We just could­n’t let him get away from us. This is what we knew after inter­view­ing one of four final can­di­dates for a crit­i­cal, and high­ly com­pet­i­tive, senior man­age­ment role. He (whom we’ll call Greg) framed his respons­es to all the inter­view questions—including the “why should we hire you” question—with our needs in mind.

Greg approached the inter­view ques­tions with an “it’s all about them” per­spec­tive. And by strate­gi­cal­ly doing this, he made it so very easy for us to offer him the job. I’ve observed—and used—this inter­view approach time after time, and it wins more job offers than any approach I’ve ever seen.

Sched­uled inter­view time is valu­able time. Get­ting in the room with deci­sion mak­ers for a job that you real­ly want is, itself, a moment. It means you passed the ini­tial screen­ing stage. It means you’ve been deemed to have met the qual­i­fi­ca­tions for the job. Many oth­ers were qual­i­fied for the job too, but (for one rea­son or anoth­er) they won’t get invit­ed to a job inter­view. But you did.

More than using the job inter­view as a time to dis­cuss infor­ma­tion the inter­view­ers already have access to such as your work expe­ri­ence, your accom­plish­ments, your edu­ca­tion and your cre­den­tials, you’d do well to spend the time dur­ing your job inter­view let­ting inter­view­ers know how all of those things posi­tion you to best help them.

And whether you get asked direct­ly or not, you cer­tain­ly don’t want to walk out of that job inter­view leav­ing any doubt about why they should make the deci­sion to hire you.

Why is the “Why Should We Hire You” Interview Question So Important?

Here’s the deal. There are real­ly only two (you read that right‑2) inter­view ques­tions that you need to con­sid­er. Every­thing else—all the oth­er pos­si­ble ques­tions and con­ver­sa­tion points—flows pri­mar­i­ly from these two over­ar­ch­ing inter­view ques­tions.

1. What have you failed at late­ly? and
2. Why should we hire you?

When you pre­pare your think­ing and mind­set around these two questions—and maybe only these two questions—you will indeed be pre­pared for any­thing else that comes your way dur­ing the job inter­view.

But alter­na­tive­ly, if you try to remem­ber too many script­ed answers to too many dif­fer­ent ques­tions, you risk miss­ing the mark by being too focused on you—what you’re sup­posed to say, what you’ve accom­plished, your exper­tise and what you know instead of show­ing them how you think and fram­ing your respons­es around their issues and their needs.

How to Answer “Why Should We Hire You” Like a Pro

It’s impor­tant to under­stand that even though the word “you” is in the ques­tion, every part of your answer should be about “them.” Think of it this way. When hir­ing man­agers and inter­view­ers ask you “why should we hire you,” they’re real­ly ask­ing you ques­tions that get to what’s in it for them to hire you.

They are dig­ging to find out how it tru­ly ben­e­fits them to add you to the team. So, the best thing you can do—if you want to respond like a pro—is give them pre­cise­ly what their look­ing for and make it all about them: their needs, their goals, their pain points, their pri­or­i­ties, their influ­ence, their bur­dens, their secu­ri­ty, their chal­lenges and their strug­gles.

Regard­less of the sit­u­a­tion, whether per­suad­ing some­one to your idea, nego­ti­at­ing a deal or respond­ing to job inter­view ques­tions, you should be aware that the lis­ten­ers are ask­ing themselves—all along the way—what’s in it for me (WIIFM) or what’s in it for the orga­ni­za­tion (WIIFO).

The pros know this. We know when­ev­er we’re inter­view­ing for any job or role, we have to give those with whom we are com­mu­ni­cat­ing the WIIFM. Neglect this com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­e­gy at your own per­il.

Before you show up to the inter­view, pre­pare your mind­set and frame your think­ing. You’ll want to respond to the inter­view questions—any and all inter­view questions—by rec­og­niz­ing that the lis­ten­ers (the hir­ing man­agers and/or inter­view­ers) are lis­ten­ing for how your answers are focused on them.

Fol­low­ing are ten sets of under­ly­ing (and often) unasked ques­tions that pros weave in respons­es for when answer­ing the “why should we hire you” ques­tion or some oth­er ver­sion of it.

