Page 132 - How To Answer Interview Questions (II)

Job Interview Question 68

What circumstances bring you here today?

This is a great opening interview question, maybe better than “Tell me about yourself.” This question
gives them a lot of insight into what will make you happy and what has made you unhappy and why
you are looking for a job. The important thing to remember here is to never go negative in your
answer.

They want to hear that you are running TO something, like more responsibility, a chance to use
increased skill sets, or just something different than you were doing).

They do not want to hear that you are running FROM something, like a boss you can’t get along
with or a company that doesn’t appreciate you or whatever.

So you must explain this in terms of: “The reason why am here is, in my current role I'm doing
fantastic.I'm enjoying the work there but I don't get to use the skill sets that I developed at ABC.I don't
get to use the experiences that I had at XYZ.I want an opportunity to do LMNOP.”

Or, “I’m here because my former company went through a series of layoffs and cut 30% of the
workforce and I got caught in the cuts. I think it turned out to be a stroke of luck for me, though,
because although I was enjoyed my work there, I didn’t get to use my skill sets in XYZ, and this job
would really benefit from them.”

Always talk about what this job has that attracts you, and what you could bring to it as a
benefit to the company—and anything you can mention using numbers, dollars and percentages of
what you been able to do and how you'd like to do more of that, will help.