What is the person interviewing you trying to accomplish?
We know what they are doing: posing a series of questions with the ostensible goal of figuring out who you are, what your strengths and weaknesses are, and how well you’ll fit culturally within their organization.
Knowing that, you have a choice.
Your first option is to play their game and answer every question as well as you can. When you do this, you are, bit by bit, handing them puzzle pieces that make up the picture of who you are. Your hope is that those pieces are accurate and complete enough that the picture they paint is a reasonable representation of you and of you in this job.
Unfortunately, this approach is flawed. First, it assumes the interviewer will ask enough questions, and the right ones, so they’ll end up with a good-enough set of “you” puzzle pieces—that’s leaving a lot up to chance. Worse, you’re setting yourself up to be compared in a like-to-like way with everyone else who answered that same set of questions.
Here’s a second option, inspired by the most creative interviewing I’ve ever seen. The interviewer had a list of 40 traits (e.g., data analysis, public speaking, sales, making new connections, coding), and she told the interviewee that she’d be reading down that list. She asked the interviewee to to rate their abilities on each trait on a 1 to 10 scale. She would go through the list quickly—the whole thing probably took two minutes—and then discuss.
So much is happening here. The interviewee quickly figures out there’s no gaming this system: they can’t credibly say they’re great at everything, so they are likely giving a more accurate picture. Plus, so much information comes across about the candidate beyond each individual answer: are they a tough or kind self-grader? How quickly do they answer on some traits (I’m confident about this) vs. others? How consistent are the answers? What does the overall picture look like? And how do they react to this surprising exercise?
Since most interviewers won’t take this approach, your option is to take it for them with the 3-3-2 approach.
With this approach, you are going to describe eight things about yourself:
Three that you’re solid at
Two that are weaknesses of yours—things that, if they’re core to this job, mean that this job isn’t right for you
And three things that are your superpowers
For example:
“Three things that I’m good at and would be a core part of any job I’d do well: managing large teams, handling stress/complexity, and selling.
On the other hand, two things that I’m really not great at are: creating PPTs to present my ideas; and living and dying by getting the last decimal point right. I’m good at details, but if that’s my whole job I’ll go insane.
And my three superpowers are: strategic thinking (figuring out the way forward from a bunch of complex options), coaching, and building community.
I’d be happy to give you examples of any of these if that would be helpful.”
You have to be really honest here—no “the thing I’m worst at is having high standards.” You’re intentionally stepping outside of the interview game and telling the interviewer what she really wants to know.
What’s powerful about this is the clarity and confidence you demonstrate by giving someone all the pieces to your puzzle. You’re saying “this is me, the whole story, both the good and the bad. If that’s a fit for what you’re looking for, great. And if it isn’t, that’s fine too.”
Of course, you can adjust as you see fit: how deep are you going to go with what you share? How long a list?
What matters most is that it’s genuine: you’re communicating that you’ve reflected deeply on yourself. You’re saying that you understand this is a matching game, not a “pick the best candidate” game. And you’re giving yourself the chance to say, without bragging, “out of everything you might be looking for, these are the areas where I really shine.”
This approach consciously rejects the cat-and-mouse game of interviewer question and answer. It demonstrates the kind of self-knowledge that itself will distinguish you from the pack.
Most of all, it’s breaking the mold, doing something memorable that says “I’m an open book, this is the information we both need to proceed. Let’s have that conversation.”
Other posts in this Series:
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