I once was asked what verb best described me. Not a noun, a verb. I thought futilely for a few seconds, then said “to be”. Stupid question, didn’t get hired.
It looks like a lot of posters are giving interviewers the benefit of the doubt that they actually have a rationale for the questions they ask. In my experience, about 80% of the people who conduct interviews don’t know what the hell they’re doing, and pull interview questions off the Internet. Heck, most of them don’t even want to interview, but got stuck with the job.
Did they also ask what kind of tree you’d like to be?
Depends. Larger companies and government entities have formatted question forms that an interviewer is required to follow. Makes for an even playing field for the job-seekers. I could add or delete questions, but they had to be the same questions for all. It certainly made it easier to shoot down an accusation of bias that was leveled at me on one occasion.
FWIW, I think a good answer in most situations would be, “to help.”
I think it would be awesome if you answered,
I ran across the why do you want to work here question once on a shoe store application. I couldn’t figure out a nice way to say “I desperately need the money”, so I finally put down, “Al Bundy is my idol.”
They never called…
“Doing, because I feel we’re best defined by our actions. We are what we do.”
See how easy it is when you start the BS flowing?
“Doing” is not a verb. “Do” is a verb. I take things fairly literally, and the only words that would come into my brain were descriptive, such as industrious, honest, innovative, productive, etc. A verb? WTF? It just seemed like it was somebody who didn’t know the difference between a verb and an adjective.
Ah, so you DID mean “adjective” rather than “noun” in the following:
Controlling my pedantic streak wasn’t easy…
Doing is generally a verb. It’s the present continuous tense of do - ie “everyone is doing it”. However, like most verbs, it can also be used as a gerund noun - ie “it’s none of my doing”.
Personally I don’t think asking an interviewee to describe themselves as an adjective, noun, or verb is challenging enough. I’d make them describe themselves as a preposition.
“I see myself as because.”
Next time someone asks me the question in the OP, maybe I’ll turn it back at them:
“Why do I want to work here? Why *wouldn’t *I want to work here? Wait… is there some reason I souldn’t work here? Seriously. Because you should really tell me.”
I’ve worked for several decades in a variety of professional disciplines. My experience has been that entry-level employees–even the best of such–are almost universally satisfied with landing a first job in their field of choice, and virtually never target a specific company.
When experienced employees–even the best of such–change jobs, it’s almost invariably for more money and/or opportunity for advancement (the two are inseparable), and not because of any abstract preference for a specific employer.
Ergo, any employer who asks this question and wants or expects an answer other than the above is specifically targeting dishonest BS’ers.
“I am a businessman”. Seems like a descriptive noun to me. What do they think people are going to say in response, anyway: rapist! Public fornicator! Devil worshipper! If it’s meant to make you think on your feet, it’s a really stupid exercise.
The last time I looked for a job (teaching science), I applied only to those districts where I wanted to live. So 4/5ths of California was excluded. The winnowing process narrowed down to 12 districts. I then look up specific info about each area, and wrote a letter inquiring about job opportunities in the district…included were remarks about why I wanted to live and work there. (This was actually genuine on my part)
This approach worked well; I was offered three jobs in three districts, and during interviews was told that my approach made me stand out from other applicants. This was in the early 70’s when teaching jobs were very hard to find. So I think that sincerity helped a lot in my application process. Of course I was willing to move to work in the areas I had chosen, so this worked well for me.
Most folks don’t have the advantage of mobility, but I was young and looking for a good area to raise my very young sons.
When you answer this question you need to describe how your past experience, skills and expertise made you think that you could be an effective and efficient member of the company’s team.
Always use your answer to show that you know about the company, its products and requirements and you are ready to do what it takes to promote that goal.
You can always say that the company has always been your dream company but did not apply till you thought that you have achieved a certain amount of skill set and experience so you could contribute to the growth and future of the company. You could say that till that time, though you searched for opportunity, you never got a job that would exactly fit to your skills set as well as the present job and so on.
However, keep in mind that whatever you say should focus on your fit with the company and not vice-versa.
Well sir, I believe I would be a good fit, because I can provide you with the precious and tasty brains that you seek.
I’ve seen a woeful number of applicants who haven’t done even the most basic research on a company. They didn’t know what the company made, didn’t know the particular product they were so happy was discontinued when they were two years old after a very public recall, tried to bullshit about the company’s spectacular growth when in reality it came out of bankruptcy last year and was struggling to rebuild itself.
I’m not talking about interviewing 50 employees to get a feel for corporate culture, I’m talking about just knowing who the company is and what it does.