Why do you want to work here?
Hey everybody, Don Georgevich here with Job Interview Tools. Today, I’m going to tell you how to answer the question, “Why do you want to work here?” But I’m going to tell you how to do it two different ways.
You see, most people screw this question up because they don’t know how to answer it based on where they’re at in their career. You see, it depends on whether you’re fresh out of college or whether if you’re a 10- or 20-year workforce veteran, two different ways to answer the question. I’m going to tell you how to do both of them in this video.
So, if you want to know how to do that, go ahead and let me know now by hitting the “Like” button on this video, subscribe to my channel and ring the bell. We’ll dive right in.
So, let’s say you just graduated college and you go into an employer and they’re like, “So, why do you want to work here?” And you’re like, “Well, I need the job. I need the money. That’s why.” You know what? I’ll tell you right now, employers don’t care that you need the job or the money.
They don’t care if you’re poor, you’re broke, you have to feed a family. It doesn’t matter. They are looking for people who can help them grow and support their mission and their vision. That’s what they want. So, that’s how you need to answer this question.
Why do you want to work here for college grads and freshers
So, if you’re fresh out of college, you want to first talk about what really excites you about coming to work for this company? I mean, I don’t know, it depends on the company. I can’t tell you exactly what gets you excited about a particular company.
But let’s just say you’re going to work for Amazon. Well, they are very customer-centric company, very data driven company. So, you might weave into your response that you like the culture at Amazon. You like how everybody’s focused on customers. That would be one element of your response.
The second element of your response; you’re going to tie in that you are attracted to their mission statement or their vision. I mean, their vision is where they are going. Their mission is what they’re doing to reach their vision. So, tie in your answer about how you are attracted to their mission and their vision and how that supports you and why you like that.
And then the third element to your response is what it’s going to do for you. So, the first two elements are about them and what attracts you to them. The final element of your answer is what it’s going to do for you; how working there is going to fulfill you and make you happy.
I mean, because you have to think about it. Employers, I mean, they sound like they’re very greedy and very picky and they don’t really care about anybody. But they do. They care about you. They want you to be happy doing what you’re doing. They just don’t want to hire people to come in and work a job for six months and then leave. They want people who are excited about what they’re doing, where they’re going and how that that fulfills them inside.
So, the third leg of your response needs to tie in what this job is going to do for you; how it’s going to make you fulfill your own career ambitions; how it’s going to take you closer to where you’re going, where you want to be; how it’s going to help you grow personally, emotionally in your career and everywhere else. So, that’s how you want to answer the question if you are fresh out of college.
Why do you want to here for professionals
So, now let’s move on to how to answer the question, if you’ve been working for 20 years. Now, it’s a slightly different answer, but there’s also a lot of similarities. You still want to address the points of what you like about them, specifically. And don’t just say, “I heard that you guys are a great place to work and I’d like to work here.”
Now, you want to be specific about what you like about them; their culture, the vision, their mission. What is it specifically that is attracting you to them? And then you want to pivot just a little bit and talk about what you’re doing in your last position and how your last position isn’t allowing you to grow to where you want to be. And then you say, “That’s what I’m looking for in a new job. I’m looking for new opportunities. I’m looking to grow in these certain areas.”
Be specific with what those are. Because like I said before, employers also want you to be happy in the role. They want this role to fulfill you.
So, that’s where you want to tie in what the role is going to do for you and what your previous role isn’t doing for you. You want to be very clear about what you’re not getting in your last job, where it’s not taking you, how it’s not letting you grow and how there’s maybe some kind of glass ceiling in your previous company that you just can’t break through and you just feel like you’re doing the same old thing, the same old grind, and there’s no personal growth for you. So, you’re looking for a position somewhere else, in another company that is going to allow you to grow. And then you want to be specific where you want that growth to take you.
But the key is to tie where you want to go with where the company is going. So, this is where you want to align your growth plans with their vision and their mission of where they’re going, because now you both have common interests and employers will pick up on this.
I mean, if you want to grow in a certain direction and this company is going in that same direction, let’s say, you like working with people and you want to help people get more of what they want or add a lot of value to clients and customers. And if you express yourself in that way and say you’re interviewing for Amazon, they’re like, “Hey, you know what? We’re all about customers, too. We love helping our customers get the very best deals so that they can get what they need in their own lives.”
