
Ask HN: What's your 'Why should i hire you?' response? - ravirajx7
It&#x27;s often asked during placement or  job offering sessions at college.What are the responses that recruiter are looking for? ( For recruiters what&#x27;s the best response you got? )
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coffeemug
Remember, you don't have to answer the question as posed. An interview is a
ritual. The information being exchanged overtly is a small tip of the iceberg;
most of the exchange is covert. You can choose to follow the ritual as
prescribed by the interviewee/cultural context, or you can occasionally choose
to invent your own steps to create the right kind of tension.

This specific question implies that there is a power imbalance between you and
the recruiter. Implying such a thing is slightly rude (even if the power
imbalance is there, the social convention is to ignore it). So, how do you
want to handle someone being slightly rude?

You could play the game on their terms, and just list your
skills/characteristics. Of course the recruiter already knows them, so the
signal you're sending is obedience in the face of slight rudeness.

You could be a little more forceful and (politely) say something like this:
"before we talk about that I'd like to better understand which problems you
need me to see if there is a fit between my skills and the needs of your
organization."

You could be even more forceful and respond to slight etiquette transgression
with a follow up transgression. For example, "I don't quite think this is the
right framing, I'd like to first understand why I should work for you."

It's just a game, a dance. Don't think about it literally and play with the
steps.

------
paulgrimes1
“If you don’t know that already, let’s end this chat now” is my go-to.

Companies and recruiters should know the qualities and capabilities of the
person on the other side of the table, gleaned from background material. If
they don’t, everyone’s time is being wasted, and somewhere, a puppy gets a
slap

~~~
busterarm
I like this response and agree with you.

Another option is "Because the rest of your candidate pool won't generate the
value that I will and it's a business risk to allow a competitor to hire me."

I wouldn't use this answer fresh out of college though. Instead I might go
with "Because I'm more capable than my graduating peers for X, Y & Z. I'll
give you better bang-for-buck over time than other new grads and mid-level
candidates in your pipeline and you don't have to pay anyone a recruiter fee."

Go for the throat. Also nobody gets this level of confidence/honesty/awareness
in response to these questions, so at the very least you will stick out.

Make sure it's a check you can cash though.

~~~
muzani
Sometimes these questions are simply conversational. Conversational questions
are not to judge ability but to gauge personality.

Be careful when "going for the throat" as you could come across the wrong way.
We almost turned down one engineer because he seemed insecure and hot
tempered, but the reality was that he was just anxious about the interview and
having his credentials questioned. He turned out to be a mature, nice guy.

~~~
busterarm
My "work personality" is to do things that will earn the business money and
not things that cost the business money.

Usually peoples negative qualities cost the business money.

------
gord1anknot
I actually got asked this once, right out of college, by a consulting-focused
subsidiary of a certain publicly traded company that dealt with open source
operating systems that shall go unnamed. IIRC I said something about being
smart and well motivated, and being excited about the projects they were
talking about... I didn't get an offer.

Ultimately this is a "Rorschach test" question. Because it's completely and
entirely open ended, it isn't measuring anything other than the interviewee's
ability to say what the interviewer wants to hear. An interviewer that asks
this question is probably not that good of an interviewer, because, with very
few exceptions, being very good at fast talking isn't a skill needed to do the
job.

If you're asked this and willing to forgive the company for giving you an
interviewer that would ask this, the other answers have good suggestions.

------
makmanalp
It's a silly question designed to throw people off balance. I dislike it. But
if you look at it the other way, it's an easy opportunity for you to nicely
package your value proposition (ideally in comparison to your competitors) in
a few sentences e.g. "I'm a rare candidate that has experience in X but ALSO
Y" or "I'm a new grad but I have X internships under my belt" or "I'm
switching careers so I'm a junior engineer now, but I've functioned as a
responsible adult in some other job before, which your other candidates
haven't" etc etc.

It's also something that they'll end up using if they have to justify your
hiring to other people, so there's value in making it good.

~~~
burntrelish1273
It's important to see how people will react under pressure, especially in
consulting / client-facing gigs. You don't want to hire people whom are thin-
skinned, dramatic, insecure or otherwise volatile. Think of these sort of
gambits like shittests for candidates.

------
ken
I'm hearing two common yet contradictory themes here. One is that it requires
the interviewee to think of an answer on the spot. The other is that the
interviewer should already know the answer, from reading your background
material.

