Interviewee: "I'm overly honest."

Interviewer: "I don't think that's a weakness."

Interviewee: "I don't give a fuck what you think."

I seem to recall that great analyses was conducted by internet pundits upon the "correct" answer to this question and more insight was offered working HR people themselves. The question isn't designed to pinpoint one's greatest weakness but rather to assess one's levels of introspection. A good answer was to take a concrete situation in which one had found a personally generated obstacle in one's working life, to lead the interviewer through how one had identified the interaction between self and situation, how it had led to the situation and what one had done to develop personally in order to surmount the obstacle.

The harsh truth is that for most of us, we are psychologically blind to our own weaknesses. Pick anything on that list that you're absolutely certain doesn't apply to you and you've probably found one that does. If none of them does, you may be labouring under the Dunning-Kruger delusion.

There's an element of what NLP calls "deletion" in such an open question (or its reciprocal statement), similar to statements like "This food is terrible" -> "This food [tastes] terrible [to me]".

I try to heard a question like that as "What [do you recall] is your greatest weakness [in a specific situation which I'm not going to supply, so I want you to do it for me]". This makes it easier to sustain a conversation with the human being before you, rather than pluck a desperate answer out of the air to please the seemingly faceless corporation judging you. Do not reply: "I give short answers to obtuse questions."

Like _refugee_ says, the question is really contextual as is the answer. It's a question given in a workplace situation so should relate to the working life.

I try to do everything - I like to learn by doing - so I must consistently assess my suitability and effectiveness in any given task and learn better ways to delegate to others. One current startup project I could have coded but my project manager wisely advised me to delegate completely and outsource. It got done better, faster and more efficiently, leaving me free to get on with other projects. Then the personal battle was refraining from micromanagement.

Incidentally, the answer: "I guess my greatest weakness is caving in to the need to humiliate myself in this farcical charade of a conversation in order for you to assess whether you want to enslave me into the military-industrial complex to further exploit the planet and hasten the destruction of the biosphere through impossible infinite growth in a finite system" is not acceptable.