Dr. Joseph Barber
Job interviews can be a little on the unpredictable side. After all, you don’t know that much about the people who will be interviewing you, you can only really guess at the type of person they are actually looking for, and you don’t know what questions they are going to ask you. Or do you? Well…, you certainly don’t know all of the questions they will ask, but I think you can be fairly certain that a handful of common questions will be coming your way. Surely the most obvious, and the most important, is a variation of “why do you want this job?”
At some point in the interview process, someone will ask you this question. You should never be surprised by this question, and never, ever be unprepared to answer it. It is a question that will usually come very early in the interview, and it is a question that can certainly make or break your interview. When I do mock interviews with students and postdocs, a common answer I hear sounds a little like this:
“I’m excited about working at this company because it is a great opportunity for me to work on projects that I really enjoy. I’m looking for a challenging and varied environment where I can grow and develop as a professional, and I see this a great place to use my skills and experiences”
In essence, this questions answers the question: “why do YOU want this job”. Look through the answer above and see how it is all about the candidate and what they would get out of the deal if they were offered the job. This type of answer usually misses the point of the question, because as the employer listening to the answer, you don’t learn much about whether the candidate would be able to offer anything. Employers need to figure out very quickly whether a candidate can actually do the job. So, I encourage people to think of the question a little differently, and to change its emphasis slightly:
Why do you want THIS JOB?
This means that talking about you and your goals can be part of the answer, but priority should be given to demonstrating to the employer what you bring to the position. In the previous answer you can see that “skills and experiences” are mentioned in passing, but there are poorly defined. What skills? What experiences? How can these be helpful to me the employer? Without some context, the listener might walk away with the sense that the person speaking doesn’t actually know what skills they have that will be most useful for the job. Or, even worse, that the person speaking doesn’t really understand the nature of the job itself. A better approach is to first speak about what you can contribute in terms of specific and relevant skills, and then to mention what you gain – this is still an important part of the answer. Here’s one approach you can take – by no means the only one:
“Why do you want this job?”
“Well, based on my research into this position, and having talked to a couple of contacts I have in similar roles, what I think you are looking for is someone who can find new ways to connect your technology with researchers in the field, and who can help clients troubleshoot when challenges arise. And this is exactly what I have spent the last few years doing in slightly different environments. The software my lab uses for analyzing proteins is used by several of the large labs at Penn, and I have become the go-to person whenever anyone has an issue. Over the last 3 months I have been contacted by 4 different researchers, and have already been able to help 3 of them solve the programming issue they were facing. The fourth issue is a tough one, but I am pretty sure I am close to fixing this one too. When I first started my PhD, I didn’t have any specific knowledge of this software, and I have gained most of my expertise by connecting with other experts in the field, speaking with vendors at conferences, and I even arranged for a tour of the headquarters for the company that developed it. This was really helpful as I was able to chat with their chief engineer. So, I’m comfortable reaching out to new people, and have been successful in establishing great working relationships over several years.
Overall, I am very excited about using my problem-solving and networking skills in this way, and I’m looking forward to learning more about your technologies. The broader range of products I’ll be working with in this role will certainly add the variety that I am hoping for, and I do see a great opportunity for me to grow professionally here – especially because I know that your company puts a strong emphasis on mentoring”
Different types of jobs need different narratives, but you can use a similar formula:
- Demonstrate to them that you understand the nature of the job
- Show them what you can contribute, and give examples
- Talk about why the job will also be a good fit for you
If you are looking for more resources on interviewing, then click here.
