One of the most important and hardest presentations you will ever make is the one you give about yourself to an interviewer. There is a weak way and a winning way to answer the question, “Why should we hire you?” Do you know the difference?
It’s Not Your Resume
Your resume is just the price of admission to the interview. Resumes describes activities and results, which say you have the right to be sitting in the interviewee seat. For example, you sold technical services and increased revenues by 35% in a down market. Or, you developed social media campaigns that increased viewership by 50%. Or, you managed $1 billion in assets with consistent top quartile performance.
Very impressive and necessary to show and explain—but not sufficient to be hired.
All competitors for the job will likely have similar activities and results. So, where is your edge?
It’s What’s Behind Your Resume
Your true value to an employer is what made you succeed and how that will help his/her 
company going forward. Think through what made you succeed and therein will be your true value.
For example,
- Your ability to get along with all types of people
- Your ability to manage change
- Your creative thinking to solve seemingly insoluble problems
- Your ability to pull together a team to achieve exceptional performance
- Your ability to anticipate market needs because of your understanding of how (the industry, technology, psychology) works
- Your ability to get things done quickly because of your experience on both sides of an industry
- Your ability to win consensus on key issues because you work well with competing factions
- Your business (creativity) background that is an advantage in dealing with business (creative) people
- Your ability to lead where others are unwilling
- Your persistence in the face of overwhelming odds
- Other?
Wow Them with Value to Their Company
Look at their website. Read about them in the media. Find out as much as possible about how they see themselves, how they are doing, where they are going, where they are growing, how they talk about themselves, who their leaders are, who their competition is, etc.
Then, use what you have discovered in your research to build value for yourself in the answers to their questions. For example,
- Interviewer for an accounting firm: “Why should we hire you?”
- You: “I know you are concerned about the ever changing regulatory environment. In my 15 years of dealing with the X agency, I have come to know them personally and how they think, so that you can be sure you will always be in compliance with the law.”
- Interviewer for technology firm: “Why should we hire you?”
- You: “As you know, technology is rapidly changing. As someone who has worked on both the buy and sell side of the tech business, I am particularly strong at spotting potential glitches before they become major problems and that will save you and clients a lot of time and money.”
Try This Exercise
Make a chart of 3 columns for yourself to help you think through your best value answers to interviewer’s questions.
- Column 1: Your Assets. These are the intangible, but key, factors (samples above) that made/make you successful
- Column 2: Specific supporting example for each
- Column 3: Why this asset is of value to the interviewer and his/her firm
Remember, it’s not about what you did. It’s about what you bring to their party.
Anne Miller
Words Matter – Make What You Say Pay!
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