That’s cool to hear. Shad’s a fantastic program =)

I don’t think it’s necessarily bad if you repeat something you’ve mentioned in your application if you think it helps you answer the question the best. Often times the interviewers aren’t the same people who evaluated your original application, and even if they are, if they are already familiar with your experience you can skip a lot of the smaller details and explore more of the bigger picture.

When approaching weakness questions, it’s important to not only admit and describe the weakness, but to also explain how you’re working to improve that weakness. A lot of the time people are afraid to admit weaknesses because they think that can only hurt their chances, but that isn’t really true. Interviewers realize your are human and not perfect, and admitting weakness shows that you are genuine and real. But like I said, it’s important that you go on to demonstrate that you are working to strengthen that aspect of your life – so basically turning a negative into a positive.

Well, I actually had an interview today and I wish I read this article earlier =P

I actually didn’t spend that much time preparing for it, so when asked about leadership skills, I gave my most obvious answer. Now that I actually took the time to think about it, I think I could’ve came up with a better answer.

I think another reason to “why you shouldn’t give the most obvious answer” is because it’s probably already in your application. It’s better to sell away as many good points about yourself, and there’s really no point in being redundant and repeat something you’ve went into great detail in your application.

Oh, do you have any advice on how to answer questions related to your weaknesses? Like when the interviewer asked me “You won the contest last year, why didn’t you win it this year?” I was like “What kind of a question is that??” Or “Why does your reference say you’re very unorganized?” Stuff like that…