Examples of your character weaknesses in your resume. Personal qualities in a resume: what to write? Examples and recommendations

17 Jan 2018 Recruiters often ask candidates to list their weaknesses. The purpose of this question is for the HR specialist to understand how self-critical the potential employee is, whether he evaluates himself correctly and whether he is able to perceive criticism. The applicant can independently indicate his negative sides in your resume, however, do not forget to emphasize your skills and abilities. In this article we will tell you how to correctly present your negative qualities in your resume and give illustrative examples, But first things first. First, consider the basic rules for filling out the section on shortcomings.
If an employer sends you an email or asks you to fill out a resume form from the company before a meeting, then most likely there will be a question about your weaknesses. Under no circumstances should you put a dash. If this section is present in the application form, then the employer is definitely interested in this item. Dash in in this case will be regarded as an inability to soberly evaluate oneself and inflated self-esteem. Also, do not get too carried away when filling out this section. Remember that disadvantages can become your advantages. For example, being unsociable for an accountant is undoubtedly a plus. But for a sales manager it is obviously a minus. Remember that your adequacy, self-criticism and truthfulness are being assessed, and not how many shortcomings you have. Examples of undesirable personal qualities in a resume - shortcomings that are definitely not worth mentioning I am often late;I am fond of gambling;Availability bad habits(alcohol, smoking, etc.); I am often distracted; I work only for the sake of a salary; I like to have office romances; I am lazy; I am greedy; I am quick-tempered; Passive; I am envious; I am careless; I often feel indifference to what is happening around me, I like to live in my own world. Disadvantages that may not work in your favor: Pedantry; Individualism; Self-criticism; Self-esteem; Hyper-reactivity; Modesty; Mistrust; Conceit; Straightforwardness; Vanity; Self-confidence; Excessive exactingness; Painstaking. Before pointing out certain shortcomings, read the requirements in the vacancy and draw up an approximate portrait of an ideal employee. After that, highlight character traits that will not hinder you or will help you in your future work. Good weaknesses for a resume: Inability to respond to rudeness with rudeness; Increased demands on others; Tendency to make decisions based on one’s own opinion; Reluctance to act to please others; I can’t always accurately express my thoughts; Prone to reflection; I trust people, sometimes too much; I spend a lot of time assessing of my actions and actions; I can get carried away with work and forget about a break; I let all situations pass through me; I don’t know how to swear; I don’t know how to lie. Neutral qualities: Fear of insects, snakes, mice and other living creatures; Fear of airplanes; Lack of work experience (for those starting a career or changing field of activity); Age (for people over 40 years old); Love of shopping. List negative qualities a person’s resume should not contradict your type of activity or call into question your professionalism. So, for example, to get a job as a sales consultant, you can indicate: reliability (is a plus when working with clients); excessive scrupulousness (will be a plus when working with money); overpriced a sense of responsibility (as a rule, sellers are financially responsible for the product, and this “flaw” is simply necessary for a good salesperson; excessive love of communication ( important point in working with clients, which is also a positive “disadvantage” for retail.) Negative qualities for an accountant can be the following: Distrust of people and love of facts (or rather, numbers); Discharge from disorder (everything should be in its place and only so);Slowness (when working with large sums There’s definitely no point in rushing); Excessive attention to detail or pedantry.

As many people know, in most organizations, when searching for a job, you need to provide a well-written resume. Exist certain rules filling out, but sometimes the employer asks you to write quite unexpected things - for example, personal shortcomings. And he can be understood. As a manager, he must find out as much information as possible about the new employee. Let's figure out what weak sides you can indicate them in your resume and at the same time present them as advantages.

To be honest, a resume paragraph about weaknesses doesn’t come up very often. The applicant is required detailed description his skills and abilities that will help him in this position in this organization, education, work experience.

Disadvantages as a separate resume item

In most cases, the disadvantage clause does not provide anything. Some will leave it blank, others will not want to tell the truth. In fact, this column is formal in nature. Therefore, you should take the filling seriously and turn your disadvantages into advantages. Omission of this column can be interpreted as insufficient intelligence and lack of self-confidence.

