Job seekers may not realize it, but this question is one of the best opportunities to “sell” the interviewer on why you are a great candidate for the job. While I admit that this sometimes reflects the fact that the interviewer has not prepared for the interview, and he or she may not even really know how to assess whether you are a strong fit for the position, this is no reason to miss this opportunity.
IF YOU HAVE NOT DONE THE JOB YOU ARE INTERVIEWING FOR BEFORE…
The best way to answer this question is to show a logical career progression from where you started your career (or where you were 10 years ago if you have more than 10 years experience) to what you are doing today, and how what you are doing today logically leads to the job you are interviewing for. To do this you must first begin with a thorough understanding of the job description, and ideally an understanding of the business problems the hiring manager is trying to solve (answers to this question can come from annual reports, insiders, industry and company reports like Datamonitor, former employees, or an educated third party recruiter). With this information you can identify the five to eight key competencies necessary to do the job and the results the position is responsible for achieving. Then you can answer this question beginning with the position you held eight to 10 years ago, describe the title of the position and who you worked for, and mention one related accomplishment for every one to two years of employment (if you start eight years before now you should cover four to eight accomplishments and if you start 10 years ago you should cover five to ten accomplishments in your answer). Answering this way will give the interviewer plenty of material from which to ask you additional questions, and it will give you several stories you can expand on and prove just how qualified you are for the position. If your interview is scheduled for 30 minutes you should take no more than three minutes to answer this question, so practice your answer before the interview. If your interview is scheduled for 60 minutes you can probably use five minutes to answer this question. I point the time for the answer out only because you want to give interviewer as much time as possible to probe the areas that are most important to him or her to ensure they get all the information they seek. Leaving the interviewer without all the data they are looking to collect leaves you at a strategic disadvantage when compared with other candidates.
For example, if you were interviewing for a Global Head of Sales position you might start by stating how you were a salesperson who met or exceeded quota every year, then describe how you coached a team of sales reps to meet or exceed quota as a sales manager, and then describe how you led a national or continental salesforce to meet or exceed sales goals, and point out how your next logical career step is “this job”. This type of answer addresses the question of are you qualified at the same time that it addresses your motivation (a two for one!).
IF YOU HAVE DONE THE JOB YOU ARE INTERVIEWING FOR BEFORE…
You want to begin your answer the same way as described above, but this one has a unique twist. If you have already done the job a major question in the mind of the interviewer will likely be why do you want to do the same job again. The reason this question comes up in this situation is that most people assume that once you have done a particular job well you want to advance to something else. If you don’t address why you want to do the same job again you leave the interviewer questioning your motivation, which only leads to negative conclusions. In some instances the best answer, if it is the truth, is that you understand the “next step” and don’t want it. This often times come into play when you are the number two in a division or function and taking the number one job would cause you to relocate or make some other type of change in your personal life that you don’t want to. In other instances the best answer will involve highlighting a non-core area of responsibility in the job you are interviewing for that does not exist in your current job and convincing that interviewer that this particular experience is what you really want. I say non-core because if the experience is a core area of responsibility than the position probably involves a career change for you and that type of interview requires a different approach.
