Academic Interview: What is your Greatest Weakness?

I would answer it as recommended. The best strategy is probably to admit a real weakness that is relevant to the work (which shows honesty and the ability to be self-critical), but focus on how you are working to improve. There's nothing really academia-specific about this.

Your examples seem largely fine to me, except "I have trouble managing my work-life balance" is too vague and could be interpreted as a very serious issue. So I would avoid that or make it more specific.

I wouldn't spend too much time preparing for this question. Its reputation as a common interview question is greater than the reality. I've never been asked it (at interviews in and out of academia).

It's a poor interview question, really, because it's unlikely to lead to genuine insight on the candidate. Good interviewers don't ask it. Your main task is just to avoid a big mistake. Don't say your biggest weakness is plagiarism or stabbing colleagues in the back, and you'll be fine.

I have been asked this question in interviews and have asked it during interviews. I actually think the question is pretty informative for academic positions. When I am reviewing a CV prior to an interview, I have thoughts about the strengths and weaknesses of the candidate. The CV provides information about areas the candidate is going to need to work on to get a promotion to the next level (e.g., a tenure track position or tenure).

It is a bad sign if the candidate answers with an area that is either unimportant for the job (e.g., publication record for a teaching position) or not an obvious weakness. This suggests to me that the candidate does not understand the position they are applying for and what needs to be done to get a promotion. Further, it makes me worried that if they do not see something as a weakness, that they will be less willing to accept criticism regarding it.

If a candidate simply blows off the answer (e.g., I am really bad at golf), then the interviewer learns that the candidate does not want to critically assess their strength and weaknesses. Again this is a bad sign.

If the candidate answers with a weakness, this is a good sign. The best, however, is if a candidate and can answer with a strength and talk about how this strength can be used to address a weakness. For example, a candidate with a strong funding record and a weak publication record might answer with my greatest weakness is my success obtaining funding which has slowed my publication rate. For a teaching oriented position, a candidate with a strong publication record but limited teaching might answer with my greatest weakness was succumbing to pressure by my supervisor to publish and ignoring my desire to teach.

"What is your greatest weakness?" is a bad interview question. It's in the same category as "If you were an animal, what would you be, and why?", and the classic "Where do you see yourself in five years?".

In my opinion, these type of questions warrant a dry, sarcastic simple answer or just "I don't know". Your interviewer(s) won't learn anything important about you from such questions anyway.

But whatever you do, please don't tell you interviewer(s) things like "I have trouble managing my work-life balance" or "I have not been great with deadlines", even if you plan to try to somehow turn these into positives. I've seen candidates dropped for less. As a student (at the very least) you've had many years to learn how to manage your work-life balance and how to deal with deadlines, and you really have no excuse as to why you can't yet do these things at a sufficiently good level.