Start Owning Your Weaknesses
Why being real about your struggles makes you more hireable than pretending to be perfect.
Published on by Gernot Sauerborn
We’ve all heard the standard job interview advice: "Turn your weaknesses into strengths." Or worse: "Never show any weakness at all."
But let’s be honest for a moment. You can’t hide the hard stuff. You can’t fake being unbothered by a past failure. And you certainly can’t control the 80% of communication that happens beneath the surface.
So, if you can’t hide it, why not use it to your advantage?
Here is why the most successful candidates stop trying to appear "perfect" and start talking openly about their challenges—and how you can do it, too.
The Iceberg Beneath the Table
Communication is like an iceberg. The words we choose—your carefully crafted answers about "teamwork" and "leadership"—make up less than 20% of the information we transmit in our communication. And you during an job interview.
The other 80% is everything else:
- Body language (Are you shrinking back or leaning in?)
- Facial expressions (Does your smile reach your eyes?)
- Tone of voice (Do you sound robotic or genuine?)
Here is the brutal truth: You cannot control that 80% the same way you control your words.
If you are trying to hide a difficult experience, your body will betray you. Your shoulders will tense. Your voice will pitch up. Your eyes will dart away. The interviewer, whether consciously or subconsciously, will notice.
The Danger of Incongruence
When your words don’t match your body language, the interviewer doesn’t think, "Oh, they must be nervous."
They think: "Something doesn’t fit."
This lack of congruence—saying "Everything went great!" while your body is telling "What a disaster!"—creates a subtle but deadly doubt. It’s a diffuse feeling that something is off. The interviewer starts to wonder:
- Is this person honest?
- Are they actually competent?
- Can I trust them?
In most hiring processes, these diffuse doubts lead to a very direct outcome: a rejection email. You don’t get rejected because you had a failure in the past. You get rejected because the interviewer couldn’t shake the feeling that you weren’t being authentic about it.
The Strategy: Resolve the Incongruence
How do you fix this? You stop trying to separate your "polished answers" from your "real experiences."
Your strategy is simple: Speak the words that match the 80%.
If you are applying for a role where resilience is key, do not try to hide the moments where you struggled. Instead, talk about the difficulties, the bad experiences, and the challenges openly.
When you say, "That was a really difficult project. I was honestly frustrated because I felt unprepared, and I made a mistake by not asking for help sooner"—your body language will naturally align with your words. You will look and sound like a human being, not a robot reciting a script.
Why This Makes You More Hireable
- It dissolves doubt. When your words match your emotions, you become congruent. The interviewer’s gut instinct changes from "Something is off" to "I trust this person."
- It proves resilience. Anyone can claim they "work well under pressure." But someone who can articulate how they felt under pressure, what went wrong, and how they fixed it? That is proof of genuine resilience.
- It makes you memorable. Most candidates try to be flawless. Flawless is boring and forgettable. Candidates who share authentic stories about overcoming real obstacles are interesting. They stand out. They stick in the hiring manager’s mind long after the interview is over.
How to Talk About Your Experiences
So, do you know how you will talk about your experiences?
Next time you are preparing for an interview, don’t just rehearse your achievements. Rehearse your "hard moments."
- The difficulty: What was the actual challenge?
- The emotion: How did it make you feel? (Anxious, overwhelmed, frustrated?)
- The action: What did you do to take ownership of the situation?
- The result: What did you learn that makes you better now?
By owning your narrative—the good and the bad—you stop fighting your own body language. You become authentic. And in a world where everyone is trying to be perfect, authentic is the one thing that actually gets you hired.
Are you ready to stop hiding and start owning your story?
Moving on With Systemic Solution Oriented Coaching
What might be at stake for you if you were to openly discuss a past setback in the interview—and what small shift would allow you to see that experience as a source of valuable learning rather than a risk? When have you already spoken honestly about a challenge in a professional setting, and what was different about that situation that made it feel safe or even productive?
What skills do you already draw on to present difficulties constructively, and what would be a first, barely noticeable sign that you are beginning to trust your ability to frame negative experiences as growth? If you imagined yourself confidently sharing a hard-won lesson in an interview, what attitude would you be embodying, and who would notice that change first?
In systemic solution-focused coaching, we deliberately build exactly those skills—identifying and amplifying your existing resources, rehearsing new conversational frames, and cultivating a mindset that turns perceived weaknesses into narratives of competence—so that you can enter any interview not by avoiding the past, but by owning your learning from it with clarity and self-assurance.
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My insights are grounded in my daily work with international professionals and executives navigating the job market and workplace culture in German-speaking countries. As an experienced manager, management consultant, systemic coach, and business-oriented German language teacher, I combine a practical understanding of business expectations with a deep appreciation of the challenges of working across cultures. Having lived and worked internationally, I understand how to make professional experience, individual strengths, and personal identity visible in a new professional environment.
I offer a free chemistry call to personally connect, share how I work with clients, and see if my coaching approach aligns with your goals.
It's the perfect opportunity to decide if we're a good match for your interview preparation.