The One Interview Question You Must Prepare For

• “What do you know about our company?”
• “Why are you the ideal candidate for this position?”
• “What are your biggest strengths and weaknesses?”

These are all pretty standard interview questions that most job seekers expect going into an interview. When you’re preparing, you’ll obviously want to brainstorm and think about your responses to these questions beforehand.

There’s one specific interview question, however, that you’ll want to especially be aware of and prepare for. The question is: “Why do you want to work at this company?”

Of course you researched the company beforehand. But did you research enough in order to be able to intelligently answer why you want to work at the company? Maybe. Or maybe not. Well, not being able to answer this question can really negatively impact how your interviewer views you. First, it makes it appear that you have not done an adequate amount of research on the company. Because if you did, you would at least be able to throw some sort of answer together.

Second, it makes the interviewer think that you’re not very passionate and dedicated about the position. Perhaps you are extremely dedicated about the position, but the company is a less important piece for you. That’s fine. I believe you. However, for employers, it can be hard to remember that this is possible. As higher executives and owners of the company, they are extremely passionate about what they do and especially passionate about where they work. Ideally, they’d like to hire and work with someone just as passionate.

So how do you properly research a company in order to be able to answer this question? The company’s “About Us” page is a great place to start. Does the company’s values or mission statement speak to you? Next, look at the company’s social media profiles. You can sometimes get a feel for the company culture and atmosphere of the office from these profiles. Look for any pictures of company events. Then, you’ll be able to bring this up in the interview and note how appealing the company’s culture is to you. Lastly, read up on the company reviews you can find online. A great place to do so is Glassdoor. On this site, you can read about what other former employees loved (and hated!) about the company. Hopefully you’ll find some information that’ll inspire your response.

So next time you’re preparing for an interview, add “Why do you want to work at this company?” to your list of questions to prepare for. If you have any other especially important interview questions that you feel get overlooked, please comment below!