Delivery Agent Question:

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Interviewers are not naïve – they know that candidates are not going to reveal their worst traits in an interview. But with this question, they can see if the candidate possesses self-awareness, the ability to deal with adversity, and a desire to learn and improve. It’s just as important to be able to talk about your failures as your successes – and it can even work to your credit.

Again, the skill in answering this question lies in your ability to turn a negative into a positive. Try to be honest in naming a shortcoming you are genuinely working on – but not one that would impact excessively on your ability to perform in the role. For example, having a fear of public speaking would probably not be a deal-breaker for someone applying to be an actuary, but it might be for someone applying to be a company’s PR rep.

Providing that public speaking isn’t absolutely vital to the role, you could talk about the time you had to give a presentation at work but got excessively nervous, forgot what you intended to say and lost your audience halfway through. This experience highlighted that this was something you really wanted to improve on, so you enrolled in a Toastmasters course and have been trying to practise as much as possible, speaking up in meetings and putting your hand up to present whenever the opportunity arises. Because of your efforts, you are now far more comfortable and effective in your presentations, and have received feedback from your manager on how much you have improved.