Most Strengths and Weaknesses Tests Leave Out the Weaknesses

14 min read

What a Strengths and Weaknesses Test Actually Measures

A strengths and weaknesses test sorts what you can do into the things you do better and the things you do worse than your own average. The comparison is with yourself. A good result says writing comes easier to you than planning a budget. Your colleague’s writing never enters into it.

That is also where a strength parts ways with a skill or an interest. A skill is something you learned, like Excel or Spanish. An interest is something you like thinking about. A strength is work you handle well with less effort than your other work. A weakness is the reverse: work you can finish, but slowly, with more checking, at more cost to you.

Most people want one to prepare an interview answer or plan a career move. Both need the weak half.

What does the strengths and weaknesses quiz measure?

A well-built strengths and weaknesses quiz measures a spread: which abilities sit near the top of your own list and which sit near the bottom. On a good test, a weakness means lower than your other abilities, measured against you and nobody else. A strong engineer can see numbers near the bottom of their own list and still outscore most people at them.

How does this differ from general personality tests?

A general personality test describes your style: how sociable you are, how tidy, how calm under pressure. The Big Five scores five traits and shows where you land on each. It can tell you that you prefer quiet, focused work, but not whether you are good at it.

A strengths test asks about ability and ease. The two overlap, but they answer different questions. Already have a personality result? Our Big Five personality assessment guide shows how to read it.

Why Most Strengths Tests Skip Your Weaknesses

If a free strengths assessment left out your weaknesses, that was on purpose. The thinking, from positive psychology and Gallup’s CliftonStrengths, is that building on what you do well pays more than patching what you do poorly.

That shapes the report. CliftonStrengths asks you to pick between paired statements and ranks 34 talent themes. The Top 5 report shows only your top themes; the full 34 report, which costs more, shows the lower ones too, and still frames each as a talent. HIGH5’s free result lists your top five strengths and saves its “watch-out areas” for paid reports. Truity’s personal strengths test has you mark statements as Inaccurate, Neutral, or Accurate, and its results cover positive traits only. A strengths-only report is a design choice, and it is why people searching for their weaknesses leave with half an answer.

What is a strengths-based assessment?

A strengths-based assessment is any assessment built on that idea: find what a person does best and help them do more of it. The lower half of the list exists, because every ranking has a bottom, but it is usually hidden, softened, or sold separately. That suits a confidence boost or a team workshop. It does little when you need to know which parts of a new role would be a daily struggle.

Are strengths tests and strengths-based assessments the same thing?

A strengths test, like the ones compared below, is something you take for yourself. A strengths-based assessment in hiring is something an employer gives you. Many graduate schemes run strengths-based interviews or online tests and score you against the strengths the job needs.

So a strengths test hands you a result to keep, and a strengths-based assessment hands an employer a result to rank you by. That changes how you prepare.

Rating Scales Versus Forced Choice: How a Test Finds Your Real Weak Spots

Every self-report test runs into the same problem. Show someone “I am good at organizing my work” and a scale from 1 to 5, and they will probably pick a 4. Nobody wants to mark themselves low, and nothing stops you marking everything high. You get a wall of strengths and no floor.

There is good evidence on how far self-ratings drift. Zell and Krizan (2014) brought together 22 meta-analyses comparing people’s ratings of their own abilities with their grades, exam results, and ratings from supervisors. The average correlation was .29. Your view of your abilities matches your results only moderately.

Forced choice gives the test a floor. A forced-choice item hands you two abilities and asks which one comes easier to you, and “both” is not an option. Across dozens of these, something has to finish last. Forced choice makes your abilities compete, so a weaker area has to show up.

There is a trade-off. A fully forced-choice test is what researchers call ipsative: it ranks your abilities against each other, not against other people. It can tell you planning is your weakest area, but not whether your planning is weaker than a colleague’s. That is fine for choosing your own next move, and a poor fit for comparing candidates.