When filling out the shortcomings column, be honest with yourself. You must fully understand what your good and bad sides are. And, most importantly, remember that in modern society the same quality can be perceived from different sides.

Remember that there is a significant difference between a flaw and a vice. Therefore, those aspects that do not interfere with the work should be indicated. It would be stupid to indicate that you are a lover of alcohol and parties, a noble ladies' man or a fan of fights.

Weaknesses in a resume. Examples.

A good option would be to indicate that you are a workaholic and love to work. This may be bad on the one hand, but you can say that from future work You will have great pleasure, and this will add several points to you as a candidate. Another option is to mention scrupulousness in matters of order.

Think about the types of disadvantages that are advantages for a given position - pedantry for an accountant, taciturnity for a programmer, stubbornness or impudence for a sales manager, restlessness for a sales agent, talkativeness for a sales agent or call center operator, and so on.
Don't forget to indicate that you are constantly working on your shortcomings and trying to correct them. Let's say you quit smoking two months ago. Feel free to write about this - it will speak about your ability to solve problems and move towards your goal.

Lack of necessary skills (or insufficient experience) can be turned to your advantage. “I hardly studied English after college and thought I didn’t remember anything. But in a couple of days I read Shakespeare in the original and I think I can handle it.”
If you still don’t understand how to indicate your weaknesses in your resume, examples of filling in large quantities can be found on the Internet.

Even the most experienced employees are always thinking about what weaknesses to include in their resume. There should be no lies or stereotypes here - this can work against you. Do not overdo it in revelations, so as not to reduce your chances of getting the desired position. Use ingenuity and flexibility to convince the employer of your desire to change and the benefits for the future company.

Practical advice that will help you get comfortable at work on your first day

You can be an incredibly cool specialist and even a guru in some narrow field, but what is the use of this if the personal qualities for the resume were chosen incorrectly or were completely forgotten about? It would seem: they should look at work experience, and the employee’s business qualities for a resume are of secondary importance. In fact, how you present yourself in the “personal qualities” column can become fateful.

Before we look at needed by the employer qualities, a little advice: forget about the words “commitment”, “fast learner”, “work for results” in the templates. This is all great, but so old. Even if you want to write about such qualities, let them not be the only ones on the list of honor. Your characterization as a future employee will definitely not benefit from the scarcity and stereotyped presentation.

Let's start with general advice from professional HR specialists. In order not to waste their precious time on an interview with the wrong person or the wrong person, they will definitely pay attention not only to work experience, but also to personal qualities. And here’s what the HR people themselves advise:

• You can value yourself very much as a specialist, but you don’t need to indicate more than 5 personal qualities
• The qualities of an employee for a resume are indicated based on the position. We will write more about this later. But, for starters: an employee of a food warehouse will not need charisma when performing his direct job duties.
• You can use humor, but only if you are not pretending to leadership position. The employer's preferences can most often be found out in advance in the job description.

Positive qualities of a person for a resume must match job responsibilities. That is why we have prepared a list of positions and personal characteristics for them.

Examples of business qualities for workers by specialty

Example #1: accountant. A lot depends on this person. Sometimes, even the life of the company depends on him and his ability to manage money correctly.

Strong professional quality accountants, which are important to indicate: stress resistance, perseverance, learning ability, loyalty, responsibility, non-conflict. And it’s not for nothing that we put stress resistance in first place. Conduct monetary transactions companies with a million-dollar turnover - why not be stressed? If the turnover is lower, the nerves are intact and the sleep is stronger.

Example No. 2: sales manager. The more he can sell, the better. The more new clients it attracts, the more confidently the company will develop. Yes, the life of the company largely depends on the sales manager. True, representatives of this position are not always rewarded with decent wages. But we will only talk about the good, and only about professional managers in sales, for whom it is important to indicate the following qualities of an employee for a resume:

Sociability, stress resistance, presentable appearance, competently delivered speech, learning ability, responsibility. In the case of the sales manager, we put communication skills first. True, after all, what kind of sales can there be if the manager does not know how to start a conversation, and even more so, “lead” the conversation with potential client to the desired result for the company?