But there's always more material that I can learn ahead of time about your
company than you can learn about me as an individual. If the interviewer
should know the answer already, then the interviewee should know an answer,
too.

I will admit that it's probably not a good question for medium/large
companies, where there's a specific role to fill, but for small companies I
kind of like it. There's 10 different things we need to hire for, and you've
got 100 different skills, so which ones do you have that align with our needs,
and which ones do you want to apply here? You can't fit everything on a
resume.

I confess I've asked this once myself, at the very start of an interview. I
was exhausted from interviewing 10 other candidates, and this guy's resume
wasn't very impressive, and I just wanted the guy to say something that would
make me feel it wasn't going to be a waste of time. (Unfortunately, he was
very junior, like "just learned to code last month", and his answer only
reinforced that. I'd have loved to have hired him, but we really weren't in a
position to hire junior developers yet.) It wasn't my best interview question,
but it definitely wasn't my worst, either.

The trouble with simply shooting this down as a bad interview question is that
nobody has ever been able to tell me what a universally _good_ interview
question is. This one is open-ended and gets them talking, at least.

~~~
gord1anknot
I agree that the interviewee should know _a_ answer. I don't like the
spite/table flip answers suggested elsewhere for sure - I expect a prospective
employee to be cooperative and marginally helpful no matter what. However,
speaking as somebody that has been asked this question, and someone who has
considered asking it, a part of what a good answer to it means involves
knowing about what the other applicants are like - compare and contrast is the
real substantive bit of the answer here. It might be possible to avoid that
implication by phrasing the question differently, but I can't think of a way
off the top of my head. The backgrounds and capabilities of the other
candidates applying isn't likely to be something a prospective employee has
the ability to find out about. Just having some basic research done about all
the problems the prospective employee might be asked to solve on the job is a
reasonable ask of a candidate. As a candidate I demonstrate that by reading as
much about the company online as I can an incorporating that into other
answers. As long as the interviewer understands the limitation around knowing
what the competition pool is like and interprets the answer to this question
in that context I'm sympathetic.

~~~
ken
Again, it depends on the company's size and hiring stage, but I've never been
at a company where we've wanted to hire exactly one applicant from a pool.
Whenever I've done interviews, we've been perfectly willing to hire zero (if
none meet our standards), or 3 (if we find that many who are great).

So I've never cared about how one candidate compares to another. It's not a
zero-sum game. If you're going to have a positive impact on the company (and
its bottom line), then I want 3 of you. If you're going to have a negative
impact, then I want 0 of you.

Obviously, there are also many situation where the opposite is true, e.g., if
you're building a baseball team you want the best roster even if some of the
positions aren't ideal.

------
seorphates
Well,

A) A recruiter is not going to be hiring you (but tread carefully because
they're a foot that can be used in many doors)

B) You primary object is to formulate the answer to that question from what
you can harvest throughout the interview

C) A positive, direct and clear answer should do nicely, almost always.

D) No puppies will be harmed unless you swing and miss and end up kicking your
own puppy when you go home because you blew the question.

So, B. I can do many things in many ways. You should end up knowing exactly
why they should hire you before they even ask.

Oh, and

E) Learn to recognize the ones you don't want to be hired for and quickly.
Interviews can be stressful. You don't want to waste good energy on something
you want to get away from as far and as quickly as possible. I've had exactly
two of these.

------
marssaxman
It's hard to imagine how a recruiter could ask me that question without
failing the interview. They should already know the answer before inviting me
in, so are they wasting my time, or just fucking with me? Either way, I
probably don't want to work there.

~~~
taberiand
The question, to me, means "why should we hire you over this other equally
qualified candidate?".

In that context, even if they know everything about you - that you've made
public to them - there still might be some unique unknown standout reason why
they should choose you over the other person.

Having an attitude about that would be an immediate disqualifier.

~~~
marssaxman
If that's the question they want me to answer, then that's the question they
should ask. "Why should I hire you" is a power play, reframing the interview
as a test I should be trying to pass in order to meet their approval, instead
of a mutual exploration of potential compatibility. I sure hope my attitude
about that kind of power imbalance disqualifies me, because egalitarianism is
one of my fundamental values, and I don't want to work with people who would
see it as a problem.

------
heavenlyblue
As it is usually the last question to be asked: take into account all of the
cultural qualities they mention during the interview, then appeal to them: "I
had always found I wanted to work in an open space because I believe that an
atmosphere where people are forced to collaborate is exciting".

