It's surprising how illuminating the responses are.
I always grown when I have to ask that question because you always get some stupid answers where people say things like “I’m just too organised” or similar spin to make a negative sound like a positive. Frankly I can’t blame them because it’s a ridiculous question to ask.
However this one candidate not only listed off one flaw but three of them. I remember thinking “shut up, shut up, shut up. You’re not supposed to answer this honestly!”
However this ironically turned out to be the reason I hired him. I figured if he is that honest and able to identify his flaws then he must have a good work ethic.
He turned out to be one of my best ever junior hires.
It's an adequate test to filter out folks who are simply incapable of accepting responsibility for their actions, or who have yet to really shoulder enough responsibility to meaningfully fail.
Although maybe that's the point: psychopathic candidates end up making up fairly unconvincing heroic stories whereas regular people look a bit confused and maybe mention something they didn't do because they couldn't trust it was legitimate or ask if their decision to volunteer their time for $cause counts.
