It’s a crap question and bollocks to being ‘self aware’, no candidate wants to admit to a weakness in an interview as they have no idea how it’s going to be interpreted. It’s all well and good saying it shows someone has identified and area they need to work on but it’s just as likely it could be a deal breaker if someone else short-listed answered differently.

Thankfully we don’t have HR people sit in on our interviews for technical roles, I just have to ask a few HR-ish questions (including a variation on the weakness one). I make a point of saying they’re just mandatory bullshit questions I have to ask though and not to worry about any answers given.