The dreadful “Why Do You Want to Work Here?” question has spoiled many careers and is continuing to do so. Quite often, candidates do not even realize that this particular question became one of the reasons why they were rejected. They answered it honestly and they never said anything negative — just the truth, like: “I know I can make a good contribution to this company”, or “This company’s products are awesome”, or “my relative, who works here, has told me many positive things about your company”.

In fact, these seemingly harmless answers do not add any scores to the candidate. Even more: they may create some air of disappointment in the hiring manager’s mind, because they let the hiring manager see that the candidate did not understand the basic approach which he/she should follow in a job interview.

By asking every particular question, a hiring manager expects to hear a certain kind of answer. The “secret” is simple: he/she is not interested to hear about the benefits that this job is going to bring you as a candidate; instead, he/she expects that your answer will focus on the benefits of using your professional potential and talent for the benefit of the employer.

Therefore, your answer should not be focusing on your personal interests, but rather it should demonstrate understanding of the employer’s needs. Do you feel the difference? Yeah, this is the sad truth. Well, if so, how should you approach to answering this question then?

The method is quite simple. You need to follow a few steps:

First, and this will be necessary for answering all questions in the interview — learn as much as you can about the employer company, the position, and if possible – about your interviewers. This may help you a lot when you compose your answer with the focus on the company, not yourself.

As the next step, do not forget to keep focusing on the employer company’s needs in your answer: on the quality of their products, or on their reputation, or on some statistics about the company that you managed to find while researching the information about the employer.

Here are a couple of sample answers which are worth looking at. In both examples I underlined the phrases which you may want to use when putting together your own sample answer to this interview question:

Example 1:

I have always been very impressed with the quality of your products (or: with your innovative approaches to… / the company’s attention to customers needs, etc.). With the high quality of your products, marketing them almost feels like a public service. I would greatly enjoy helping you to continue to innovate and to increase your market share.

Example 2:

This company has the reputation of being one of the leading …-producers in the country, with a list of impressive customers such as … . The company is a frequent participant of trade fairs, exhibitions, biennale and various international events. These are signs that this firm is a leader, not a follower. With my background in …, I’m very interested in applying the newest technology (methodology, etc.) plus common sense practices to keep this sensitive information as safe as possible.

Finally, it is always good to remain calm and confident during the job interview. Even if you are not a perfect match for this particular job, they may like you and want to hire you. They may find the right place for you in the long run. So keep trying to show them your best sides and do your best to win that interview.