Transcription
Hey everyone, welcome to the second video in my series on getting hired. Today, I'm gonna give you the best answer to the common job interview question: "Why should we hire you?"
Okay, there are many different forms of this question. "Why do you want to work here?" "Why should we hire you?" "Why do you want to work at this company?" "Why do you want to work for us?" It's all the same question, and you always give the same answer.
Each time, I'm gonna let you in on a little secret here. This is actually a really good question to be asked in a job interview. This is your moment to shine. This is your moment to make a case for yourself. See, often during formal job interviews that are very structured, you don't really get a chance to speak freely. You spend your entire time answering very specific, formal questions. I mean, you could have been the first person in history to discover, finally, the meaning of life, but you would have never had a chance to say it in a formal, structured job interview where all that happens is they ask you very specific, formal questions like, "How many years' experience do you have using Microsoft Excel?"
So, this question is your chance to shine and really be able to say whatever you want to make a case for yourself. In fact, if I was asked this question during a job interview, the first thing I would say is, "I was hoping you'd ask me that."
Now, before we talk about how to answer this question, really, we need to understand something first about recruiters. Recruiters are paid to find candidates that meet a list of requirements. That's their job. That's what recruiters are paid to do. Whether they're internal to a company or they're external, operating as an internal recruiting firm, that's their job. That's how they get paid. What they care about are requirements. They don't write the requirements. They are given a list of requirements, usually by a hiring manager or a client, if it's an external company, and they are paid to provide candidates that meet those requirements.
Now, hiring managers are a little bit different. They're not the same thing as recruiters. If you end up getting the job, chances are the hiring manager will be your boss. Usually, they're the ones that write the requirements and give them to the recruiter. They might not necessarily be hung up on specific requirements. They tend to care more about whether they like you and they think that you'll be good in the role. If you can bring something extra to the role, maybe that might be a factor, and that's for the hiring manager to decide.
You like that expression? You know, "You had one job." Well, you have one job in a job interview, and that is to communicate to the recruiter how you meet all the requirements for the job. So, if somebody asks you the question, "Why should we hire you?" a good answer is to say, "Well, as I understand it, you're looking for somebody who..." and then you go down the list of job requirements and say how you satisfy each one.
Now, that's the answer that many, many big-dollar resume writers and hiring consultants will give you. I would like to add an optional extra to end off, and that would be to show a little bit of personality and a little bit of desire for the position. Maybe you could say something like, "Well, I've always wanted to work at an organization like this for this reason. So that's why I'm hoping you'll select me."
Okay, so an important note here. You know that if you get called in for a job interview, you're gonna have to be doing some preparation for the interview. One of the things that you need to do is make sure that you print out the job description, which has a list of the requirements. What I would recommend is taking a highlighter and highlighting maybe one word on each of the requirements so you can quickly scan down that list. Then, when you're in the interview, make sure that you have that paper in front of you, among perhaps other papers. And when you get asked this question, when you go down the list of requirements, you have the paper in front of you so you know that you're speaking to each one and you're not forgetting or omitting any of the requirements.
So, once again, you get the question, "Why should we hire you?" A great response is to say, "I'm glad you asked me that question. As I understand it, you're looking for somebody who..." and then you go down the list of requirements, speaking to each one. For example, "Three years' experience in this? I do. I actually have five. That has this particular degree? I have that. Actually, I got that degree with honors. You're also looking for somebody who's familiar with this software? Well, I do. I actually have five years of using that software practically every day. I'm an advanced user for it. And I've always wanted to work for this company because I do know a couple of people that work here and I've heard good things about how they treat their employees. So that's why I'm hoping you'll select me."
So there you go. Hopefully, this was helpful to you. If you want to see more of my videos that can help explain how you can get hired, please take a moment now to click the like, subscribe, and bell buttons. And consider supporting me on Patreon. If you do, you get a bunch of extra videos that go more in-depth and the ability to direct message me and ask me some business questions.
So, once again, I'm Bill, the company's expert. Thank you so much for being here and watching my videos. You know what? You're awesome. You.