Then wait for their offer and use it to get hired by another company.

~~~
wvlia5
How can an offer be useful for getting hired by another company? I don't get
it

~~~
gord1anknot
In some job markets (afaik Silicon Valley, and most high-prestige medical or
legal positions) you can get multiple offers within a few days of each other,
and this matters for driving up compensation, particularly the signing bonus
when present.

edit for clarification: This works by keeping all interested
companies/firms/hospitals in the loop on where you are in the interview
process with the other prospective employers. If they don't ask, you, the
prospective employee, volunteer this information. Prospective employers adjust
their interview schedules accordingly. Sometimes, volunteering information
that you're in demand and about to leave the job market because you have an
offer in hand is enough information to get an offer when another prospective
employer would otherwise would just keep looking, hoping somebody better might
become available in the next couple weeks.

------
pasbesoin
Speaking generally with respect to interviews:

You should know something about the company. Tell them how you can help solve
their problems.

If the question comes at the start of the interview, and you don't yet know
enough about what the specific department is facing, respond, 'Why don't we
discuss some of the problems you're facing, and I'll tell you how I can help
with them.'

History's fine for backing up your claims. But people usually want to know
what you can do for them.

P.S. Don't just paint yourself as a patsy problem mule (i.e. no boundaries and
self-respect). Indicate also what you expect to get out of the deal and how
you anticipate growing in the role).

Also, I guess job fairs are probably more of a "meat market". Nonetheless, if
the person's really interested in recruiting, they should be interested in
describing what they are trying to accomplish.

------
rmbryan
"This is the kind of work I'm passionate about. It's what I want to be doing."
(It helps if that's authentic)

~~~
paulcole
This is one of the few good, non-snarky responses here. I'd expand on it a
little bit and make sure to say something specific about the work or the
company and how your experience fits into that.

------
ethiclub
At a glance, the product I provide as a contractor / consultant is
'professional services automation'for MSPs and other industries (e.g Kaseya-
Connectwise-ITGlue-Brightguage stack)

My answer is that the value I provide is far more strategic and macro level
than just systems implementation.

I don't implement systems, I design processes, procedures and work
instructions and map the entire org - Creating a living, breathing business
manual. I automate and streamline the processes, provide reporting for
transparency, continuous improvement and risk mitigation. I provide 'train the
trainer' knowledge transfer (integrated with the system itself).

You purchase extensive strategic knowledge regarding the industry and company,
which manifests as a future-proofed system that encourages as well as
facilitates growth.

For every 10k you spend on my services, ROI will be > an order of magnitude.

My work brings firms up to ISO9001 standards, provides a quality management
system, and implements as, customer satisfaction, team engagement, client
retention and a host of procedures that SMEs haven't been able to think about
or implement effectively.

Point being that (unlike many in this thread) I _want_ to be asked this
question from a prospective client, to show exactly what I can bring to the
table. It allows me to show the true opportunity cost of not hiring me (I.e.,
stagnation and hundreds of thousands of dollars in following years).

------
Silhouette
The _best_ response I've got is probably "Well, hiring me will be expensive,
but not as expensive as hiring the wrong applicant instead". However, for
obvious reasons I wouldn't recommend actually using that one under most
circumstances!

Being serious, anyone asking something like this is probably just expecting
you to kiss ass without being too obvious about it. If you really could make
an exceptional contribution, perhaps because it's a field you genuinely want
to work in after doing some related research or project during your course, by
all means mention that. Otherwise the best thing you can do with a question
like this is be polite and constructive. It might help to pick up on specific
things you could offer that have been touched on earlier in the interview or
at least mentioned in the job spec. If it's still early in the interview and
you haven't got to that sort of discussion yet, try to turn the conversation
around and discuss what they're looking for and then how you could help.

~~~
sgdread
You don't have to kiss ass. Instead, you can deflect and let interviewer
answer the question. Something like this "I saw that X corp has an open
position. This is an opportunity for me because ... , so I reached you. I
assume, you are looking for is a qualified candidate who can do the job
described. I saw the requirements and, I believe, I am qualified candidate. If
you are not convinced yet, how can I change your mind?"...

------
kat
I have a unique background, I have experience with A and with B which means I
can navigate ambiguous/conflicting situations etc

Usually A and B are opposing skills, like "I can code" and "I enjoy talking to
people" or "I know backend programming" and "I have experience doing HTML
design work"

------
badrequest
The ad said you needed a developer, and I am one.