Example #3: Secretary. For some reason, there is a stereotyped opinion that a secretary is an exclusively attractive person. And she is included, but many complex routine tasks fall on the shoulders of the secretary, depending on the needs of the company.

Personal qualities in a resume for a secretary: competent speech, attractive appearance, diligence, responsibility, perseverance, ability to work in a team, non-conflict. And here is the destruction of the template: primacy goes to “competent speech.”

Secretaries must be able to win over every visitor, be it an applicant for some position in the company or a potential business partner. The secretary is the first to create a general impression of the company. Have you ever met secretaries who couldn’t say two words? If you have met, you understand exactly why competent speech is so important.

Here we “went through” some of the most common vacancies that appear on the Internet every day in the amount of several dozen and even hundreds.

Why not pay special attention to IT specialists?

The professional skills of IT specialists are especially valuable today. Many companies are in need of incredibly cool specialists who can catch up and surpass their competitors, while increasing the company’s income several times.

Here's what IT specialists most often write about themselves in their resumes:

• Analytic mind
• Hard work
• Skill to work in team
• Ability to work with large amounts of information

Hard work, it seems to us, is approximately the same pattern as “determination” with “the ability to work for results. They don't want to see hard work potential employers in the column of personal qualities of your future IT specialist. Do you want to know what they want to see?

Here's what:

• Independence
• Initiative
• Stress resistance
• Energy
• Responsibility
• Skill to work in team
• Attentiveness
• Mobility
• Creativity

This is the track record.

Business qualities, as you can see, have absolutely no importance for an IT specialist’s resume. In the first positions: independence and initiative.

True, what employer wants to get an IT specialist into their team, who will have to be constantly monitored or adjusted and reminded of something? Moreover, the IT sector is one of the few where narrow specialization does not allow management to influence the results in any way.

So it turns out that an IT specialist must be independent, proactive (where would we be without this), creative, etc. Resistance to stress is a plus for the karma of not only the IT specialist himself, but also the entire company. Without stressful situations in this work it is rare to get by, and deadlines cannot be missed, it is undesirable to show one’s emotions and losing a client is like the collapse of one’s own and corporate reputation.

Here is a list of qualities that IT specialists list least often in their resumes:

• Charm
• Bravery
• Eloquence
• Forethought
• Strength of character
• Skepticism

It seems to us that most of this list are very important personal characteristics for a resume. Especially if you want to join a creative team. Why not indicate bravery and charm? When communicating with clients and employees, these qualities will not be superfluous. True, everything should be in moderation.

Universal positive qualities for any resume

And finally, about the universal qualities that HR specialists recommend indicating in your resume without reference to the position and its requirements:

• Fast learner
• Honesty
• Initiative
• Stress resistance
• No bad habits

This is a small but universal set. You can take note of it, but do not forget to indicate those personal qualities that the future employer expects from you.

And it’s very simple to write what you need: put yourself in the shoes of this employer. Think about what kind of specialist you would like to see on your team? The right employee qualities for a resume are not templates. You want people to pay attention to you, right? Then pay special attention to the “personal qualities” column, and the position will be yours, we are sure.

Irina Davydova

Reading time: 4 minutes

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How to please your future boss if his profile contains an insidious item - character weaknesses? In a resume, unlike an ordinary conversation, every word has weight, so it is better to prepare in advance for uncomfortable questions, and weak qualities must be presented as very useful for the business.

