How to Answer Interview Questions – Q84

What can you do to make this company better? There are a million ways for an interviewer to ask “Why should we hire you?” and this is one of them. They want to know what benefits you as an employee are bringing to the table, and it’s right for them to ask. The job interview is where you sell yourself for the job. That doesn’t mean you have to act like a stereotypical salesman…it just means that you need to know what the needs of this company are…what problems they have that you can solve. And then you have to be able to articulate to them how you can solve them…how you’ve solved them before, how you’ve solved similar problems, how you perform in similar situations. This question is a great place for you to be strategic in your answer. You want to start with the job itself and with your conversation with them about their biggest problems and what they need help with…or what they need changed or what they need a solution for. And hopefully somewhere in your conversation you’ve asked them what their biggest concerns are for this position and what their biggest goals are. Remind them that you’re first going to attack those problems and come up with solutions for them. And then you say, that’s the first way I’ll make the company better, because when I take care of those A, B, C things that we talked about, that makes D, E, and F better for you. And then that affects G, H, and I. So just by doing those things, I’m going to have a positive ripple effect on the company and as I learn more and expand my responsibilities, I will be able to positively impact the company in other ways. You are painting a verbal picture for them so that they can see you in the job with all the benefits and positive impact you’ll bring to the organization in a variety of ways. You can do this in just your conversation, but this is really an ideal spot to introduce your 30/60/90-day plan, and that will make you into an even stronger candidate, whether you have experience or not. A written-out plan for what you’re going to do in the first 90 days will show them that you are someone who can size up a situation, analyze it, and create a plan of action to reach your goals. That’s an incredibly impressive skill, and if you go to that much trouble before you even get the job, they will be amazed.