Align your response to why do you want to work here
So, when you can show them that you are aligned with where they’re going, that just makes you so much more of an attractive candidate. And it really separates you from everybody else because everybody else who isn’t watching this video is going to go in there and say, “Well, I need the job because I need a job” or “I heard good things about your company, so I’d like to work here.” That’s what people are going to say in the interview who aren’t watching this video. But you, my friend, are here and you are getting the inside scoop.
So, that’s where you want to tie in specifics, avoid generality statements. Tie in specific statements with what you’re looking for, where you want to be going and what this career or working here is going to do for you. Be specific. And that’s really the key.
So, there you have it; two very simple approaches to the same question, whether you are a fresher right out of college or whether you’ve been working for 10 or 20 years, use that answer.
You can also use a combination of both of those different strategies to create your own hybridized version of the answer. I mean, there really is no wrong answer. I mean, there’s more of a right answer than wrong answer. It’s hard to really give a wrong answer to this question, unless you just go in and say, “Well, I’m just looking for a job.” I mean, even that’s very mediocre. It’s not really going to help you get the job.
But what I’ve shared with you so far is going to help bring you closer. It’s going to help you build rapport with that employer and help you align your interests to what they’re looking for. And it’s going to separate you from everybody else who’s interviewing for the job. And it’s going to call a lot of attention to you. And it’s going to demonstrate that you’re authentic, you’re genuine, you’re real.
A lot of people have a hard time expressing their authenticity in a job interview. A lot of times, it’s just because they’re so nervous. It’s not that they aren’t authentic. It’s just the nerves get the best of them and they have a hard time being themselves. And so, they say things that maybe they wouldn’t normally say.
But you, my friend, are here. You’re watching this video. You got the inside scoop. You know exactly what to do. So, go out there and nail them.
Be prepared for the question, why do you want to work here
Now, keep this in mind. Keep this in mind. They’re probably going to ask you this question. They might even ask you this question during a phone interview, like the first contact, “So, why do you want to work here? What attracts you about us?”
So, don’t wait for like an in-person interview or second interview to get this question. Be prepared to answer this question. Like when you apply for a job and as soon as you send in your application, you should already have an idea of why you want to work there.
And if you don’t know, if you can’t answer that question, you better get it figured out because you might get a phone call in a few days and they say, “Hey, John, we’ve got your application here. Do you have a minute? We can talk about it. And they’d be like, “So, why do you want to work here?” and you’d be like, “I don’t know.”
So, you want to get this stuff nailed down way ahead of time for every job. And it might be different. For every job that you interview for, your reasons for wanting to work there might be different. I mean, your reasons for wanting to work for Amazon or Wal-Mart or Ford Motor Company, all those reasons might be a little bit different. So, you should have all of that figured out ahead of time.
Now, I hate to break the bad news to you, but they’re going to ask you more than one question. They’re probably going to ask you 30 or 40 different questions. So, to help you with that; to help you get started, I’ve got a great little guide is called the Top 10 Interview Questions.
Download free samples for why do you want to work here
You can download this from jobinterviewtools.com/top10. This is just a quick and easy book here. It’s probably like 30 pages and it tells you how to answer these questions. It gives you simple answers to, “Why do you want to work here?” “Tell me about yourself.” “Where do you see yourself in five years?” “What are your greatest strengths?” “What are your greatest weaknesses?” They’re going to ask you all of those questions.
And because you’re here and then watching this video, I’ve got you covered. I got your back. Download this book from jobinterviewtools.com/top10. It is free.
The cool thing about this little book, I give you simple answers, I tell you what to say, I also tell you what not to say. Because what not to say is sometimes just as important as what you should be saying in a job interview.
So, this little book here plus what you learn on how to answer, “Why do you want to work here?” is going to help you go so much farther in your next job interview. You are going to be amazed and you’re going to write me back here and you’ll be like, “Don, I watched this video and I went out there and I just totally nailed my interview and I got the job.”
I would love to hear your comments. I would love to hear you come back and share that with me. That makes my job here so much more fulfilling. Because that’s what I’m here for. I like to help you succeed, and that makes me happy.
So, that’s all I have for you today, my friend. Good luck on your next interview. If you like this video you like by channel, you like what we’re doing here, make sure you share this with a friend. Subscribe to my channel and watch out for the next video because we’ll have one coming out real soon. Take care. Bye now.
