Question: “What are your weaknesses?”

Insider tip: For your weaknesses, try to be really clear and crisp on what those are. The classic cliché answer is to use a negative that sounds impressive, like working too hard or being overly conscientious. We know you’re making that up. It’s better for the interviewer to say, ‘Wow, that was honest. He’s being a real person with me.’

A smart answer: “That’s not hard for me to answer, because I've gone through many different performance appraisals and I have an individual development plan. I need to continue to work on my written and oral communication skills. I’m constantly working on those and I’ve taken a number of classes for that. I know I'm not perfect at that and I'm trying to get better.”