The format also resists gaming. In a review of forced-choice personality tests taken in high-stakes settings, Cao and Drasgow (2019) found an overall score inflation effect of just 0.06, much lower than on single-statement tests for most personality facets. When every answer gives something up, inflating your answers buys you very little.

Example test questions, good and bad

The fastest way to judge any test is to read one of its questions. Here are three weak items and a stronger version of each.

In each stronger item, both options are useful work and neither is the obviously good answer. That is what makes your pattern of answers mean something.

How to pass a strengths-based assessment

Advice on how to pass a strengths-based assessment for a job is different, because the employer is scoring you against what the role needs. Four things help.

1. List the three or four strengths the job description and company values keep returning to.
2. Prepare two short stories for each: a time that strength made a visible difference.
3. Answer quickly and consistently. These tests often ask about one strength several ways, and answers that swing look worse than a steady profile.
4. Tell the truth about what you enjoy. A rehearsed answer about what you look forward to at work sounds rehearsed.

Gaming the assessment can work once. It also lands you in a job built for the answers you faked.

How Accurate Is a Strengths and Weaknesses Test?

Every free test calls itself accurate. The word covers two plain things. The first is stability. If you take the same test a month apart and nothing big has changed in your life, you should get roughly the same result. Researchers call this test-retest reliability. A test whose top strengths reshuffle every time you take it is measuring your mood that day.

The second is prediction. The result should line up with something outside the test: how you perform, what your manager sees, which tasks you finish fastest. This is validity, and fewer tests attempt to show it.

Then there is the problem from the last section. A test can be stable and still wrong if you answer as your ideal self. A 2021 review by Martínez and Salgado covered 82 samples and more than 106,000 people and found that forced-choice personality tests hold up against faking, and that the quasi-ipsative kind holds up best. In that kind, your answers still trade off, but not so strictly that every score must add up to the same total. The most accurate strengths and weaknesses test is one that gives matching results across retakes and resists gaming.

HIGH5 ranks your top five strengths and keeps weaker areas for paid reports

HIGH5 asks 120 questions, runs 15 to 20 minutes untimed, and is free for the basic result. That result is your top five strengths. Its “watch-out areas” come with the paid reports. Its public page does not name its answer format, so you cannot judge how well it resists inflated answers. Use it for the top of your list and look elsewhere for the bottom. For more on how it compares with Gallup’s test, see our HIGH5 vs StrengthsFinder comparison.

Is this a professional strengths test? Three things to check

Anyone can call a quiz professional. Look for three things instead: a named method (forced choice, a rating scale, or a mix), reliability figures from people retaking it, and a list of uses the test is not meant for. A quiz with none of these is entertainment, fine until you plan a career move around it.

Retake the test once a year or after a role change

Strengths move slowly. Once a year is plenty, or sooner after something that changes your work: a new role, a first management job, a long break. Read the bottom of the new list as closely as the top: a weakness that climbs after a year of practice is good news.

Free Strengths and Weaknesses Tests Compared

Here are the common options on time, cost, question format, and whether they report a weaker area at all. Details come from each test’s own public pages; where a page does not say, neither does the table.

Which free tests report a weakness at all

Are there free strength-finding tests available that cover the weak half? Yes, but the list is short. Of the free tests, only Red Bull Wingfinder and RichardStep name weaker areas outright. Wingfinder reports potential blind spots and overused strengths across four areas (thinking, creativity, drive, and connections). RichardStep names one weakness. VIA ranks all 24 of its character strengths, so the ones at the bottom are visible, though VIA treats them as parts of character, and ability is a different matter. A free Big Five test shows both ends of five traits, but again it describes style.

HIGH5’s free result and Truity’s personal strengths test report strengths only. Good for a quick lift, weak for the question in this article’s title. A free aptitude test to find your strengths and weaknesses is a different thing again: a true aptitude test has right answers and a clock.

Pick a test to fit your decision

The best strengths test for you depends on your reason for taking one.

