HOW TO ACE THE INTERVIEW QUESTION "WHY SHOULD WE HIRE YOU

Posted by akohdon on January 27th, 2020

Your entire job interview boils down to one question - Why should an employer hire you?
Whether you're asked this directly during the interview or not, you should definitely be including answers to this question throughout your job interview.

This question may take many forms. You might be asked, "Why should we hire you?" You could also be asked, "Why are you the best candidate for this position?" Regardless of the form the question takes, there are a few things that you should keep in mind when responding to it and a few things you want to avoid that are fairly common, but definitely leave a bad taste in the employer’s mouth.

Questions about why an employer should hire you or something like "what will you do for our company?" are the perfect opportunity for you to market yourself. Don't be deceived if the question is "why are you the best candidate for the job?"

This question really isn't about you versus the other candidates. It's about you and the employer so you'll want to talk about what do you bring to the role. You don't know anything about the other candidates and even if you happen to know who else applied, there's nothing positive that really comes from talking negatively about someone else.

So, focus on the value you bring and how your unique skillset makes you a huge asset to the company in this particular role. By the time you reach the stage of interviewing where you're asked "why should I hire you", you'll know a lot about the company, the role, probably the department that it's in, and what the tasks are that are involved in the job.

Focus your answer to this type of question on how you bring value to what the company wants to achieve. Remember - this is about what you're doing for them. This isn't about you, personally, being the best person. It's you being the best fit for the company in this job. So, talk about the experiences you have, the things and value that you add to the company based on what you know that they want from previous parts of the interview.

Answering the question in this way helps make it clear that you really understand what the job entails. Talk about specific skills and assets you bring. This isn't a time for generics. You don't want to talk about how you're a good leader or you're a good analyst.

While those are important, you want to hone in on what are the few specific things that make you uniquely qualified for the role. So, talk about how you're able to solve a specific problem that they're addressing and you don't just say, "I can fix your problem." You can say, "My experience with SAS programming will help me solve the problem that you have of understanding what's going on with your data in the specific area."

Those types of responses are exactly what employers are looking for when you're answering questions like this. They want to know how well do you understand what the job entails and how well can you articulate what makes you uniquely qualified to take on this role and to really stand out and serve the company well?

When you're talking about the skills that you bring to the job, you do want to be careful that you focus in the right areas. I mentioned that this helps employers understand how well you understand the job.

If you are getting hired or applying for a job to manage analysts, you want to focus your answers on your leadership skills, not on your own skills as an analyst. While those may be a great asset to you, what people really want when they're hiring a manager is someone that knows how to manage well.

So, focus on that area rather than the technical skills and vice-versa. If you're being hired as an analyst not a manager, talk about your analyst skills. What can you do analytically? You may answer some questions about leadership throughout your interview, but that's not your primary focus when answering a "why should I hire you" type of question. Something else that you might want to include in your responses is an example.

Employers see your past performance as the best indicator of how you're going to perform in the future. So, if you have direct experience doing the sorts of things that they're looking for, talk about it. Talk about those specific situations.

Make it really easy for them to connect with what exactly you'll be able to deliver when they hire you. I mentioned at the beginning that you should be prepared to answer "why should I hire you" or "why are you the best candidate for the job" regardless of whether you actually get asked the question and you want to incorporate this throughout your responses. Why should you do this?

First of all, a job interview - at its core -is really one giant "why should I hire you?" question. So, don't save up all of the good information that might help the employer until you get asked. And that's really the second reason - you might not get asked. A lot of employers don't ask "why should I hire you? Why are you the best candidate? What can you do for us?"

They're just counting on hearing that throughout your responses so that they can determine, as the employer, why should I hire you. So, make it really easy for them to understand and you also don't want to be throwing new information at them at the very end of the interview.

You shouldn't pull out some sort of surprising response about how you're a unique fit for the job that hasn't come up before. In many cases, if you are asked this question, it's not going to be until a second or third interview and so if you're not even thinking about it at the very first interview from the start then you might not make it to the second or third interview. So definitely be out there. Promote yourself. Market yourself.