I’m in the middle of job interviews right now. I hate this question so much.
I want to work here because I need money! WTF are you talking about??? Are you a real human??
The only panel that’s wrong is the answer to “why this company in particular”
It should be “your company gives more currency in exchange for service than your competitor”
At least in the US, you don’t typically know whether that’s true or not until after the interview when (if) you get an offer letter.
Haha then how do you know which companies it’s even worth your time applying for?
That’s the thing. You don’t.
Of course you need money, the interviewer knows that and isn’t asking about it.
They are asking why would you choose to work for this company over another. Imagine you got 3 job offers, and all are offering the same salary. You’d have to choose one offer to accept, and the interviewer wants to know why his company is the one you’d choose, because they’d prefer someone who is interested. What caught your eye about this job posting?
Source: Am the interviewer. Of course I wouldn’t word it like in the meme.
Imagine you got 3 job offers
I’m gonna stop you right there
Haha I know, but it illustrates the concept.
Skill issue
Imagine you got 3 job offers … the interviewer wants to know why his company is the one you’d choose
Because you expressed interest in hiring me? And I need a job? So I’m here? I’d also be perfectly content picking the other 2 companies if it’s the same salary.
What caught your eye about this job posting?
The fact that you guys said you were hiring?
they’d prefer someone who is interested
I guess this is the real problem. I don’t care about your company. I’m here to exchange my time for money. I have my own interests and they don’t involve working at your company.
But, yes fine. I understand this is the game I have to play. I will lie to you and tell you that it’s been my dream since I was a little kid to work at your dumb company, selling shit that no one needs or tricking people into giving you money.
One company that asked me this made… let’s say IoT flower pots (something mundane like that)… I guess I’m supposed to say: OMG! I. LOVE. CONNECTED. FLOWER. POTS! How did humanity survive without internet connected flower pots??! My sole purpose in life is to help make IoT flower pots. Please allow me to join you guys! 🙇♀️🙇♀️🙇♀️
Is it not possible to have something like this?
- Job: We need someone who can build IoT flower pots.
- Me: Yep, give me enough money and I’ll do it.
- Job: OK.
That’s a perfectly fine position to have, but surely you are not surprised that given a candidate that shows some interest, and a candidate that doesn’t care, the company would prefer the former. You don’t need to be interested, that’s ok, but if someone else is, then they will probably be easier to work with.
IoT flower pots? I could say “I noticed you use MQTT for networking the pots, I used it before for a hobby project of a multiplayer Scrabble game, it’s pretty cool tech. And I saw in the posting you want to move from Atmega32 to an ARM chip? What are your plans for the compiler toolchain?”
At no point did I mention I like flower pots or that I think they are a good idea. And yet I’ve shown I have previous experience, a desire to learn new skills, and turned the conversation around by asking a question. And I didn’t lie or “play a game”.
And if there is literally nothing interesting about the company, that’s fine, but then the company is probably not interested in you either. And there is nothing wrong with that.
surely you are not surprised that given a candidate that shows some interest, and a candidate that doesn’t care, the company would prefer the former.
Definitely. That’s why I lie.
if someone else is, then they will probably be easier to work with.
I actually really challenge this point. Specifically because I don’t care, I would say I’m very easy to work with. Example: Did the manager just order us to do something really stupid? Sounds good to me! I’m on it, boss! On the other hand, I’ve worked with tons of people who care way too much. Sometimes it seems like they think it’s their company. Those people are hard to work with.
The order doesn’t even have to be stupid, it can just be something the passionate employee disagrees with. At a previous company, we were told to make some app work because we had an important demo coming up. One super passionate dude on my team almost derailed us because he insisted that we fix the app the “correct” way. In theory, he was correct, however in practice he was dead wrong.
I didn’t care either way, so I just made the thing work.
I could say “I noticed you use MQTT for networking the pots…
Yeah, this is the same game I play. I avoid answering their question of “Why FlowerPot.ly?” and just give some generic answer that applies to any company, not specifically FlowerPot.ly. I would also throw in some lies like, “My brother owns an IoT flower pot. I think it’s so cool!”.
surely you are not surprised that given a candidate that shows some interest, and a candidate that doesn’t care, the company would prefer the former.
Definitely.
And there we go, we’ve answered your original question of
WTF are you talking about??? Are you a real human??
You get what he’s taking about - it’s not about the money.
There are two issues with your entire argument.
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It is supremely stupid and a waste of everyone’s time to ask a question that everyone knows the vast majority of people are going to parrot some variation of the same lie too.
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You’re operating under some weird assumption that people get multiple job offers within a timeframe that can be considered competitive.
You are assuming the majority of people lie in interviews. That is a strategy, and one my parents actually recommended, but I dont think its the most effective.
- But they aren’t “parroting the same lie”. Asking why are you interested in this job is the most basic way to learn more about the candidate. “I just want any job and applied to all postings I saw” is never going to be true for anyone, because no you didn’t, the same person doesn’t apply to be a civil engineer for roadside construction, restaurant chef, and computer animator.
You have filtered the job postings in some way, presumably by your skill set, and so you have some criteria or reason you applied to this company and not another. And that reason is not a lie for most people. They applied to be a restaurant chef because they know how to cook and that’s what they say, referring to their past experience.
- No, why do you think so? This has nothing to do with having multiple offers.
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Corporations are not people. There are people working there, but they all represent something that is inhumane.
To be fair: A lot of people don’t hate their jobs. Of course, if someone asked me the question in the panel, I’d think they were over-doing it, but it’s a completely fair question to ask someone why they think this job could be something they enjoy.
Specifically, employees that enjoy their work are less likely to leave the company at the first opportunity. Hiring people costs money, so it makes sense to choose a candidate that is at least to some degree passionate about what they’ll be doing.
“So why did you choose did company and not the others?”
“Well, I applied their too and have an interview there tomorrow.”
That often works, when worded more positively. You will get an expedited hiring process, because the company doesn’t want to lose out to another company hiring you first.
Follows the “have a pic of you and a hot ex” rule when hitting up the dating scene. Anything you can do to make someone think “oh they must have something cool about them if the smoke show was hooking up with them.” FOMO
Their security is too tight.
They want “passionate” workers because they’re easier to exploit.
Nobody’s “passionate” about mmWave infrastructure, Brian. Nobody’s gonna take a pay cut for that.
Mid-range communications is very cool, and several people are passionate about mm-wave infrastructure.
But they are usually not passionate about random companies either.
“I just really really love propane and propane accessories.”
There was this guy on COD warzone who was a certified propane inspector and was a blast to play with, people would spend the whole game learning about how everything propane related was or not up to code
So yeah, there are people who love their job, enough for that to seep into videogames
There’s a simple solution to everyone loving their job:
Work should be optional.
You don’t see retirees volunteering for tasks they hate. Inb4 scrubbing toilets; I’d prefer to design toilet-scrubbing machines instead of toys for rich people.
