Quote Originally Posted by poobert View Post
That's what those questions are intended to show. Are you a thoughtful, creative, introspective, patient, person who thinks quickly on your feet, or are you a buffoonish jerk who simply wants to get hired/elected? If you are unable or are unwilling to answer simple, inoffensive questions [[regardless of what the question is), you're probably not the best candidate for, well, anything.

Questions like that aren't usually asked to determine what your actual weaknesses are. It's the quality of the response that is usually more useful. But, whatever, apparently a bunch of people here are HR experts now too.
For the record, I have a degree in Human Resources. So while I never claimed to be an expert, I do know a thing or two about how HR works.

And based on my understanding of how HR works, I also have a vitriol hate for HR. To say how well you can answer a silly question such as "What are your weaknesses" should be a measure of one's ability to do the job is silly. It is this crap that's only worsening the structural unemployment crisis we have now. According to HR's logic, despite the fact that you meet all requirements for the position, because you're not capable of giving a canned response to a stupid or selecting feel-good answers on a personality test, you're automatically disqualified.