65. What Keeps You Up at Night?: How to Handle the Most Frequently Asked Questions

“What keeps you up at night?” and “What is your greatest weakness?” are perhaps the two most frequently asked questions (FAQs) in business—the first in presentations and the second in interviews. Yet both questions, by their frequent recurrence, are traps for glib answers that could derail the person who provides the answers.

Joann Lublin’s career column in the Wall Street Journal offered advice about how to handle the interview FAQ about weakness, starting with what not to say. She provided a long list of common glib answers, ranging from “I am a perfectionist” to “I am a workaholic”—all of which offer a strength instead of a weakness and, therefore, appear evasive. ...

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