Do you know how to articulate
your value in an interview? I'm Jenn, a career
coach at Indeed. And today, I'm going to share
some advice on answering a very important
interview question-- why should we hire you? In this video, I'll explain
how and why employers ask this question, the three
pieces of information they're listening for in an answer, and
the best strategy for preparing for this question. Make sure to stick around
until the end, where I'll provide a complete example
answer and a common mistake. First, let me explain
how and why employers present this question. As for how they ask, employers
typically ask this question at the end of an interview. And instead of directly
asking why should we hire you, they may also frame it in
one of the following ways. What makes you the best
candidate for this position? What can you offer our
company that others can't? Why are you a good
fit for this role? And how can our team
benefit from you joining us? Now, as for why they ask, there
are three important pieces of information employers are
listening for in a response. They want to
understand your value, in terms of your
strengths, accomplishments, and qualifications. They want to see how well you
understand what the role is and the needs of the job. And they want to give
you one last opportunity to sell yourself as the best
candidate for the position. Remember, they want you to be
the best candidate so that they can end their hiring search. Because of these reasons, your
answer to this question should address the unique skills and
experience you offer in this particular position, and
why your values align with the company's. So let's talk about
how to do that. My first tip for
answering the interview question why should we hire
you is to research the company and study the job description. Now, before we move on,
we'd love to hear from you. Is this information helpful? Let us know by liking
and subscribing to see more videos like
this on our channel. If you've watched our
Job Interview Guide, which you can check
out right here, you know that the goal of
the question and answer portion of an interview is
to understand two things, are you qualified
for the role and do you align with the
company's values. This question is no exception. The best way to
demonstrate to the employer that you meet those two criteria
is to both research the company and study the job posting. When you research
the company, you want to learn the company's
mission and goals. You want to be able to make
a connection between you and the company. So look for any
information that will help you explain how
you share their values and can ultimately help
them accomplish their goals. Starting with the
company website, take a look at
their About section. Most companies will display
their mission statement at the very top of the
page, or you may even see a theme repeated
throughout the website. So for example, at
Indeed, our mission is to help people get jobs. Every person who works with this
company supports this mission. So if you were applying
for a job at Indeed, you could make a connection
to being service-minded, and also to listening to
your customers and clients to address their needs. And when you review
the job posting, look for commonalities between
what the company is seeking in the candidate and the
qualities, experiences, and skills that you
personally possess. Start with reviewing the
required skills and experience. Think about three of your
own qualities and experiences that match closely with
what they have listed. Identifying these in
the research phase will help you build talking
points for the interview later on. Another important note
here, pay special attention to the preferred skills. On a job description, the
required skills are the must haves. They're the minimum
requirements. So the preferred skills can be
viewed as the nice to haves. These are the special
qualifications they know not everyone has, but
for those that do have them, it would make them even
more qualified for the role. If you have any of
the preferred skills, be sure to mention
those in your response because they're considered
icing on the cake, and it could help you stand
out from other candidates. Now, you might also see the
company's mission statement included in the job posting. And this is really
common because each role in the company should support
the mission in its own way. Start to think about how you've
supported a mission like theirs in your previous roles. This is going to prepare
you for tip number two. My next tip for
answering the interview question why should we hire
you is to highlight your proven impact. As you prepare your
answer for the question, aim to explain how your
experience, skills, and character traits make
you the best candidate. Just like when you're
drafting a bullet point to include
on your resume, you need to do more than
just list experience. You want to provide context
and demonstrate impact by quantifying your
accomplishments, skills, and experience with
numerical data. For example, if you're
interviewing for a marketing associate position and one
of the preferred skills is working with a particular
piece of software, instead of just saying,
I have experience working with this
software, you would want to share the details
of your experience, such as the number
of months or years that you've used the software,
your level of experience with the software, like if you
were a system administrator and you could modify
and add new features, and the number of team
members that you trained to use the piece of software. If you don't have direct
experience working with a specific requirement,
you can still draw a comparison to a similar qualification. Let's take our software example. Perhaps you haven't worked
with that specific piece of software, but you have
experience using a similar one. Speak to how quickly you were
able to learn the new system and how frequently you used it. You can still paint a
picture for the interviewer of your experience using
similar tools and your ability to learn new tools and adapt
to new situations, qualities that could still make you a
really good fit for the role. The goal is to
provide enough context so the interviewer
can see that you're qualified for the position. Quantifying accomplishments and
experience helps to do that. And this applies to
character traits, as well. If you're applying
for a role that mentions being
service-minded, speak to the number of years you
supported clients or worked in a customer-facing role. For example, let's say
that, in your current role, you support customers through
an online chat system, and you're applying for
a client success position at a new company. You could say, I'm
personally driven to leave customers feeling
like their concerns have been heard and resolved
to the best of my ability. This is evidenced through my
98.7% customer satisfaction rating that I received
last month after responding to over 200 customer chats
with an average response time of under 90 seconds. In the best-case scenario, you
can tie a quantifiable impact to your work. But I know that this
isn't always possible. In this instance, just focus
on the positive outcome. On a resume, a
formula that I like to use to show impact
in a bullet point is strong verb plus what you