The pros know that the regard­less of the ques­tion actu­al­ly asked, hir­ing deci­sion mak­ers are secret­ly think­ing one of more of these ques­tions:

1. What makes you dif­fer­ent? And how does this dif­fer­ence ben­e­fit us?
2. What’s in it for us if we hire you (the organization/division/team)?
3. What’s in it for me if I hire you (the direct super­vi­sor to the role)? Will you make me look good?
4. Can we trust you to care about us; can we trust you to have our backs? Can I trust you to care about me; can I trust you to have my back?
5. Will we be bet­ter off if we hire you? How? Will I be bet­ter off if I hire you? How?
6. What chal­lenges will you lead us through? What solu­tions do you offer? What inno­va­tions will you help us imple­ment?
7. What bur­dens will you light­en for me? And will you offer to car­ry some of my load with­out com­plain­ing about car­ry­ing your own?
8. Where will you cre­ate, add and demon­strate the most val­ue?
9. What prob­lems are you going to help us solve? What process­es will you help us stream­line?
10. What strate­gic pri­or­i­ties will you ele­vate? Why and how?

By apply­ing this approach and frame­work, you’ll be ready. Regard­less of the inter­view ques­tions you’re asked, you can respond using the think­ing and fram­ing that you’ve already shaped from the ten sets of ques­tions above. Just remem­ber that no mat­ter the ques­tion asked, your goal is to respond with answers that pro­vide the lis­ten­er the WIIFM and/or WIIFO.

Remem­ber this. Inter­nal­ize this, and you won’t ever come off rehearsed or script­ed in your inter­views. And you won’t be blind­sided by not hav­ing a response to a ques­tion that you did­n’t mem­o­rize.

Most Interview Questions Contain Hidden Questions

There is a whole bunch being asked with this sin­gle inter­view ques­tion of “why should we hire you.” And inter­view­ers are look­ing at a whole bunch of dif­fer­ent angles with your answer(s).

But that’s not the only ques­tion where this hap­pens. Most all job inter­view ques­tions con­tain hid­den ques­tions. Don’t be lulled into assum­ing that the ques­tions you’re being asked are as sin­gu­lar­ly focused as the actu­al words might sug­gest. You don’t want to be so laser focused on any par­tic­u­lar ques­tion that you offer up a lim­it­ed response that fails to address the question(s) beneath the ques­tion.

Whether in job inter­views or any­where else, con­tem­plate what’s actu­al­ly being asked. Instead of prac­tic­ing respons­es to spe­cif­ic ques­tions that you can nev­er real­ly know will be asked, con­sid­er

• what is the ‘why’ of it all? What is the point of the ques­tion? and
• how you can answer in a way that helps the inter­view­ers per­ceive your response(s) as adding val­ue, ele­vat­ing the con­ver­sa­tion and demon­strat­ing deep under­stand­ing for what they care about.

For all inter­view ques­tions you will ever face, ensure that your respons­es reflect your under­stand­ing of and appre­ci­a­tion for what’s actu­al­ly hap­pen­ing with­in the orga­ni­za­tion.

Don’t Ever Leave Interviewers Wondering—Why Should We Hire You?

You have them right there. They are right where you need them to be to have the con­ver­sa­tion you’ve want­ed to have. When you have the per­son or peo­ple who will make or final­ize the hir­ing deci­sion direct­ly in front of you, you dog­gone well bet­ter make sure they aren’t left won­der­ing why they should hire you.

Why should we hire you? When you’re giv­ing the inter­view­ers the WIIFM, you’re doing this right. By fram­ing your respons­es to the inter­view ques­tions on “them,” you expand the dia­logue around their needs, their goals, their pain points, their pri­or­i­ties, their influ­ence, their bur­dens, their secu­ri­ty, their chal­lenges and their strug­gles. This will help you win out much more often than you’ll ever lose.

Related articles:

The Most Impor­tant Ques­tion Suc­cess­ful Peo­ple Ask In A New Job

3 Things Strate­gic Thinkers Do To Get Hired In Senior Man­age­ment Posi­tions

How To Gain Con­fi­dence And Get Inter­view­ers To Offer You The Job