Back in the 1970s I was working in the corporate world. When my department had a vacancy, I had the task of interviewing the persons deemed by HR as the top candidates. But the 70s in the US was a time when job candidates were becoming aware that they could fight back against prejudice — whether, racial, gender, sexual orientation or age-related. Women were also beginning to fight back against assumptions that they could be disqualified for a job because they had children at home or even that they intended to have a child.

So we learned that we could not ask questions that were not 100% related to the work. I could require that the only candidates that could apply for an on-screen role in a women’s make-up TV commercial were women. But I could not disqualify a man from a secretarial position.

If an interviewer asked a question that was not job-relevant and subsequently was not chosen for the job, the company might become the subject of a discrimination lawsuit claiming that the applicant was not hired because of his or her answer to a question that had nothing to do with the job.

Questions that became and still are off-limits for most vacancies include age, marital status, religion, just to name a few. So we got creative and started asking questions which went beyond the chronology of education and job history by asking ones that revealed characteristics about the applicant that would influence the opportunity for job success.

One of the very common pairs of questions was “What do you see as your greatest strengths for this job?” This was followed by “And what do you see as your biggest weakness for this job?”

I remember one interview I conducted where I asked this pair of questions. In response to the first one, the applicant unabashedly extolled his own virtues for nearly 15 minutes, hardly take a pause for a breath. I responded by saying how impressive his response was (although I was having serious doubts about the veracity of all he said). Then I said sheepishly (to throw him off balance) “It is hard for me to imagine that you have any shortcomings, but is there one weakness you would be willing to mention?” His response (with a straight face) was “I guess I am too modest.” It was very hard to avoid laughing out loud.

If you want to prepare yourself for the “weakness” question, I direct your attention to this article from Fast Company magazine: Once And For All: The Best Way To Answer “What Is Your Biggest Weakness?” . Candidates who are perfect may skip this article. :)

Herb