What an awful interview question. This is the question I dread whenever I am in an interview, and one I will never ask when I am the interviewer. I dread this question because I have to lie, or spin something into something it isn’t, so in one interview I decided I had had enough, and I was going to tell the truth.

“Sam, what are your weaknesses”? Boom, there it is, I knew it was coming and I was prepared. So I answered.

My weaknesses are that if I do not truly believe in what I am doing, I will not be very good at it, sometimes when I am not feeling motivated I do not perform well. And the kicker was, when I feel wronged, I do not take it lightly and I want to get to the bottom of it, this sometimes cause confrontations, but that is something about me that will not change. I refuse to stand by and let people take advantage of me. You might say I tried to spin that, but no employer wants to hear, you might take it to the extreme in the middle of the office.

Needles to say, I got the job, they loved the honesty and all they really wanted me to do was be up front with them, when I felt like someone was trying to get over on me and let them handle it. I agreed on the condition that they would handle it, they agreed. That was a good working relationship during my employment, and I had a lot of fun.

But I ask you, what does that question solve? Really? Most people make up something truly rehearsed or full of crap. Instead of asking about my strengths, weaknesses, times when I had a conflict and how I handled it, how about asking:

How are you going to drive this company forward?
You have read about us, what would improve upon right now that we currently do?
Do you consider yourself an innovator? Explain please?
Tell us about a time when you failed miserably, and please go in depth.
Why should we hire you?

These are questions that provoke emotion, and with emotion comes truth, and with truth comes a true definition of the person you are thinking about hiring. If your interview is cut and paste then do not expect anything different from your employees. They will be cut and paste, interchangeable gears, with no thought outside the box. If you want a company that is going to be great, get great people, get eccentric people who are not afraid to make mistakes, but better yet, they are not afraid to take accountability for those mistakes.

Seek out people who will change your company for the better, people who will ask you the tough questions, and then put in motion the answers they already had thought of. Get exciting passionate people, especially in areas where exciting passionate people are most needed, which by the way is everywhere.

Today is your day, you are ready to start.  Today you will not be stopped, today is the day you are going to make everyone believe and flock to your idea. 

The question is how are you going to do that.  I see a lot of people who are ready to start, and I see the different ways they approach their future loyal customers.  Here are the ways I see the most.

Passion:  The person gets excited and they have the ability to get others excited.  They speak well, use a little comedy to lighten the mood, and all in all people enjoy being around them.  These people have success in the short term but due to the lack of actual knowledge they are a long term failure.  This is OK for them if they wanted to make a quick buck and get out, but in the long run the customer is the loser.

Knowledge:  This individual is smarter than most, they have created a great product that can solve some of your daily needs.  The product is genius, but due to a lack of passion and the ability to get people excited about it, the idea never takes off.  In the long run the consumers and the maker are both losers since both could have benefited from the product.

Then there is the person who combines Passion with Knowledge.

Passion and Knowledge allow you to make a great product or create a great service and then get people excited about it.  Today this can be accomplished using the tools right under your fingertips, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo, and other free sites that allow you to get your passion and knowledge out to the general public.  In the end everyone wins in this scenario.

At large companies they hire marketing and advertising people to do this stuff for them, but you do not have that kind of budget.  So if you are an individual who has only passion or only knowledge that is OK because you can always team up with someone who has the other, (Remember 50% of a million dollars is better than 100% of zero dollars). 

Again, like always the first step to take is outside your comfort zone.  Have fun, and do us all a favor and get started making a difference.