would be that you tend to be a hard worker, which is good when you need to be relied upon, but bad in terms of having work-life balance and getting easily burnt out. Hence the external mitigations should be a clearly negotiated work package which insists on sticking to work hours and allocated holidays.
Or, another example, adaptability. Adaptability is great if the role requires it. But it's a curse if you find yourself becoming the "go to" man for all bunch of unrelated things, which then distract you from your number 1 task and opportunities for growth. So the mitigation strategy is a clearly defined role and responsibilities.