What’s Your Greatest Strength is a popular interview question.
Answering this question gives you an opportunity to shine as the perfect applicant for the job. When you are preparing for your interview, think specifically about how your strengths fit the job.
There are different types of job strengths.
Each of these strengths has value depending on the requirements of a particular job. Take the examples from these lists, write them into your resume, and use them in your interview.
Soft skills are tricky. Some hiring managers and recruiters overlook soft skills in a resume. In other cases, hiring managers and recruiters think of lists of soft skills as puffery in a resume. Forgive me for repeating this point, but discussing soft skills is effective when those skills specifically relate to the job for which you are interviewing.
- Interpersonal Communication skills
- Enthusiasm & Attitude skills
- Teamwork skills
- Relationship skills
- Problem Solving & Critical Thinking skills
- Professionalism skills
Knowledge-based or hard-skill strengths
These skills come from your education and your work you have done. They are the strengths that you can take from one job to the next. The strengths are core qualifications for any job.
- Accounting
- Analysis
- Brand Development
- Computer Programming
- Data Management
- Education
- Financial Management
- Internet Programming
- People Management
- Planning
- Mathematics
- Research and Development
- Software Applications such as word processing, spreadsheet, image editing, database
- Software Development
- Selling
- Typing
- Writing
Talent or natural ability strengths
One of my favorite subjects is talent. Talent is a gift. However, as people learn new things, their intelligence relative to the intelligence of other people their age can increase. In other words, our intelligence quotient can become greater.
The obvious example for an understanding of how the growth of talent has limitations is the one for gifted runners. Training and conditioning can make a person a faster runner. However, the person who is gifted runner will also become faster through training and conditioning.
Talents are strengths that enable you to develop skills. There are two types of talent: convergent talent and divergent talent. Some people would say that there are three types of talent. The third is emotional intelligence.
Listing talent in a job description is not a normal process. However, if you are applying for a job that requires on-going skills development, you should highlight the fact that you have a talent for developing those types of skills.