1. You can simply not indicate your weak professional qualities in your resume. Focus on your skills, experience, education, and personal qualities can be discussed at the interview. However, it is impossible to refuse this point if you fill out your resume in in electronic format. Read also:
2. A dash instead of information is another mistake of future employees. If the boss decided to leave this column, it means that he is really interested in this information. And it’s not even about it, but about checking an adequate perception of oneself, the ability to learn and understand the leader. Emptiness can indicate excessively high self-esteem or, on the contrary, lack of self-confidence. Read also:
3. Of course, you shouldn’t list all the shortcomings in too much detail or engage in self-flagellation. It is enough to remember that any weaknesses in the resume have reverse side for the employer. And what may be a problem for one may be an advantage for another. For example, if you are an accountant, your lack of sociability will be useful in your work. And if you are a manager, then this is a serious omission.
4. When filling out strengths and weaknesses in your resume, try to build on the position you want to occupy. For example, choose weaknesses that are not related to your activities. Restlessness is the norm for a sales manager, but a minus for an accountant.
5. "Turn weaknesses into strengths" - old approach. It works if you can think creatively. Otherwise, your efforts will be too primitive and you will be found out. So the trick's heightened feeling responsibility, workaholism and perfectionism" may be unsuccessful.
6. Remember that some bosses aren't looking for flaws in you at all. , but only evaluate adequacy, truthfulness and self-criticism.
7. It is better to describe your weaknesses in your resume, which can be improved. This must also be stated in the text of the questionnaire. There are some bosses who want to train workers for themselves. In this case, your frankness and willingness to work on yourself will be appreciated.
8. Indicate not only individual characteristics, but also your qualities in teamwork .
9. Do not use flowery phrases like “my shortcomings are extensions of my strengths.” This will not surprise you, but will only show your reluctance to engage in dialogue with your employer.
10. The optimal number of flaws is 2 or 3 . Don't get carried away!

Weaknesses in a resume - examples:

• Selfishness, pride, scrupulousness, inflexibility in labor matters, the habit of telling the truth directly, inability to establish contact with strangers, increased demands.
• Tendency to formalism, overweight, unpunctuality, slowness, restlessness, fear of airplanes, impulsiveness.
• Reliability, high anxiety, hyperactivity, distrust, straightforwardness, need for external motivation.
• Hot temper, isolation, self-confidence, stubbornness.
• Another weakness you can indicate in your resume is that you You don’t always express your thoughts perfectly or are prone to reflection . And if you are asked why this interferes, answer that you would like to spend less time analyzing the problem.

When writing a resume, the applicant tries to present himself in the most favorable light. This is understandable, because everyone wants to demonstrate their “combat” qualities, which may turn out to be the most important for future work. However, it is worth thinking about how necessary negative qualities are for a resume. At first glance, such a listing of shortcomings should be avoided. However, everything is not so simple. You can present your negative qualities in your resume to your advantage.

What negative qualities should you include in your resume? Let's tell the truth!

A recruiter who is looking for specialists for his company is somewhat reminiscent of a sapper. After all, if he makes a mistake and recommends the wrong person for employment, then the new specialist, instead of benefiting him, will bring real harm to the company. Therefore, the HR manager tries to find out in advance not only the pros, but also the disadvantages of the next applicant. Knowing this, try to think in advance what negative qualities to include in your resume in such a way that your self-presentation proves that you are open and do not hide anything about yourself.

Why should you include your negative character traits on your resume? First of all, it can serve as proof of your honesty to the recruiter and future employer. Sincerity and openness are always valued in employees, so listing your weaknesses can work to your advantage.

But there is another reason to list your negative qualities for your resume. The fact is that if presented correctly, they can turn into advantages. For example, the resume indicates such a negative quality as pedantry. In many cases, this trait appears to be synonymous with boringness. However, if the HR manager asks where your pedantry is manifested, you can say that you are used to “eating” into your work and studying this or that issue thoroughly. And this will already become your advantage.

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Examples of negative human qualities for a resume

In order not to harm yourself and not engage in unnecessary self-flagellation, try to thoughtfully approach the listing of your negative traits character. Consider the specifics of the specialty and the position for which you are applying. In particular, you can give the following list of negative qualities for a resume that can turn into advantages:

• ambition (a person strives for career growth and that means he will try);
• scrupulousness (such a deficiency will benefit the accountant or lawyer);
• hyperactivity (a minus for an architect, but a big plus for a manager);
• distrust (such an employee will take an extremely responsible approach to any information received);
• excessive sociability (an irreplaceable quality in order to attract new clients).

By showing your imagination appropriately, you can create a resume where negative qualities will be disguised with the correct wording. An example of negative qualities for a resume is the following description of formalism or pedantry: “I pay too much attention to all the nuances.” The employer will like this characteristic because it shows that you are diligent and strive to double-check all the data.