did plus reason, outcome, or quantified results. In an interview setting,
it would be more along the lines of personal
attribute statement, followed by work example
with supporting detail, plus positive outcome
with quantifiable results, when possible. Let's see how that works. Let's say that you're a
firefighter candidate. When answering a question
like why should we hire you, you can speak to the personal
attributes that would make a successful firefighter. Here's an example. I care about making my
community a better place. Over the last few years,
I've volunteered my time to local food
banks and shelters. I feel proud when I can
help someone else in need, and I've developed
relationships with many members of the community because of it. The way that you
speak about yourself should align closely
with the job description. Identify examples in your
work history, education, and training that you can
share with your interviewers to illustrate the
characteristics and skills that you have that
match the characteristics and skills that
they're looking for. This leads me to my
third tip for answering the interview question
why should we hire you, speak confidently about what
makes you uniquely qualified. In other words, sell it. What sets you apart
from other candidates? This is the question
that you're really answering when an interviewer
asks why should we hire you. Think back to the
research that you conducted on the company and
the role in tip number one. The three main points about
your skills and experience that you identified
in tip number two can be used to create
talking points. And this should also
remove any self-doubt that you aren't
qualified for the role. You've already made connections
between yourself and the job. Now, you just have to sell it. Do this by being confident. This tip applies to any
interviewing situation. You know why you're
qualified for the role, so be confident as
you speak to it. Confidence builds
trust, and interviewers want to know that
you are trustworthy. Project confidence by making eye
contact with the interviewer. Take notice of your posture. Sit up straight, with
your shoulders back. I always like to
imagine that there's an imaginary string
at the top of my head that I can pull to correct
my posture even further. Project your voice and
speak clearly and slowly. Keep your hands steady, and
avoid fidgeting or using any distracting hand gestures. Body language is just as
important in a virtual setting, where your face is often
all an employer can see. So try to remember to look
directly into your camera. This communicates
that you're engaged and that you care about what
the interviewer has to say. Propping a few books
under your computer is a great way to ensure that
your camera is at eye height. Now, let's talk about
what to do if you're growing or transitioning
in your career and don't quite meet all the
qualifications or preferred experience the company
is looking for. If you've found yourself
in an interview, there's something on your
resume that attracted the attention of the recruiter. Don't forget that. As you prepare
for the interview, take another look at your
resume and remind yourself about the transferable
skills you have that apply to the role. It's not always about direct
experience that gets you a job. Sometimes, it comes down
to a willingness to learn, proven adaptability, and
a positive and confident attitude. In addition to focusing
on transferable skills and the exact qualifications
that you have, consider explaining how you're
different or unique background positions you to offer a fresh
and valuable perspective. Now that you understand how and
why employers ask why should we hire you and you
know how to prepare, let's take a look at an example. If you're a recent
graduate, you could say, "I've recently graduated
with a bachelor's degree in communications, and I'm
passionate about developing innovative and user-centric
email marketing campaigns. My internship as an email
marketer for a PR firm equipped me with the experience
of creating impactful content in a fast-paced environment. I was able to
develop and execute an email campaign that improved
engagement rate by 10%. This experience, in
addition to the knowledge I gained in school about
creating, testing, and managing campaigns to increase sales,
improve brand loyalty, and deliver important
information to customers makes me confident
that I would be a valuable asset to your
email marketing team." If you're a case
manager, you could say, "you should hire me for this
role because of my proven ability to maintain strong
interpersonal relationships with several clients. I'm passionate about providing
care to those in need in my community, which keeps
me motivated and excited about doing my best work. For the last three
years, I've managed a caseload of 30 clients. I understand that you
need a candidate who can be consistently available
for events in clients' lives. I have a 100% attendance rate
for weekly case proceedings and meetings for my clients. In addition, I can bring
leadership experience to your team, having
trained over 15 new hires to become familiar with
day-to-day operations and to feel comfortable
in their new roles." For additional advice on how
to answer common interview questions, be sure to
check out the video that we have on the topic
you can find right here. One of the most common
mistakes I see people make when answering
this question is speaking about
other candidates. And I see how this can happen. When answering why
you think you're the best person
for the job, it's natural to think about what
makes others less qualified. But the purpose
of your interview is to present
yourself as the best. Use I statements in your answer. And when speaking about
unique qualifications or different perspectives
that you can offer, let them stand on
their own value. It can be especially hard to
avoid this when you're applying for an internal position. For example, let's
say that you're applying for a promotion
for a leadership role, and you know that
you have a better rapport with the team than
the other person that's interviewing. You don't need to say that
outright to make your point. Concentrate on yourself. Focus on sharing how
teammates already come to you for guidance. Share how you created
a systems training that became part of the onboarding
process for new team members. These are the things
that you've done that make you uniquely
qualified for the role. Let's recap. My tips for answering
why should we hire you are research the role and
study the job description, highlight your proven
impact, speak confidently about what makes you
uniquely qualified, and don't speak about
other candidates. Focus on yourself. If you found this helpful,
please hit the Like button and subscribe down below. And for more tips
on interviewing, I recommend checking
out this playlist here or watching our video on how to
answer another tricky interview question, tell me
about yourself, which you can find right here. I hope that you're able
to apply these tips to your next interview prep. The ability to present yourself
as the best qualified candidate comes down to research,
self-awareness, and confidence. Thank you so much for watching. We'll see you next time.
