How to Answer: What Are Your Strengths?

“What are your strengths?” is a go-to question for interviewers and the key to coming up with a great answer is knowing that potential employers are interested not only in what you’re good at, but also in how your skills match up with the company’s needs.

Here are some tips to help you answer this question perfectly.

Highlight your top 3 strengths.

Before your interview, start by making a list of 10 skills and personality traits you’re proud of. This should include everything from your technical skills (like writing or knowledge of social media platforms) to soft skills like your ability to make friends easily (which shows that you’re a people person).

Once you have your top 10 strengths, narrow the list down to the 3 things you’re most proud of. Be self-aware but not too modest. It’s totally OK to say that you’re a talented writer or a great programmer, and being confident will impress your interviewer.

Give examples.

Once you’ve figured out your top 3 strengths, come up with 1-2 examples to back up each one. If you’re going to say that one of your greatest strengths is organization, then make sure you have evidence to prove that. Preparing a script of this can be a good idea. In addition to making you more comfortable with your answer, it’ll also help you sound more authentic because you’ll be confident that the things you’re talking about are things you’re great at doing!

You can say something like: “I’m really strong at project management. Whenever I’m working on a group project, I always naturally take on the role of project manager and make sure that everyone has the right materials, stays on task and knows what they’re responsible for.”

Relate your strengths back to the job.  

This is your chance to show that you’re a good fit for the position, so use it as an opportunity to talk about some of the things you haven’t had a chance to mention yet. Do you have a great example of how your project management abilities helped your team win an award in class? Say that! It’ll be a great way of showing how your strengths could lead to positive outcomes for the company.

Here’s how to do it: “A project I managed recently for my economics class did so well that my team won an award for it! This made me realize that project management is something I’m really good at, and I’m excited to apply those skills to projects in a professional setting.”

By coming up with your top 3 strengths and giving thoughtful examples of each, you’ll have no problem showing that you’re the best person for the job!