------
jomkr
I would never ask a candidate this, and I'd never dignify it with a response.

~~~
speedplane
Why not? You're partnering up with someone you barely know, don't think it's
unfair to allow them to state their case.

------
iuguy
In that situation I'd say, "You probably shouldn't and perhaps we shouldn't
waste each other's time by continuing this conversation".

Then again I'm not fresh out of college.

------
redsable
I think that the best way to answer this is with a story. Explain that you
(the recruiter) already know a lot about me by way of my (applicant's)
application but this (story) is what you don't know about me and that it may
be important. Make the story memorable and truthful. Make it something that
couldn't have fit into the interview otherwise and end by saying that now you
know a little bit more about my character and I hope it helps you remember me.

------
cryptozeus
On phone interview, I once said "I do what I do and I do it the best".

Didn't get a reply.

------
TwoNineFive
"Why should we hire you?" is up there with Donald Trump style handshakes,
group interviews, and other petty, controlling, derogatory, disrespectful,
arrogant, insulting, pretentious, and abusively bureaucratic hiring techniques
that are regrettably common.

The abusiveness in the question lies in it's asymmetry. It's like playing a
catch/throw ball game with somebody and they intentionally throw the ball far
enough to the side to where they know you can't catch it, but they want to see
you try. The best move, of course, is to not subject yourself to the
indignity, not to try, and to make them go pick up the ball. You should
probably also stop playing ball with that morally deranged person.

The only reason, short of ignorance, I can imagine a hiring manager being
motivated to ask a question like this is to find out if they can abuse you and
get away with it. The willingness to be subjected to abuse is sometimes
something that managers want in their employees.

------
alexryan
Walk away. If they use that specific phrase, they are playing dominance games
with you. If you choose to sacrifice your self respect and enter into a
relationship with an immature petty tyrant like that, you’re in for a world of
pain.

------
dboreham
Honestly I find this question weird and creepy. I think that must be because
it breaches some psychological boundary. I've never asked it as an interviewer
and never been asked it as a candidate. Perhaps someone has been watching too
much "The Apprentice"?

That said I'm not sure what I'd recommend. Tempted to say I'd terminate the
interview but that also feels weird and creepy. Perhaps just chuckle playfully
and hope they don't press for an answer?

------
jupiter90000
It may be an opportunity for the interviewer to see your sales skills and
ability to advocate for yourself. As much as that may make some people
uncomfortable to do, I'd say those can be valuable skills to demonstrate. My
response would depend on specifics to the scenario. My suggestion would be
learn about convincing ways to sell and to advocate for yourself. Not being
able to do those things will be a significant detriment, and not just in
finding a job.

------
ChuckMcM
I once answered that question with "Well if I could give you an objective
answer for that then it would suggest I know your business better than you do.
But as I don't know you business that well I don't feel qualified to answer."
I agree with most that it is not a good question.

That said, being able to consider a question that is irrelevant or poorly
specified can demonstrate a certain amount of 'quickness' or ability to think
on your feet.

------
AnimalMuppet
"Because I can help you make money". Anything else is irrelevant.

However, you next are going to have to be able to supply some detail on how
you can help them make money...

~~~
twblalock
In most industries that would come across as crass.

~~~
kabdib
Most of the projects I've worked on have had making money as a root
motivation.

"By doing X, Y and Z you'll make more money", with evidence and a reasonable
plan, is a decent argument. I've made these pitches as a leaf node in large
companies and it's generally gone over well.

It's the answers like "I will empower your organization to..." or "We'll
leverage synergy and..." that you should avoid.

I imagine the "make money" pitch will sound bad to a research group, or a
governmental or quasi-governmental organization. But for many other places,
assuming you're not blowing smoke, it seems pretty reasonable.

------
seajosh
I simply ask "Why should I work for you?"

------
jarsin
You don't want me as an enemy!

~~~
m1n1
You sound vindictive. I'd pass. The team doesn't need the drama, and the team
can compete.

------
dedalus
I would turn it around and ask "why should you NOT hire me?"

------
mattsfrey
People have actually encountered this question in interviews?

~~~
TwoNineFive
I have actually had this asked of me. It was at a finance info-tech security
company in the USA. The guy who was interviewing me was a total as __*le and I
regret not just walking out on him. He also asked me several questions which
were probing of my marital status and family history /racial background.

I might have been asked this other times but that's the one I remember.

------
sparkzilla
Actually, the best question for a recruiter to ask is "Why wouldn't we hire
you?" You'll be amazed what people say.