• A quick confidence check or a team workshop: HIGH5 or VIA. Both are free and fast. Our VIA vs StrengthsFinder guide covers how VIA differs from Gallup’s tool.
• One weak spot to name in an interview: RichardStep, then check it with the analysis in the next section.
• A picture of your personality style: a free Big Five test.
• A career decision: a forced-choice test that reports strengths and weaker areas together. Our list of strengths assessments ranked for career use goes deeper.

How to Do a Strengths and Weaknesses Analysis Without a Test

A test is one input. A strengths and weaknesses analysis you do yourself is a second, and feedback from people who have seen you at work is a third. When all three point at the same weak spot, you can trust it. When they disagree, the disagreement is the interesting part.

Our self-assessment skills article covers the habits behind a sharper self-read.

How to assess strengths and weaknesses: ask three people who have seen you work

Pick three people who have seen your work up close in the past two years: a manager, a peer, and someone who depended on what you delivered. Ask each of them the same two questions in writing, so they have time to think:

• What do I do that looks easy for me but seems hard for other people?
• What do you find yourself double-checking, redoing, or working around when I hand something over?

The second question does most of the work. People rarely name your weaknesses when asked directly, but they will tell you what they check. Compare their answers with your test result. A weakness that appears in your test and in two of the three answers is one to take seriously. One that appears only in the test may be noise.

Personal SWOT analysis in four steps

A personal SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) takes the same idea and aims it at a goal. UCLA’s career center offers a SWOT worksheet for this use: naming your strengths as a candidate for a particular job, the areas to improve, and the contacts or training that would move you toward it.

1. Name the target. A specific role or move. “My career” is too vague.
2. List strengths and weaknesses. From your test and your three conversations, five each at most.
3. List opportunities. A project nobody owns, a team that is hiring, a course your company pays for.
4. List threats. A missing certification, a weakness the role leans on daily, a shrinking market.

The step people skip is matching the lists. A weakness only matters if the target role leans on it. Being slow with spreadsheets is a threat for a financial analyst and a footnote for a nurse.

Using Your Results for Career Decisions

For career planning, your result pays off only when you act on the bottom of the list.

Is the test suitable for career development?

Yes, once you put each weakness into one of three piles.

Fix

The weakness blocks a role you want, and practice can move it. Public speaking for someone aiming at management. Give it three months of focused work.

Manage

It costs you now and then, but a system or a colleague can cover it. Use a checklist, a template, or a teammate who finds it easy.

Ignore

Your work rarely calls on it. A graphic designer who is slow at cold calling has no reason to spend a year fixing that.

Then aim your next move at the top of the list. Work built on your top strengths usually costs you less effort than work that leans on your weaker areas.

A test like this leaves one gap on its own. Some strengths are things you do well and would still rather not do all day. An accountant can be fast with numbers and still dread a fourth year of closing the books. A strengths list shows the skill. It does not show how much another year of month-end closes would drain you.

Pigment adds that second layer for mid-career people weighing their next move: which work you could keep doing for years, next to what you do well. Its questions are forced choice, and the report names your blind spots alongside your strengths, then points to career directions that use those strengths in settings you do well in. It is for your own decisions, so it will not help you with an employer’s screening test. The formal study of its own accuracy is not done yet, so check it against your three conversations, as with any test.

How to describe your strengths and weaknesses in a job interview

Job interview prep is the most common reason people take one. On the “greatest weakness” question, a result gives you a true answer in place of a humblebrag like “I work too hard.” Build it in three parts:

1. Name a weakness from your results that the job does not depend on. For a data role, do not pick attention to detail.
2. Describe one time it cost you something.
3. Say what you do about it now, with a specific system: a checklist, a partner who reviews your work, a course you finished.

Most strengths have a matching weakness, the same trait pushed too far. If your result names one, check whether you also show the other.

For strengths, pick the two from your result that the job description asks for, and back each with a number or an outcome. A strength with no example sounds like a claim. With one, it sounds like evidence.

Strengths and Weaknesses Test FAQ